4boehms

In my experience, your best bet is to try to put some distance between yourself and the travel bug. Try to convince yourself that the person who picked it up will eventually place it, and that you'll be pleasantly surprised and pleased when that happens. When I first began releasing travel bugs a couple of months ago, I checked the site multiple times a day to see if they'd been moved, and once they'd been picked up, I obsessively watched the site to see if they'd been placed in a new cache. I wondered why the people who moved them didn't place them immediately, were they lost, etc.. And none of that activity on my part had any impact whatsoever on what was going on out in the world with my TBs and the people moving them around for me. I also reminded myself that I'd spent a grand total of 7 bucks on each travel bug, so I wasn't really all that heavily invested economically should they go missing. In the end, I managed to achieve some perspective and stop worrying about the them. Now, having said all that, I still love the travel bugs we've released, and I do check the site to see how they're getting along. But when our first one went missing from a muggled cache earlier this week, it wasn't the devastating event it definitely would have been before I'd gone through this exercise. Just one perspective -

Sounds like awesome swag to me, csuman. I've seen lots of posts in similar threads where people express an interest in hand-made signature items like what you're describing.

Your v3 is the best so far, in my opinion. The redesign of the back ties the whole thing together, and I love that you've put in the info for the alphabet. Nicely done.

West of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I'd recommend this one: Moose View Cache - GCVP6T It's in a small natural area in the foothills with beautiful views west toward the Rockies.

When I cache with my kids, they're ready to quit after the second one and get downright surly if I take them to a third. On my own, my "best" day was a dozen found with one DNF. I really enjoyed the day, as it was snowing a blizzard in June, and there was something kind of bizarre about being outdoors on a day like that. I covered probably 100 miles of ground, all things considered. It was fun. But by the end of the day I felt like I was able to predict where the containers would be just from looking at the general area, and all the cache contents were looking alike. I decided that day that geocaching was not a numbers game for me.

Count me among the people who dip a personal coin as a sequential mileage tracker. I don't mind when people do that in the caches I've hidden, and I got the idea from one of the folks in my area. Interesting info on being able to delete the note without losing the mileage. I may spend a few rainy afternoons doing that as a way to clean up the cache logs for other folks, just in case they do object to this activity.

I read the hint beforehand when I'm taking my daughters out with me. They enjoy geocaching, but they're not in it for the hunt. They're in it for the loot. So, I do all the prep I can prior to setting out so that we increase the likelihood of a successful hunt. Even with the hints, of course, we routinely come up empty, so the kids are getting plenty of life lessons in handling disappointment to compensate for the way I'm attempting to stack the deck!

I think the Cache Owner's willingness to provide hints will probably depend on the difficulty level that s/he assigned to the cache in the first place. For my 1.0 and 1.5 difficulty caches, I'll do everything short of meeting the seeker at the posted coords to walk them through it in order to help them make the find. If I ever place a 4 or 5, I'll be much more stingy with assistance.

Dang deer - you wish they'd get themselves a GPSr.

Agreed, Renegade Knight -- In the best hides, the cache placer will have selected a container size that somehow supports the intent of the cache. The more locically tied together the different elements of the cache are, the more I tend to enjoy them.

I'm not a huge fan of micros, but I absolutely see their value. They're the perfect cache container for urban environments, for example. Many of the geocachers in my city use micro hides to draw attention to really cool parts of the city that one might never visit. I also recognize the fun and challenge of hunting a micro out in the forest. I figure the person who's going to get out and look should check the size of the cache before he or she leaves the computer. Caveat cacher.

My favorite cache container is an ammo can, preferably the big .50 caliber monsters. Having said that, I agree with the general trend of the thread: what makes the cache stand out is the creativity of the hide, the significance of the location, the theme of the contents, etc.

I've been influenced by the forums over the last few weeks and now try to leave the sort of log that I want to read for the caches that I've placed. To that end, I mention the weather, my companions, the charms of the location (if any), and anything interesting we saw or did while looking. If we're "dipping" trackable items, I mention that in the log and may add something fictional and humorous about the item itself. I usually give a short report on the health of the log book and the cache contents. If we make trades, I'll record that. These days, you'll only get a short log from me on a placement that I didn't find all that interesting, and even then I will express my appreciation to the cache owner for the trouble s/he took to make the placement and keep the cache maintained.

My kids never want to leave anything, and they sometimes "forget" their trade goods back at the car so that they won't have to give up the loot they bought with their allowance. Finding something princess-themed, or butterfly-themed, however, will send them running back to the car. Personally I'm most interested in trading for personal or signature items. Kootenay Pirates in western Canada leaves the coolest hand-made coins. My family and I are making plans for our own batch to leave as swag.

And let's face it -- is there anything quite as cool as finding and opening an ammo can? :-D

The thing I've learned as a newbie is that my daughters are quite adept at "forgetting" to bring with them the trade goods that they've had to buy with their allowances. Then, once we're at the cache, they realize that they've forgotten their goods, so they subject me to their best We Love Daddy grins to compel me to hand over MY trade goods for them to carry away shiny objects! So -- the advice I have is this: Have your kids collect their caching gear into some carry-along item that is reserved exclusively for geocaching. When you're heading out, make sure they've got their bags, and you're good to go! (Another thread in this forum is exploring what most of us carry as standard equipment and what we use to carry it, so it may bear on this discussion as well.)

The only "bad" container I can think of is one that allows water to soak the cache contents. There are other restrictions, of course. No glass, for example.

My advice is to save early and often. Unclick the button that makes the cache active, then you can edit, view, re-edit, re-view to your heart's content. When the cache is finally ready for your reviewer, update the "placed" date, re-click that button that makes the cache active, put a friendly note in for the volunteer reviewer thanking him/her for their time, and BINGO!

For carrying - Our family uses the fanny packs (sorry UK-based cachers -- that's what we call them here!). Each family member has his or her own, and we keep them stocked with our version of the lists already posted so that we can grab up our packs and hit the door at a moment's notice with a minimal amount of looking for stuff.

Mertat, that log is brilliant. I'm at work and laughed out loud when I read it. Try to explain something like that to your co-workers!

Cache reviewers (in Canada at least) have geographical responsibilities and are very aware of the policies that govern cache placement on all types of land. The reviewer in Alberta usually processes caches within 2 days (bless his or her heart!).

Another thing to try with the Garmin units is to recalibrate your compass after you've been in the car for a while. I'm not sure why this helps with accuracy, but I suspect that the recalibration process (which entails holding the unit flat and turning a two very slow circles) simply gives the unit time to pick up on satellites.