Ageleni

Could you use a Class B vehicle instead? It's about the size of a large van, and would be much easier to navigate.

I know a family with a single account for five people (parents and three adult children), and they are logging finds in up to five different locations around the USA with the same account daily! Weird to see their logs, which jump around from Colorado, Florida, Arizona, etc., all day. Pretty easy to get a couple hundred in a single day when you are covering five times the space as a single account!

I found myself geocaching unexpectedly one day with no pen to be found in the car. I used lipstick instead! (Didn't do the entire signature, just signed the first initial and made a note of it when logging the visit.)

I have the advantage of frequently traveling for work, so I am able to pick up a few no matter where I go. Perhaps you can plan for a small vacation a little farther than you usually go for work and activities. Do touristy things, and get caches everywhere you go. I've never taken a vacation specifically for geocaching, but I certainly have gone to a work location a day or two before my scheduled event in order to have some good caching time!

One thing that I didn't see mentioned is that sometimes a cache is disabled due to having a couple of successive DNFs, and it doesn't necessarily mean that the cache is not there--only that the CO or reviewer disabled it until they could check up on it. I have found and logged several such caches. I see disabling as a friendly warning that the cache might be missing and that I might be wasting my time by going after it.

The most I ever found was a dollar. But I've found so many coins that I recently started to keep them all in one place, to see how profitable geocaching will be over time!

I am a gem dealer, so I carry a bag full of little gemstone baubles with me. Mostly small, but a few nice big ones for the larger caches. Marbles, carved animals, cabochons, crystals, rings, large beads, pendants. It's mainly slightly damaged stuff that I can't sell! And I keep a couple of copies of my book in my vehicle (I wrote a book on gemstones) to leave in the little library boxes in parks! I always try to leave something that other people probably don't have. Sometimes, if it is a big container and there's nothing good in it, I might leave two or three baubles, and I often leave something without taking anything. I like the mental image of someone finding a crystal or sphere when they open the box! I also recall years ago finding clean fast food toys, plastic jewelry, small books, and other really GOOD swag--where you'd sit at the box for a second, torn as to what to take! Nowadays if there is anything, it's just junk. It's like people know they need to trade in order to take something, but they didn't bring anything nice with them, so they grab a bottle cap or rubber band from their car, or pick up a pine cone from the ground next to them.

I disagree with this mindset. I log a DNF on every one I don't find, even if I probably would have found it if I had looked. Too much mud, angry dog nearby, too hot/cold, wasp nest, covered by snow, muggles are around, construction blocking path, etc. etc. etc. My logs are a personal record for ME. I will almost always write why I can't find it, so that the person who comes after me will know if I genuinely looked for a 1.5 for an hour, or if I didn't go near because there was a snake in the path. DNF doesn't automatically mean it is not there, and I wouldn't assume that my logging one would cause the CO to feel a need to check on it, especially if I clarify why I didn't find it.

My pet peeve is throwdowns, and here's the latest one that angered me: " I don't see this anywhere so I left a replacement. Hopefully CO doesn't mind but gosh darn it I drove about 150 miles to find some Jasmer worthy caches and I won't take DNF for an answer. Lol. Tftc " This is a cache that already had a few DNFs, so my advice is, if you are going to drive 150 miles to get a geocache, maybe pick one that has been found recently, instead of picking one that is likely gone and just putting a new one in its place! What is the thought process there? "I know I am probably not going to find it, but I don't want a DNF, so instead of moving to one that I have a chance on, I'll just throw one down and find that one."

Actually, this is the local legend I was talking about: http://www.huntersoftheunknown.com/the-seven-gates-of-hell.html Gate 7 was where I found the dead raccoon. Apparently, the cache is on private property, and has since been archived. https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3H2TK_the-7-gates-gate-7?guid=33c3487b-1be4-4983-8958-159922c3f5f2

"The Seven Gates of Hell" was a legend that made our teenaged selves shudder with fear back in the day. I don't even remember what the legend was--some secret portal that some people had walked through and never returned from or something--but those five words chilled us to the core. Several decades later, I am back here and find a series of caches, each at the "entrance" of the Gates of Hell. Making the Gates into geocaches eliminated the fear for me--it's just legends and places, nothing scary. But at one place... Right next to the STOP sign where the cache was stuck, I found a dead raccoon. Not terribly unusual; it was a country road in a remote area. I laughed a little at the thought of this poor creature dying RIGHT next to one of the Gates of Hell. Oooh, creepy. But when I took a closer look, I saw something unusual. The dead raccoon had been carefully laid on top of an empty beer can. And THAT'S when I got the hell out. I wasn't afraid of the Gates of Hell, but rednecks terrify me.

Not a whole lot in my area. We expect to hit those trails in the next couple of weeks.

This one should be in the top three. Throwdowns are my pet peeve!

I think a better rule would be to make sure your feet are comfortable and sturdy, regardless of what is (or is not) on them. For some, that is sturdy shoes. For me, it's flip flops! I hold my footing MUCH better in flip flops than in bulkier shoes. People are built differently and have different walking experiences, so one person's $600 hiking boots might be another person's stumbles.

Maybe instead of putting it in an existing wall, you can create a fake "wall" by piling a few rocks around the tube? Non-cachers wouldn't notice it, cachers would return it as they found it, and no walls would be in danger of destruction.

We used to have one when the kids and I would go out together. But when I started going out without them, we created three new accounts for them. This way, if they ever find one without me, it won't show up as FOUND on my account, and I will still have incentive to go find it myself.

For me the incentive is the find. To locate this hidden treasure that only a couple hundred people AT MOST in the entire world know about. That A-HA! moment when your fingers touch it. The gloating when your hunch was correct. Or simply the high of hopping out of the car, lifting the light skirt, and seeing the little amber pill bottle. Signing it makes the task complete, and logging it online helps me keep track of it. But the main beauty is in the find.

Here's my (least) favorite hint: Ni si eutats eht evocla eht ni si ti. Evoba pu yaw ton tsuj, hguoht level dnuorg ta ton si ehcac siht? Teerts eht gnicaf tfel s'eutats eht ro, ehcac eht gnicaf tfel ruo tuoba gniklat I ma. Revewoh tuoba gniklat m'I tfel esohw ediced ot evah lliw uoy. Eutats eht fo edis tfel eht morf kcab thgiarts tsomla si ehcac siht. Edis eht ot ton, eutats eht dniheb si ehcac siht. Evoba pu ton, level teerts ta nwod si ehcac siht. Yes, someone wrote that out, and THEN encrypted it.

Wow, I totally never would have thought to do that.

I left a Where's George? dollar once. Two birds with one stone!

Here's one I am seeing a lot lately. I will get to a cache that has a bunch of DNFs, from newer players as well as seasoned ones with thousands of finds. I look around, don't find it, post a DNF and Needs Maintenance. Come back to look at the listing later, only to discover that some newbies have "Found" it, posting generic things like, "Cute!" and "Great hide, thanks!" Come on. If the last half-dozen people couldn't find it, you really want me to believe someone with three finds under his belt did??

"I didn't actually find this, but here's a photo to show you that I was near it. That counts, right?"

Not necessarily. When you find a lid or anything that appears to be part of an old cache, you usually don't keep searching. If the cacher believed she had found it, she'd have no reason to keep looking...but if the dummy lid had not been there, she may very well have searched a bit longer and found the original one.

I leave it as it is and post a maintenance log. If it is too wet to sign, I might push my pen into it to get a little stain or something. It's not my cache, and I don't feel I have the right to change it. Plus, it's part of the cache experience. It is honest; it is what the cache has become. I don't wish to mess with that history by putting a mask on it. Geocaching isn't only about finding perfect caches. It's about the experience of each cache, including the well-worn ones.

Granted, I haven't read all of these replies, but I have not seen mentioned when a couple has a single account for both of them, and they double their counts by caching individually. I saw one user finding caches in Arizona and Florida simultaneously for weeks on end. Turns out the husband was visiting family in Arizona while the wife was on vacation in Florida. This would be compounded if the entire family shares an account, and the parents are caching at home, sister in college in another state, brother at camp, etc. I get that it's adorable for everyone in a family to have the same caching account, but if you are caching individually, you really should have individual accounts. (On my end, when my kids got a little older and wanted to go caching with me, I insisted they get their own accounts, so that they would never log a find under my name when I was not there. Just seems dishonest.)