Andromeda321

A few scratches and some frays in my jeans from climbing a barbed wire fence, but nothing too major. In fact, the funny thing was how the biggest tumble I had in my life was when searching in the woods behind my childhood playground for a cache. It was really steep and I was surprised at how hard going it was (compared to when I was a kid and we'd just run straight up the hill!) but then on the way down I slipped and ended up falling down the hill a fair number of feet before stopping. Something else that I don't remember happening back as a kid.

Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there. But anyway, my travel plans aside... I will definitely agree to this, often just because climates dictate various ways you can hide caches. I've found one or two in California and Argentina where it doesn't rain much and marvel at how they can survive several years, for example, and "winter friendly" guidelines start to hit in areas where you get a lot of snow... The other thing I've noticed is how frankly the difficulty scale is way different in Europe vs the USA, whereby stuff in Europe that would be 3 or 4 star in the US will only be 1.5 stars or maybe 2 over here (this might also be more a Netherlands/Germany thing than a Europe in general one). I even went to an event some tourists set up here in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and some of the locals were complaining that they'd never been to an event where you just had to sign the log to get a smiley and didn't have to "do something."

One of the things I've appreciated most finding in a geocache was a little plastic keychain that has a little compass, thermometer, and windchill chart on the back. I still use it every day in fact, it's attached to my house keys! As an astro-girl I tend to get astronomy things to leave behind for cheap (I know this thread is for guys, but I refuse to dissuade women who like astronomy ). I bought a few in bulk that worked really well- one example was a tiny planisphere type thing showing the stars at night, the other was before the Venus transit last year I left those solar eclipse viewer glasses in a few geocaches- very popular swag item even if we got clouded out here for the event itself! Mind the last two really only work price-wise if you buy them in bulk as I think individually they'd be more than US$5, but both were really light and didn't take up much space so that's why I thought they were good swag items.

Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible). Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course.

If you are willing to do a little work, consider creating an Earthcache. They're virtual and similar for maintenance but they are still in the rubric.

Ok, that Alaska one sounds up my alley. I've only ever done power trails by bicycle since I don't have a car for the other variety (plus power trails are WAY less common in Europe anyway). More fun on a bicycle because the distances take a little longer in my opinion! But the most I've ever gotten in a day was 24- I like cycling and caching, but frankly after around 20 I get kinda bored of the whole thing.

Longest just for geocaching? Maybe 4 hours. Longest road-trip ever including trains was when my brother and I went from Beijing to Kathmandu on the train via Xi'an, Chengdu, and Lhasa where the rail ends so we had to go via Jeep with a guide (which the Internet tells me is about 2000 miles in a straight line, but we probably went like 3000 miles). I think between all those destinations I got maybe 3 geocaches since there literally weren't any more to find, but I took coordinates for a few Earthcaches in Tibet for future geocachers so it's not so bad now. Man oh man, am I tired just remembering that journey!

About five weeks or so. I maintain a few Earthcaches in rather remote locations so it took a little while for people to get to Tibet or Argentina and the like.

Since the last time I posted in this thread, I added Denmark and Sweden thanks to a trip a few weeks ago to Copenhagen during a few days' break here in NL. Frankly Sweden across the bridge from Copenhagen is boring as all hell, and the service was so unfriendly I never got to try a Swedish beer but hey got Sweden on my map so it's all good! Country count is now at 25. Vatican City State will be added in about a month's time thanks to snagging a super cheap weekend ticket to Rome some weeks ago- I love European budget airlines! Already got Italy... and doing Croatia in August with my brother hopefully, with luck we will do a day trip to Montenegro/ lesser chance of Bosnia happening, but there is a chance. Alas no southern Africa finds this year after all because my sister's getting married in New Hampshire too close to the conference dates for me to make it. Beyond that, I must say the biggest help in Europe IMO is not just the distances involved but the huge amounts of vacation time you get compared to the USA combined with the idea that one should take vacations because they're good for you. Not only do I get 5 weeks a year I also get a "vacation bonus" in my June paycheck which is essentially a month's extra pay to go towards holidays, both things that I realize are completely alien to American sensibilities. But hey, such things go a long way towards explaining how on Earth European geocachers can have so many countries in their statistics!

This list might help- http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=8a65b710-8e8e-4895-bd81-af70daf1a30a You can of course run a pocket query for your route, which I'd consider doing for the "just off the road" option to see what comes up. Especially when you sort the resulting lists by favorites- one of my favorite caches on a recent Utah road trip was at a gas station off of I-70 for example, technically not a rest stop just an exit but I'm glad I didn't just pass by it.

If you use mygeocachingprofile.com you can set it to list your milestones at every 50 or 100 or whatever you prefer (I do the 50s just because that's interesting to me). Seeing as that's where geocaching.com got their statistics page from I'm not sure why they can't do it too.

This is usually how these things are in my experience- the most favorited cache in any country/state is almost always one that is either in a heavily touristed area or the oldest (so not only has it had many logs over time it's now a rite of pilgrimage for those within the area). Usually when doing a search for interesting caches in an area I've noticed the ones a little further down the page are really more the "wow!" factor caches.

My handle is Andromeda321 on many places on the Internet, so when I needed to make up a geocaching account it was an easy choice. As for why it is, I'm an astronomer and have been interested in the subject since I was 13, so figure it out yourself though I like the galaxy most. 321 is because my birthday is Jan 23 but alas 123 is usually taken.

I wouldn't call that too many puzzles at all- I'm not a huge fan of them either, but then I moved to Europe where I often lack the language/ cultural background to boot. As an example just do a simple map search for your favorite German city- traditionals are less than half the caches usually.

"Average distance: 4368 km." Moving continents about halfway through my geocaching career helps on this one...

Indeed there are lots of multis and mysteries- here's my view in the city of Amsterdam- Also let the record state that moving abroad and lots of traveling means something like only 10% of my finds are within 10 miles of my home coords... and over 85% of those finds are over 100 miles away. I think a good part of this just has to deal with the fact that I rely on cycling and public transportation in general, so I'm more likely to hop on the train to a new town or city for the day and then go caching while there.

No but I think this'd be awesome. Someone who'd actually be cool with helping me find micro hides! I did know someone who proposed by hiding the ring in an unpublished geocache though. Frankly tho as the other people around my age have said, the biggest issue is more most people when I go to an event are at least a decade or two my senior (I'm 27). I know a lot of young people cache, but in my experience they're less likely to go to events.

Hippos are actually the animal that kills the most people in Africa each year- they do NOT like boats and will tip them and drown the occupants. That said, have fun! And feel free to log my Vic Falls earthcache if you head that way.

Just researched these in anticipation for flying to DC on Friday- hoping to snag a cache or two on the Mall, of course! My first reaction is just bravo to the Smithsonian NMNH crew, they've done a stellar job and I'm sad I don't live in the area and won't be able to devote time to do this series.

I'm actually going to be in Washington DC next week for my sister's bachelorette party... so just in case some of these end up being published in the DC area I will be keeping an eye on them! And why yes, I'm organizing the bachelorette party weekend so I will make sure there's time to grab some of the DC virtuals on the Mall at least, why do you ask?

That looks like something I would do if I had infinite time. As is I currently don't, so I'll probably file it away for a few years until I think "oh, yeah..." and dig it out again.

Not quite, but I did once get lost on a loop trail where the markers had vanished I hadn't marked the coords of the car but thank goodness this trail had a gas saver set up because some other geocacher had gotten lost here earlier which required a call to the police. Full story on the cache page- http://coord.info/GC11N6R

I travel to/from Europe to the US a few times a year and have occasionally gotten notes of thanks from people for helping them out with a "big jump." Can't recall ever getting notes of thanks otherwise.

I guess I count in this demographic, I just turned 27 and have been caching since I was... 24? Something like that. I will say I do remember stumbling across geocaching when I was like 19 or so (ie in 2005) and did a quick search around the area I was going to university, and quickly realized I a. had no GPS nor money to get one, and b. had no car so I couldn't access any of the caches my search turned up at the time, so I quickly forgot the whole thing until I had a. an iPhone to test it all out on and b. a car. So I suspect more than one person has been held up in geocaching by these two details who's my age. Further I will note that I know a few people from undergrad who cache, but people my age very rarely show up at events (when I was starting out I'd be the youngest by 20 years). Maybe when you're going out a lot in general and meeting up with friends it's just not as interesting to further expand your social circle like that? I mean I'll freely admit that more than a few times I saw an event at the same time I heard there was an off-campus party, and the geocachers never won that battle for my time. Finally not to get into an argument here, but I've known more than a few people from my undergrad days who love(d) caching but then quit it when they kept finding micro spew. They'll still look up noteworthy caches when on vacation or whatever, but areas that have many crappy finds that aren't at all worthwhile will lose interest.

I'm an expat from the Netherlands, and trust me there's a good chance it wouldn't have made more sense even if your Dutch was excellent.