lacruz18

Doing Geocaching since around 18 months and living on an island (Tenerife) I am more of a hider than a seeker of caches. I own more than 20 caches from difficulty 1 to 5. The most visited ones are those, who can be easily reached and not the ones, who offer the nicest places. I have one, who is easily reachable, that has received more than 80 visits within around the same time frame (WP GCPA04), while one difficult one (long walk but great place, WP GCP2A9) has reveived only 10 visits.

Hola de Tenerife, I live on the island since a couple of years(being a German), stumbled accidentially over Geocaching one and a half years ago, was just lurking for the first year (once or twice a month). Lately with some question coming up, I started to be bit more active here. However I am not the person to actively participate in each thread. From looking at some of the forum threads, it seems to me, that people from North America are much more active on the forum than people from the rest of the world. Why may this be like that?

Exactly. The ones who care about statistic are like crying kids and over-competitve grown-ups. The rest just enjoys the outdoors and couldn't care less! I think it's pretty funny that some people switch into "competition mode" as soon as there are some numbers present. GermanSailor Totally in agreement with the above comments. I would never think about logging my own caches and am very surprised about this thread....

Just a voice from outside the US. I always have some Austrian 25 Schilling silver coins in my pocket, when I am out for caching (small and not heavy and I have a lot of them) and do trading only, if I find some useful stuff in the cache for example batteries for my GPSR.

I must admit, the first 1 or 2 caches I just found with the arrow, without using the coordinate panel. It is the other way around...... But when NOT finding my third cache I was looking around on my GPS and then found the coords panel... THEN I also read the manual.

Great.. Thanks, will now wait another couple of weeks for an answer and come back to you

Still thanks. Just got another idea. IF I would have to use the replacement bag, would it be 'illegal', if I send it to you via mail and you put it back into a cache. One of my other bugs, which also should move over the ocean, is moving around in the Netherlands since nearly a year and I fear it will not make it, before I die.

Hi BlueDeuce, really great, thanks alot for your offer. This is how Cachers should help each other and of course would I like it to stay in the States. Will write another message to tweetybird telling her and let us see what happens. May be we find also a way to return you the money then, though it may be difficult (I sent a TB last year back to the States for some reason and at that time I finally paid for it, as it seemed too difficult to move that small amount of money).

Thanks a lot to all of you for your opinions. This really helps and the next time, that any of the strangers will ask me to maintain their cache, I can just point them to this forum entry Of course, if the cache has alread been placed, I will offer them to mail it to them on THEIR cost.

Just adding a funny story from Germany, which shows, that Geocachers no matter where they put their caches, be it in national parks or not, should think about WHERE they put caches: A cache was placed inside a very old roman wall, which was not destroyed within the last 2000 years. Some time after the cache was placed, people in the area were wondering, why this 2000 year old wall was starting to break down. Do I have to say more? What does this mean. Every Geocacher should carefully think about, where he puts his cache so not to harm nature et al. There is another story from the island of Tenerife. There are several caches in the natural park of Cañadas Del Teide. No more than 50 vistors a year to all of these caches, as there is lots of walking to reach them. If in winter time, when there is snow up there, thousands of Canarians spend their weekend there, the 'Cabildo' removes tons and tons of trash after the weekend left by the visitors.

Living on an island (Tenerife), it happens to me nearly every month or two, that cachers, who visit the island from anywhere in the world, ask me whether I would be willing to maintain a cache, which they want to place for whatever reason on the island. It often even happens, that they place a cache and back in their home country, they ask me to maintain it. The caches most of the time are far away from my home sometimes 60 kilomters (nearly 40 miles) or more. Those I denied by the way and there is meanwhile some significant geocaching trash on the island for caches, which never have been published. One more thing to mention is, that there are very few active Geocachers living on the island (just a handful). After having taken maintenance for some of those caches, I am meanwhile reluctant to do so and would like to get opinions from some other people, about this practice and what you would do in cases like that? Would you ever maintain caches of other cachers? How far would you drive (on your own cost and time by the way)? Any opinion is highly appreciated.

Thanks for this useful advice. I just sent another mail off giving them 3 options: 1) Putting the bug back into a cache 2) Honestly tell me, that the bug got lost, so I could use the replacement bug 3) Mail the bug to me on my cost Now let us see, what happens

I got a totally different story. I started a TB on Tenerife Island and wanted it to get to the States quickly, to visit some of the places, where I have been years ago. It moved very quickly to the States, was picked by a caching woman in February of this year. She is a premium member, is doing active caching but does not put the Bug back into a cache. I already wrote her two messages, she promised, to return the bug into a cache but nothing.. Have a look at TBKY1Q and you will see, that it is true. This is really not how the game should work... Paco

Good point and I have of course already thought about that, but still was hesitating, as there are currently no more than 4 or 5 active Geocachers, who live on the island. But with some visitors at the same time, it could then be a group of up to 10 or even more participants. And by the way, it is not that I do not know any Cachers personally. I already met quite a lot during last year. And the ones I met were all very decent people.

Thinking a bit more about this... Yes you are right. When I was still in Business (I am quite an old man), I had much more control about the standards and forcing people to adhere to them. So, this whole discussion already helped me alot to see it more relaxed from now on.

I totally agree with you. This is exactly, what I am doing. I have a mix of 'Drive-In' up to Terrain difficulty 5 caches, which take from 5 Minutes to a whole day and it is just very interesting to observe people, coming to the island for a caching holiday. There are many, who just make the many 'quick and easy' caches and others, who make fewer but more interesting and challenging ones.

Of course they are supposed to be waterproof, but what if a previous visitor did not close the box correctly? I personally would of course take the time and dry the cache. Today for example I will go out and do maintenance for a cache, which is not mine. The owner of the cache is currently in Italy and will not return before End of November. Surely the situation on an island is different than the situation for example in North Carolina or Minnesota.

Interesting. Yes I have a TB out there (one of my three), that quickly moved over to the US from the island. The TB is in the hands of someone since February. I already had some E-Mail conversation with him/her 6 weeks ago. He/She promised to place it quickly in a cache, still not shown up in a cache. And of course I will not burn out for just a little but very interesting game, which I am participating.

Thanks a lot for all your opinions and experiences. If my initial post sounded a bit frustrated, which some of the Posters seem to think, it is not like that. Also I did choose some aggressive words, to get aggressive answers. I love Geocaching for many of the reasons stated in all the posts. May be I still thought, that people, who choose a sport like this, that has to do alot with nature, are a bit different than the 'usual' mix of people. But as some of you state, this is not true and I guess, I understood that meanwhile.

This is my first topic in this forum and I would like to open here a discussion about Geocaching in general and types of Geocachers. First of all excuse my poor english, as I am a German living on Tenerife island (Canary Islands) since nearly 7 years. I got to Geocaching accidentially by stumbling on it casually and I liked (and still like it) it very much, as I like to walk with and w/o my dogs. Initially I thought, that Geocachers are people, who like to walk, make nice excursions and see the really great places of a country/island/area. Meanwhile I realized, that this is NOT true for many (most?) of the Geocachers. They just like to make POINTS, quick and easy. The GREAT caches, that I placed on the Island (LACRUZ18- 20 Caches- 25% of all caches on the island) are visited very rarely, while the 'quick and easy' caches are visited quite often. Also I realized, that many Cachers do not really respect the work, which you have, in working out and placing a cache. They even do not hide the cache any more well after having logged it. I saw that too in caches, which I visited from other people. They have all the time to go there and write into the log, but afterwards they go away quickly, without respecting the work, you have put into the cache. One more example, which I experienced. A cache has been wet for some reason. Instead of spending the time to dry it (just laying into the sun for half an hour) people go away, calling for cache maintenance. I actually would even have more examples, but hink that this is enough for the time being. What are your experiences from different countries/people? Really would like to get some reactions and Saludos Paco (which is my first name here on the Island)