[No Caches published in COVID-19 times?]

As you seem to be based in the east of Austria: In Slovakia geocaches get published also these days.

 

After the end of travel restrictions between Austria and Slovakia you can visit geocaches not far away that were hidden _and_ published in April.

 

 

[Coronavirus COVID-19 Interactive Map vs Travels and Events]

Until now in my country (Austria) only one person has died from Covid-19 - not a national problem

It is likely that 400 infected are reached today in my country - not a national problem

 

Look at this:

Still no problem in sight, less than 500 cases in 8 million in a rich country with good health care?

 

My country has, let's say 8 beds in hospitals per 1000 inhabitants and let's say 2500 ICU. 4% of the infected will need ICU, 14% will need hospitalisation.

 

Well, now look at what will happen if no measures were taken:

My country sees a problem and has taken measures that seem heavy, in a few days (incubation period, start of measures), maybe not until day 27-29 we'll see whether 'flatten the curve' works.

[Coronavirus COVID-19 Interactive Map vs Travels and Events]

Austria: No outdoor events above 500 participants, no indoor events above 100 participants, universities closed not later than next Monday.

Czechia: schools and universities will be closed tomorrow, no events allowed with more than 100 participants.

Germany: several states (will) have restrictions for events: Bavaria, Schleswig Holsteim > 1000

France: no events > 1000

etc.

Italy of course has more severe restrictions.

 

More restrictions seem likely for European countries.

[Bonus caches for adventures]

Successful bonus caches: In Austria, there are Adventure Lab Bonus geocaches of type Unknown and Letterbox Hybrid (=Unknown+stamp). Top 3 examples (by number of favorites):

 

Vienna (Unknown): https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8AEQ0

Salzburg (Unknown): https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC89X8C

Klagenfurt (Letterbox Hybrid): https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC88BXW

 

 

 

 

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

Countries/territories without Virtual Cache

 

Pacific Ocean	Africa/Atlantic Ocean	Asia/Indian Ocean
American Samoa	Cabo Verde	British Indian Ocean Territory
Cook Islands	Sao Tome and Principe	Christmas Island
Fiji		Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Nauru	Africa	Heard Island and McDonald Islands
New Caledonia
Niue	Algeria	Asia
Northern Mariana Islands	Angola
Palau	Benin	Afghanistan
Papua New Guinea	Burkina Faso	Armenia
Pitcairn	Burundi	Azerbaijan
Solomon Islands	Central African Republic	Bangladesh
Tokelau	Chad	Bhutan
Tuvalu	Congo	Brunei
US Minor Outlying Islands	Côte d'voire	Cambodia
Vanuatu	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Iran
Wallis and Futuna Islands	Djibouti	Kuwait
	Equatorial Guinea	Lebanon
Central America	Eritrea	North Korea
	Ethiopia	Pakistan
El Salvador	Gabon	Syria
Belize	Gambia	Timor-Leste
Honduras	Ghana	Turkmenistan
	Guinea	Uzbekistan
Caribbean	Guinea-Bissau	Yemen
	Lesotho
Anguilla	Liberia	Asia/Europe
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba	Libya
Curaçao	Madagascar	Armenia
Dominica	Malawi	Azerbaijan
Haiti	Mali
Jamaica	Mauritania	Europe
Montserrat	Mozambique
Netherlands Antilles	Niger	Moldova
Saint Barthélemy	Nigeria	Sark
Saint Lucia	Rwanda
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Senegal	North America/Atlantic Ocean
Sint Maarten	Somalia
Trinidad and Tobago	South Sudan	Greenland
Turks and Caicos Islands	Sudan	Saint Pierre and Miquelon
	Swaziland
South America	Togo	Southern Atlantic Ocean
	Tunisia
Colombia	Western Sahara	Bouvet Island
French Guiana	Zimbabwe	Saint Helena
Guyana		South Georgia and the South
Paraguay	Africa/Indian Ocean	Sandwich Islands
Suriname
Uruguay	Comoros
Venezuela	French Southern and Antarctic Terr.
	Mayotte
	Réunion

 

In my last list Afghanistan and Bangladesh were missing.

 

There are many countries with only one or a few Virtual Caches. Otherwise put only a few countries have a lot (absolute numbers or in proportion to area) of Virtual Caches in Northern, Western, Southern and Central Europe and the US. Canada and Austraila have plenty of empty space with presumably interesting spots, but that also ist true of most other countries.

 

To me it seems that a lot of VR2.0 (as also was the cas with V1.0) are concentrated at the big cities where a lot of geocachers live or visit and other parts remain almost empty.

 

Does my hometown need 25 Virtual Caches - maybe not, but owners here prefer having more than 2000 logs per year over putting a Virtual Cache at a interesting/worthy location where a physical cache isn't allowed or practial or in a country/area where physical caches don't survive, but only would bring 20 or 200 visitors per year.

 

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

After 3 months there seem to be 1680 VR 2.0 published in 78 countries/territories.

Germany 90
Norway 87
United States 86
Spain 78
Canada 74
United Kingdom 74
Belgium 73
Finland 73
France 73
Netherlands 73
Portugal 68
Sweden 68
Slovakia 67
Denmark 66
Czechia 65
Switzerland 65
Austria 63
Australia 56
New Zealand 56
Italy 43
Poland 43
Luxembourg 28
South Africa 24
Estonia 18
Ireland 15
Japan 12
Lithuania 11
Slovenia 10
Croatia 9
Latvia 9
Hong Kong 8
Romania 8
Brazil 7
Taiwan 7
Greece 6
Malaysia 6
Singapore 4
Russia 3
Andorra 2
Argentina 2
Bulgaria 2
China 2
Cyprus 2
Guernsey 2
Hungary 2
Iceland 2
Isle of Man 2
Israel 2
Jordan 2
Liechtenstein 2
South Korea 2
Turkey 2
Albania 1
Angola 1
Bermuda 1
Costa Rica 1
Dominican Republic 1
Ecuador 1
Egypt 1
Falkland Islands 1
Georgia 1
Guadeloupe 1
Guam 1
Kyrgyzstan 1
Macedonia 1
Mexico 1
Monaco 1
Norfolk Island 1
Palestine 1
Peru 1
San Marino 1
Serbia 1
Tajikistan 1
Tanzania 1
Thailand 1
Ukraine 1
United Arab Emirates 1
Vatican City State 1

Most countries are 'winners' as was advertised. I would expect all but two (considering countries with already more than 2 VR 2.0)

Of the countries with more than 2 VR 2.0:

VR 2.0 in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Estonia, Brazil, Taiwan, Luxembourg, Slovakia, New Zealand: already more than twice the number of VR 1.0 -  'big winners'

VR 2.0 in Italy, Denmark, France, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Netherlands, South Africa, Austria: already more VR 2.0 than VR 1.0 - 'winners'

Japan, Latvia, Slovenia, Sweden, Australia, Russia: maybe late starters, less (2-11 less) VR 2.0 than VR 1.0, should reach/exceed the number of VR 1.0 in the end. Smaller 'winners' too. For some 'small' countries (less than 3 VR 2.0) like Bulgaria (2 VR 2.0 vs. 6 VR 1.0): I have no idea what will happen.

Now to the 'biggest' countries in terms of (VR+) VR1.0: US, Germany as the two biggest, then UK, Canada, Czechia and France.

UK, Canada, Czechia and France: VR 2.0 : VR 1:0 ~ 51-58%. Now 1680  of 4000 VR 2.0 are published = ~ 42% of VR 2.0 are published, therefore I think also these countries should/could end with more VR 2.0 than VR 1.0

That leaves two countries that seem to have significantly less VR 2.0 assigned than VR 1.0 (even wnehn only considering published VR 1.0, not considering the large number of unused VR 1.0 in these countries).

US VR 2.0 86, VR 1.0 690, Germany VR 2.0 90, VR 1.0 468, that is 12% and 19% compared to VR 1.0

Assuming the proportions between the countries remain stable, then in the US the number of VR 2.0 might end at less than a third of VR 1.0, in Germany at less than 50%. These countries still will have the biggest number of virtual caches. Right now there are 4418 virtual caches ('old virtuals', VR 1.0, VR 2.0) in the US and 604 in Germany.

I don't think that any other country than US, Germany, UK, Canada and maybe France will have more than 300 virtual caches at the end of VR 2.0.

One of the 'big winners' seems to be also the 'export leader' to other countries without (many) own VR 2.0: It seems that slovak geocachers might have virtual caches also in Andorra, Georgia, Macedonia and San Marino.

I hope that there will be many additional interesting VR 2.0 published during the next months.  

 

P.S. If someone in/visiting Austria doesn't know what to do with their VR 2.0, why not visit the ICUN Category Ib – Wilderness Area Dürrenstein in Lower Austria where you can look down at the ICUN Category Ia – Strict Nature Reserve Urwald (=primeval forest) Rothwald) and place your VR 2.0 there on mount Dürrenstein (on a demanding hike)? Geocaching policy sais 'no geocaching off the marked path(s)' (on the few marked paths in the wilderness area you are allowed to hike on your own without guide) , the summit cross should be an allowed place for a 'real' virtual cache as several marked paths lead there. Don't expect too many visitors, currently maybe 3-20 geocachers per year.

[Mystery at the museum]

14 minutes ago, HunterBird0688 said:

Da geb ich dir Recht, aber es war der Einzige, der mir gestern abend bzw heut vormittag angezeigt wurde.

 

Hast du schon probiert, auf der Karte rauszuzoomen und dann nochmal "Search this area" gedrückt? Werden dann mehr Caches angezeigt? Die Caches werden NICHT automatisch nachgeladen, wenn man die Karte verschiebt oder rauszoomt.

 

Wer Premium Member ist und sich so wie ich überhaupt nicht mit der Search Map anfreunden kann , hat aber noch eine weitere Option, trotzdem komfortabel mitzuspielen:

 

Auf der Suchseite (ohne Karte) die gewünschten Filter auswählen (z.B. nicht gefunden, keine eigenen, enabelt, Cachetyp, Clue-Typ), die Liste anzeigen, die ersten x (1-1000) auf eine Liste und dann eine PQ von der Liste machen und auf das Gerät der Wahl (GPS, Smartphone) aufspielen. Wenn ich mir z.B. nur die der Stufe 2 drauflade, sehe ich alle anderen absichtlich nicht und kann mich auf die Clues dieser Stufe konzentrieren. Sobald Stufe 3 freigeschalten ist, kommen diese PQs weg und fünf weitere PQs für die Edelsteine drauf. Wenn eine Kategorie bereits 3 Edelsteine hat, kommt diese PQ weg und nur noch die offenen Kategorien werden angezeigt. Für die 4. Stufe zählen dann wieder alle Caches.

 

Die Methode scheint mir besonders geeignet, wenn nicht übermäßig Caches zur Vefügung stehen und man nicht komplette Gegenden leerräumen will, sondern gezielt Caches 'sparen will' und man nicht dauernd neu suchen will, sondern nur einmal pro Level und (je nach Cachedichte größerer oder kleinerer) Gegend.

[Mystery at the museum]

Im zweiten Abschnitt ist es egal, in welcher Reihenfolge man Fußabdrücke, Schatten und Fingerabdrücke findet.

 

Wenn man auf Stufe 2 ist und Caches findet und online loggt, die von Stufe 3 sind, sind die "verloren" für die Souveniraktion, sie würden nur zählen, wenn man sie findet, nachdem Stufe 3 freigeschaltet ist.

[Mystery at the museum]

Und es zählen nur Fund/Attended-Logs, die Log-Datum 11. Juli bis 11. August 2019 geloggt werden.

[Mystery at the museum]

Basic Members bekommen in der Liste (z.B. bei der Suche nach Detective https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?ot=4&tr=1&utr=true) immer auch die gefundenen gezeigt (erkennbar am gelben Smiley) und auch PMO-Caches (ausgegraut mit dem Hinweis, dass es ein PMO-Cache ist, obwohl sie das Listing dann eh nicht ansehen können) und auch disabelte Caches, die am blassen Icon erkennbar sind, sowie eigene Caches, erkennbar an einem Sternchen beim Icon. So sehen sie, was ihnen entgeht, weil sie nicht PMO sind.

 

Für Premium Members gibt es weitere Filtermöglichkeiten, z.B. nur ungefundene Caches anzeigen, nur enabelte Caches anzeigen.

 

 

[Mystery at the museum]

Filter für Clues der aktuellen Stufe (und darunter) geht für alle, auch Basis Members, war auch so angekündigt. Sonst geht noch Cachetyp für alle, die restlichen Filter sind PMO.

 

[Mystery im Museum]

Die Seite ist bekannt? https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2019/06/mysterium-im-museum-faq/

 

Für das erste Souvenir "Briefed on the case" muss man einen einzigen Cache finden, und zwar einen mit Detective-Clue. 

 

Um herauszufinden, welche Caches ein Detective-Clue enthalten, kann man auf der Website bei der Suche  "Filter by clue' mit einem Schieber einschalten. Zu Beginn kann man dort nur Detective auswählen. In der App findet man unter Clue den Filter

 

Wenn man einen passenden Cache gefunden und auch online geloggt hat, wird die nächste Stufe freigeschalten. Hier gab es bei Logs, die auf der Webseite eingegeben wurden Probleme, die hoffentlich bereits behoben sind oder bald behoben werden. In der offiziellen App funktionierte der Schritt "Clue gefunden" -> Freischaltung der nächsten Ebene von Beginn an.

 

Danach sind die Filtermöglichkeiten für die nächsten Clues (fingerprints, footprints and shadows) freigeschaltet.

Für das zweite Souvenir "Evidence collected" sind 6 Cachefunde nötig, und zwar je 2 Caches, die jeweils die Clues fingerprints, footprints und shadows haben.

 

Hat man sechs passende Caches gefunden und geloggt, wird die dritte Ebene der Clues freigeschalten für den Filter.

Für das dritte Souvenir "Jewels recovered" sind 15 Cachefunde nötig, und zwar je drei in fünf Kategorien (diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topaz).

 

Danacch gibt es noch ein viertes Souvenir "Case closed", was das dafür nötige "requires a bonus challenge to unlock the vault" bedeutet, weiß ich noch nicht.

 

Man sieht auch, welche Clue bei einem Cache ist, wenn man das Listing aufruft, allerdings sieht man , wenn man noch keinen Cache mit Detective-Clue gefunden hat, nur, ob es ein Cache mit Detective Clue ist, ansonsten sieht man nur, dass der Clue hidden, also versteckt ist. Wenn man das erste Souvenir bereits hat, sieht man auch die Clues für die zweite Stufe.

 

Neue Caches sollten Detective haben, das funktioniert aber noch nicht ganz, neue Caches haben/hatten gar kein Clue, das soll aber ausgebessert werden.

 

Events im Aktionszeitraum haben auch Detective.

 

Wichtig zu wissen ist, dass Clues für diese Aktion nur dann gezählt werden, wenn man für die jeweilige Stufe freigeschalten ist. Also zählt ein Fund bei einem Cache mit Topaz nur für die Aktion, wenn man bereits die ersten beiden Souvenirs freigeschaltet hat, ansonsten spielt dieser Cache gleichsam gar nicht mit.

 

Wenn eine Note oder ein DNF in einen Fund umgewandelt werden, zählt dieser Fund auch nicht für die Aktion.

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

Now slightly more than 1000 of the potential 4000 Virtual Rewards 2.0 seem to be published in 61 different countries/territories:

 

Country/Territory	VR2.0
Germany	57
Norway	54
Belgium	51
Netherlands	49
Portugal	48
Spain	47
United Kingdom	47
United States	47
Austria	46
Denmark	46
Finland	42
Slovakia	42
Canada	38
Australia	37
New Zealand	37
Czechia	36
France	36
Sweden	33
Switzerland	30
Italy	27
Poland	26
Luxembourg	23
South Africa	14
Estonia	11
Ireland	11
Japan	9
Lithuania	9
Croatia	7
Malaysia	6
Greece	5
Hong Kong	5
Romania	5
Slovenia	5
Latvia	4
Singapore	3
Brazil	2
Bulgaria	2
Cyprus	2
Guernsey	2
Israel	2
Jordan	2
Russia	2
South Korea	2
Taiwan	2
Andorra	1
Angola	1
Bermuda	1
China	1
Costa Rica	1
Egypt	1
Georgia	1
Guadeloupe	1
Guam	1
Hungary	1
Iceland	1
Mexico	1
Monaco	1
Norfolk Island	1
Serbia	1
Turkey	1
United Arab Emirates	1

 

[D.C. caches for challenges]

Look at the challenge you want to log.

 

For challenges the categories are country (countries and territories as listed with geocaching.com, which leads to 'countries' like Sark), region and county.

 

Depending on country region and county may be different administrative units.

 

For challenge checker purposes project-gc has 51 regions for United States, that is 50 states and DC.

 

So, 50 US 'states' are of category 'region in US', but also DC is of category 'region in US'.

 

It up to the challenge owner which 'regions' count for a certain challenge. For example for GC2YQNJ also DC is allowed, for  GC5H93K the challenge checker excludes DC with 

ExcludedRegions": [
        "District of Columbia"
    ]

[List of found caches]

If this is for an old challenge you can ask for a checker at project-gc.com

 

Or use the list provided by this checker https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC5GDE2/1893 (15 owners, 3 types) as start for a list of owners.

 

Then you can use the search 'hidden by' and 'found by me' (and 'cache type') for these owners at geocaching.com to get the also the cache names and find dates.

 

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

9 minutes ago, hzoi said:

 

It would appear Afghanistan does not have a virtual, either, for the record.

 

(Note to my bosses, this does NOT constitute a request to return to Afghanistan.)

Indeed, Afghanstan got lost from my list when splitting it. Maybe something else too.

 

I never had heard the names of some of the island territories/countries before. Decolonization on one side and Groundspeaks classification on the other side. Never would have guessed what/where/how large Sark might be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

Here an overview of countries/territories (from Groundspeaks list) sorted by continents/geographical regions (hope I got the regions right) that don't have a Virtual (old Virtuals, Veirtual Rewards 1.0 + 2.0) at the moment and many of them may lack owners that were eligible this this time. Some of the countries like San Marino, Andorra, Réunion  or Tunisia even are well known travel destinations (and well visited by geocachers).

 

So, just in case someone doesn't want to place the 9th Virtual cache within one km² in a now Virtual-dense area ...

 

... the guidelines say: 

 

Vacation Virtuals: The cache owner must have visited the location and any additional waypoints in the previous two months before submitting the Virtual Cache for publication. Placements near the cache owner’s home coordinates are encouraged.

[Introducing Virtual Rewards 2.0!]

On 6/8/2019 at 6:49 PM, K!nder said:

Is there any place where we have a list of How many new virtuals per country?

 

Interesting question.

 

But I think we will only see how many Virtual Rewards 2.0 get published per country, not how many were given to a certain country/region. And I don't think it gets known how many owners per country opted in for a Virtual Reward 2.0. 

 

Virtual Rewards 2017-2018 were 1% of hiders of countries with more than 100 hiders and 1% of the pool formed by all other countries.

Virtual Rewards 2019-2010 some 40,000-50,000 (according to various sources) owners were eligible, 18,527 opted in and most countries received more virtuals compared to VR 2017-2018

 

After one week there are a few countries that seem outstanding:

 

Small Luxembourg already has 19 Virtual Rewards 2.0 (VR 2017-2018 not archived: 10). One might wonder how a country with such a small number of hiders (according to project-gc which only guesses the country of an owner) is able to accumulate so many VR2.0.

 

Finland not a single Virtual Reward 2.0 until now (VR 2017-2018 not archived: 62) Are submissions piling up? It seems unlikely that there is no interest in Finland. And it seems unlikely that Finland got lost when "regions" were formed. 

 

The 'biggest' countries from the 2017-2018 Virtual Rewards seem to have significantly less this time.

 

Only 12 new VR2.0 in the US (VR 2017-2018 not archived: 690)

 

Germany 15 new VR2.0 (VR 2017-2018 not archived: 468)

 

What about UK, Canada, France and Czechia that were next on the VR 2017-2018 list? After one week these countries have less than 10% of the number of VR 2017-018. But who knows, after one year we'll see.

 

Some other countries (besides Luxembourg) like Denmark and Slovakia definitely seem to be 'winners' compared to Virtual Rewards 1.0,  after one week they already have reached more than 2/3 of the number of VR 2017-2018.

 

Virtual Rewards 2.0 one week after start:

	Virtual Rewards 2.0 (2019-2020)	Virtual Rewards (2017-2018)	'old' Virtuals	V+VR+VR2
Denmark	29	39	8	76
Netherlands	26	63	33	122
Belgium	21	45	7	73
Slovakia	20	30		50
Luxembourg	19	10	4	33
Austria	17	62	2	81
Spain	16	60	11	87
Germany	15	468	48	531
United Kingdom	15	144	183	342
Portugal	14	47	12	73
Canada	13	140	132	285
United States	12	690	3652	4354
Czechia	11	117	2	130
Norway	11	52	6	69
France	10	125	22	157
New Zealand	10	26	22	58
Sweden	9	79	9	97
Italy	9	25	23	57
Switzerland	8	43	1	52
Poland	7	34	1	42
South Africa	7	22	7	36
Australia	6	60	55	121
Ireland	6	10	15	31
Japan	5	22	11	38
Hong Kong	4	1	5	10
Estonia	3	5	2	10
Latvia	2	13	1	16
Greece	2	4	9	15
Croatia	2	7	3	12
Lithuania	2	9		11
Bulgaria	2	6		8
Singapore	2	1	2	5
Slovenia	1	13		14
Cyprus	1		6	7
Romania	1	6		7
Israel	1	3	1	5
Guernsey	1	2		3
Malaysia	1	1	1	3
United Arab Emirates	1	2		3
Georgia	1	1		2
Guadeloupe	1			1
Norfolk Island	1			1

 

 

[Adventure Lab - new app for Lab Caches]

Well, I now had a closer look.

 

You don't need to activate WiFi using the 'normal' button for this and it isn't shown as symbol 'Wi-Fi on'' and you don't need to activate 'Use GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile networks' in Location access if your Location mode is set to 'Use GPS only' and Wi-Fi not active.

 

You only need to see the 'nagging screen' in the Adventure Lab telling you 'For a better experience, turn on device location, which uses Google's location service.' That won't go away anyway if you insist on clicking 'No thanks'. So you might choose to press 'Yes'. What happens?

 

 

On the screen for Location access (left in picture) nothing seems to be changed, still 'Use GPS only'. Looking at the status bar, no active Wi-Fi.

 

Only when looking at 'Scan setting' (the three dots in upper right corner) you see that 'Yes' activated 'allowing system apps and services to detect Wi-Fi networks at any time'.

Well, it seems the Adventure App user who doesn't like the device scanning for Wi-Fi at any time, even when 'Access my location' is turned off has to know without explanation what pressing the 'turn on device location' button in the Adventure Lab triggers and what the device then keeps on doing after closing the Adventure Lab until you manually disable Wi-Fi scanning again.

 

So be sure to turn Wi-i scanning off again after using the Lab Adventure App if you are one of those old-fashioned fossils that don't use Wi-Fi and don't want your device to continue scanning for Wi-Fi networks at any time, even if 'Access my location' is turned off.

 

Once you have got a GPS-Fix it seems you could turn off Wi-Fi scanning again if you don't mind clicking on 'No, thanks' every other second and if you are able to use the time in between the pop-ups to navigate, open the Lab and answer the question.

 

[Adventure Lab - new app for Lab Caches]

4 hours ago, keksbande said:

I tried to use the app yesterday the first time. Although my smartphone definitly had a GPS fix (Locus app worked as usual), the Adventure Lab App did not manage to talk to my GPS. Therefore the lab I would have liked to play was shown in a distance of x thousand kilometers... My smartphone still has an older Android version (4.4.2), but the app can be installed without problems on this version and therefore should also work. 

 

Did you allow also Wifi and cell positioning? For me the Lab App never (during last month) worked without allowing that too.

 

And to me it seemed that the position in the Lab App is rotating between values obtained from GPS and values via cell positioning/wifi (you can notice that when in a park that hasn't wifi and no cell towers at every corner, GPS is at spot, everything else not really).

 

At some moments I was thinking GPS can't be used at all, the direction arrow was pointing up to 25° to another direction. But that might have other reasons.

 

[Some data on the Virtual Rewards]

Lituhania is one of the 'smaller' countries regarding virtuals, but all virtuals had at least 5 visits during the last weeks and almost 90% at least 20 visits during the last weeks.

 

One would think that the number of owners and as a result the number of potential new virtuals is more or less proportional to the number of active geocachers.

 

Maybe it is 1 virtual for 500+ active geocachers (at least one find this year), maybe 1:250 for what you call active geocachers and 1 virtual per 33 very active geocachers.

 

So if one country had 500 potential new virtuals and another 50 it isn't unlikely that it also has ten times more geocachers (between 8 to 12 times more) than the other.

 

If a country is small regarding area it is more likely most interested geocachers visit the virtuals that are possible regarding DT.

 

A lot of owners/virtuals/geocachers in a country that covers only a smaller area and additionals tourists - that allows for 4000+ visits in one year like in Prague, Czechia, of course only if the geocachers are interested in virtuals.

 

For virtuals that are mostly visited by tourists like Burj al Arab in UAE or Machu Picchu it depends on the number of tourists how many visits a virtual will get, some have surprisingly high numbers.

 

 

 

[Some data on the Virtual Rewards]

Probably not a causal relationship, but not only the percentage of actual new virtuals out of possible new virtuals seems far higher for countries that had no or only a few old virtuals, but also the craze for visitng the new ones is far higher in these countries and by geocachers from this countries.

 

Data is from yesterday at project-gc, so there might be some/more than a few logs missing due to cachers logging later and project-gc's being 1-2 days 'behind', but that should affect all caches likewise and still give a general overview (even including mistakes I probably have made)

 

There are 14 countries with new virtuals that already had more than 1000 visitors, Germany 31, Czechia 19, Austria 5, France 4. Two new virtuals with more than 1000 visits in USA, UK, Belgium, Denmark, one in Spain, Poland, Slovakia, Ireland, Estonia and Liechtenstein.

 

One new virtual in Czechia already has more than 4000 visits. More than 2000 visits: Czechia 8 new virtuals, Germany 7 new virtuals, Austria 2 new virtuals.

 

There were 29 countries with new virtuals that already have more than 500 visitors, again Germany is leading (82), followed by Czechia (41).

 

While 1.3% of new US virtuals already had more than 500 visitors, compared to Czechia with 35.3% of all new virtuals and more than 15% in these 'bigger' (>=40 new virtuals) countries: Finland, Germany, Belgium, Austria and also high percentage in 'smaller' (<40 new virtuals) countries like Denmark, Slovakia, Latvia and Luxembourg and 'smallest' countries (<10 new virtuals) like Iceland, Estonia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, UAE and Vatican.

 

In addition I looked at the number of new virtuals with more than 100/50/20/10/5 visits since Aug 25, 2018 (and % new virtuals with more than 100/50/20/10/5 visits since Aug 25, 2018) to take into account also countries with larger portions of late submissions and publish dates (for example 15% of new virtuals in Austria were published during the last month, the last one five days ago, there are also other late submission countries around). And it is still 'better caching season' in large parts of northern hemisphere.

 

There are 17 countries with new virtuals that had more than 100 visitors since Aug 25, 2018, Germany 19, Czechia 9, Slovakia 6 (MEGA-Event), Austria 5, Norway 3. Two new virtuals France, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Poland, one UK, Netherlands, Latvia, Ireland, Estonia. Surprisingly USA 0.

 

In many 'bigger' and 'smaller' countries more than 15% of all new virtuals got at least 50 visits since Aug 25, 2018, from the 'bigger' ones Czechia 27.6%, Finland 17.7% Austria 17.5%, Norway 17.3%, Germany 15.9%, Belgium 15.2%, for 'smaller' ones the percentage is even higher. Lowest rate is for US, only 1%.

 

In many 'bigger' and 'smaller' countries more than 75% of all new virtuals got at least 5 visits since Aug 25, 2018, from the 'bigger' ones Finland 100%, Germany 92.7%, Netherlands 91.9%, Czechia 91.4%, Austria 90.5%, Norway 90.4%, from the smaller ones 100% for Poland, Latvia, Lituhania and Estonia. Even T5 diving caches like https://coord.info/GC7B7XG had 5 visits during the last weeks.

 

Less than 70% of all new virtuals with at least 5 visits since Aug 25, 2018: Australia (28.3% probably not the best season and always too much distance in every direction  ), Spain, USA (54.5%), Italy and UK . 

 

Only for Germany and Netherlands more than 10 old virtuals don't seem to correspond to lower visit rates on new virtuals. 

 

In Northern, Western and Central Europe (and bigger numbers of active cachers there) new virtuals seem extremely popular within various parts of the caching community. Here you can notice that geocachers from various countries are planning extended and large detours to cover as many regions in their own country as possible and as many countries as possible and to visit as many virtuals as possible, that looks like a real hype.

 

Virtuals lead them to all parts of the country if there is a virtual, and also to other countries in large numbers to an extend no traditional or other cache type could achieve (except perhaps GIGA and MEGA).

 

From this perspective (number of visits) the new virtuals are a big hit in many countries.

 

For 'smaller' and 'smallest' countries in other continents it isn't easy or seems almost impossible to evaluate what the numbers can tell. Looking at United Arab Emirates ' Burj al-Khalifa already having 792 visitors there seems plenty 'audience' also for more exotic places in the world.

 

Too bad the new virtuals weren't spread in larger numbers also into regions with fewer or almost no active owners where new virtuals probably would be appreciated more (by the small community and also by many geocachers from abroad) than obviousliy is the case in a few countries with many (but less used) opportunities.

 

 

[Some data on the Virtual Rewards]

A (to me) also interesting theme: elevation

 

Height data used by GSAK or project-gc (SRTM1 data has ONE measure point per 30x30 meters, SRTM3 data has ONE measure point per 90x90 meters) often show too low elevation for mountain tops, so this can be only approximately correct even if  without further mistakes:

 

 

Up to now there are 10 new virtuals above 10000 ft evelation (3048 m) and 48 remaining old ones (3 new ones and 42 old ones in US).

Between 6666 and 10000 ft elevation (2031 - 3048 m) there are 29 new ones and 204 old ones (15 new ones and 191 old ones in US).

 

What I personally see as chances 'lost' regarding to elevation::

 

A virtual at the Dead Sea (lowest point on land) or Sea of Galilee or Jericho. There are old virtuals significantly below sea level in the US in Death Valley and Salton sink. Other locations deep below sea level won't attact hundreds of visitors, but still a virtual seems the best cache type there (not every cacher is interested in complicated earth cache questions) in areas with geocaching tourists and no local geocachers like Siwa (Egypt), Caspian Depression etc.

 

As Austrian I certainly miss an Austrian virtual above 3000 m as Austria has far more than 900 mountains above 3000 m. One of the recipients of a virtual considering one at a higher mountain was hindered by an injury to visit a higher mountain during the given period and had to bring a virtual at 750 m that he could access. On the other hand, one traditional was published on the highest mountain in Austria (Großglockner, 3798 m) in National Park Hohentauern recently where local alpine guides don't agree to the placement at the summit cross (also due to security concerns and the circumstances at the summit) but would agree to a virtual that asks for a photo. The local alpine guides are not the land owner and not the National Park, so maybe it doesn't matter too much whether they want a physical geocache placed there only with permission of land owner and National Park.

 

Virtuals definitely are less intrusive than physical caches, be it at summit crosses, in caves, at protected sites, historic remains and more.

 

Generally I would like to see the virtuals spread more evenly around the world. The new ones made it at least better. More countries now have a virtual. A few percent where transferred to countries without too much local geocachers.

 

Still many virtuals are concentrated in and around cities with many geocachers leaving most of the remaining country without virtuals (there are some exeptions, but not too many).

 

Do I 'need' all of the 9 new virtuals within less than 1 mile radius around me? No, I personally would prefer some of them at other places 'deserving' them.

 

There are still many countries without a single virtual cache. And there are countries with almost no local cachers, but many tourists (and geocachers visiting) where physical caches don't survive long because locals don't understand or don't like geocaching and non-physical caches wouldn't disturb them.

 

[Some data on the Virtual Rewards]

There might be still up to 2% of new virtuals in queue or being worked on and there are still weeks left for them. So it is too early for a summary.

 

From what I see (may change every minute and I might have got something wrong):

 

81.4% of the still active 4513 old virtuals are in the US, UK 4.1%, Canada 2.9 % and Australia 1.2%. Only 10.4% of old virtuals are not within these four countries.

 

Now more than 60% of the new virtuals are outside these four countries.

 

The US still have the highest number and pecentage also of new virtuals (677 or 25.9 %), but this is far less than what project-gc expected (1358 or 34%), roughly half of the expected number. *)

 

*) I assume project-gc derived their numbers from their perceived number of active owners per country which might differ from Groundspeak's '1% of the owners' as project-gc seems to guess which country a cacher 'belongs to' from caching activity and the +-400 volunteers also included in the 4000 might not be evenly spread over countries.

 

I would think that about +-2% of the 'bigger' (more than 50 expected new virtuals) countries' new virtuals might have been transferred to other countries, partly neighbouring ones, but also worldwide to other continents. For small countries with only a handfull or less new possible virtuals a potential 'loss' could result in high(er) percentage.

 

The number of already archived new virtuals per country has no relevance to me compared to the suspected +-1300 of all new new virtuals that were never published before being archived. These archived before published obviously can't be the same percentage for all countries. Czechia and Portugal might end at 10 and 5 new virtuals that were archived before publish,  the US might end at far more than 600 new virtuals (awarded for geocachers in US) that were archived before published  - if project-gc didn't completely screw up their numbers.

 

The picture doesn't seem too unlikely given the various comments in forums and what I heard elsewhere. If there are plenty old ones left, maybe there is less pressure and less interest than in countries that had no virtuals at all or only a few ones. In some countries the craze is bigger regarding different and rare cachetypes and geocachers generally are more fanatic than elsewhere.

 

[Some data on the Virtual Rewards]

1 hour ago, Moun10Bike said:

 

I can assure you that no virtual rewards were converted to an event or anything else. There were a couple of regular cache submissions that snuck into the queue while the virtual rewards were being generated and that appear to have errantly received the "congratulations on your virtual reward" boiler log, but they were not seen or treated as virtual rewards in any other way.

 

The case of the event indeed has to be a super coincidence. The event date was months after the first virtuals popped up.

 

Looking at the order how the virtuals were distributed I also would have bet this one had to be a former virtual. Funny case.

 

Regarding the other statistics I would think it is a bit early to resume because a few percent may still sit in review-queues or being worked on.

 

Example: Today there were 5 new virtuals published for Austria, a total of 60 new virtuals instead of 55 yesterday.

 

I was surprised that the number of actually published virtuals compared to awarded (taking first rough estimation ofrom project-gc from last year which seemed to be derived from the number of owners for each country, probably the assignment of owners to countries was guessing the country by caching activity and is not 100% the same as using home coordinates of owners, but close) virtuals differs a lot between countries.

 

From less than 50% to 100%, overall it might end somewhere at 65-67%.

 

It seems that countries that had no or only a few virtuals were more 'hungry' than countries that already (or still) have plenty of them.

 

Some virtuals were 'moved' to other countries and more exotic places, but to me it seems that for the bigger countries the actual 'loss' is maybe less than 3%. For a country with only one virtual that is moved elsewhere it would be 100% 'loss'.