The Leprechauns

I don't think this would work well as a souvenir idea, as holidays are spread throughout the year, and there's so many of them. If the programmers left out "Queen Gertrude's Birthday," the entire geocaching population of Slobbovia would be offended and alienated. The idea would work quite well as a challenge cache, keyed to the local holidays. ("Find a cache on each of the 12 holidays listed below" or "Find a cache hidden on each of the 10 holidays listed below.")

Here are screenshots for what you should see, after you've filtered your GSAK database to define the caches you wish to export.

I'm anticipating a souvenir for Israel. The active local community there makes a great case for being recognized. There's a large number of caches and a steady stream of tourists. In 2015 I was one of those tourists!

I enjoy viewing my souvenirs in order of date earned, over on Project-GC.com, or from my profile screen on the official Geocaching smartphone app.

It appears that your New Years' resolution to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative" is already working! If you want a better example of a doofus geocacher, I am happy to provide personal details from some of my cache hunts.

W077 is represented by a minus symbol and I do not see one in your URL link. Are you sure you input your corrected coordinates properly?

I'm happy you found everyone's responses to be helpful! Good luck with your State Park permit and the January event. Caches like what you've described are the ones I enjoy visiting when traveling, and Indiana is very much on my radar for future trips.

Are any of your finds on caches for which publication was retracted?

The app really isn't designed for hiding caches, it's for finding them. Use the planning map to "plan before you go." The cache saturation guideline doesn't apply to earthcaches (except regarding other earthcaches with similar subject matter).

I write to nearly everyone who logs my virtual cache, except for the most uninspiring of TFTC logs. It lets the finder know that the work they did in collecting the verification answers was received, reviewed and appreciated. Some of these exchanges have led to more ongoing correspondence, which is great.

Oooh! Automated "Travel Bug Health Score" email messages. That would be fun! ?

I load caches to my Garmin 62 via GSAK. Sometimes, special characters foul up the entire waypoint load. In GSAK the special characters show up as question marks. When I see these, I put the cache on my ignore list so it doesn't mess up loading the caches I want to find. So, while the hider might think that emoji's make their page look fun or pretty, they're unintentionally screening out potential finders of their cache. At least this one.

A few weeks ago, when finding three "Geo-Art" series, I signed our team name in on blank spots around the prior group's rubber stamp, which took up tons of room on a micro log. I saved space and thus did the CO a maintenance favor. Yesterday, I bushwacked across a swamp to find a cache where the prior finder had left the lid off. The log was soaked. If I lifted the pages to find the most recent signatures, the log would disintegrate. So, I signed on the exposed paper, carefully placed the lid back on, and notified the CO of the issue I encountered. I have signed micro and nano logs sideways when all the lines are full. I've signed logs upside down when it's pouring down rain and I don't want to rearrange the papers, lest they get wet. Please don't tell me that there's a "right way" to scribble "Leprechaun" on a piece of paper.

I looked at an example of a notification log from when I performed Owner Maintenance on one of my own caches. (See attached) I can find nothing objectionable or confusing in the grammar or in the structure of the notification. Could the OP please clarify exactly what they're asking about?

Fun for cache owners: 1. Set up cache with coordinates at the exact center of your home area's nastiest swamp, thorn thicket, toxic waste dump, etc. 2. Drop trackables in your unpublished cache page. 3. Make popcorn and monitor Facebook, message center, etc. for stories of valiant, unsuccessful searches for an unpublished cache. 4. Correct the coordinates to match the nice tree stump at the side of the trail through the nature center. 5. Submit your cache for review and publication.

I'm not sure it works right to just search in a pocket query for caches within 3000 miles. Isn't the limit 500 miles or something? I do "wide ranging pocket queries" by selecting the countries and states I wish to search. For a search of the entire USA, I highlight all of the states. (You only need to do this once and then save the PQ as a template - you don't need to actually run it, just preview the results each time you alter the search parameters for different date ranges, etc.) A search on all US States for caches hidden in November 2000 should have turned up 12 caches, including "No Walk in the Park" outside of Dallas (which I found for my first Jasmer loop) and "Alvin's Phone Line," the oldest cache in Minnesota, which I'm planning on finding for my second Jasmer loop. Both of these are more than 500 miles from your home coordinates, I believe.

I'm also working on my Double Jasmer. In addition to the Project-GC tool, here are some other ideas: The oldest months (year 2000) are the rarest. Fortunately there are many bookmark lists that collect these golden oldie caches. Scan through the bookmark lists for ideas on caches that will fill your hardest missing months. Run pocket queries limited to placement dates you need, but over a broad geographical area like listing all the US states where you regularly go caching, or states that you plan on traveling to. For example, if the only July 2000 cache you've found is "Power Island" -- I did the same -- then run a pocket query limited by placement date of 7/1/00 to 7/31/00 for all US States, and you'd discover "Tarryall," the oldest active cache in Colorado. For my Double Jasmer, I made sure to find Tarryall when I visited my daughter, who lives in Colorado, a couple of months ago. If you are a GSAK user, sort your cache database by placement date and scan down the list for months you need, or apply a filter to show only caches hidden in a month that you need.

Here are my long term goals. I will not achieve all of them next year, but it will be fun to return to this thread in a year and see which ones I met or made progress on. 1. To find at least 250 "Challenge Caches" (212 so far). 2. Complete the Ohio History Challenge (28 old school caches down, 14 to go). 3. Complete the Ohio 360 Degree Challenge (245 degrees cached, 115 to go). 4. To find caches in contiguous counties from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast (8 counties to go). 5. To find caches in contiguous counties from the US northern border to southern border (13 counties to go). 6. To log at least 2 finds on each of the 81 Terrain & Difficulty Star combinations ("Double Fizzy" - 5 grids left). 7. To find at least two caches hidden in each month since May 2000 ("Double Jasmer" - 4 months left). 8. To find caches in all 50 US states and DC (46 down, 5 to go). 9. To find 360 virtual caches (266 down, 94 to go). 10. To find 150 letterbox hybrid caches (110 down, 40 to go).

Geocaching HQ said this on May 25, 2016, when the challenge cache moratorium ended: It's been more than two years since then. Personally, I remain in favor of an attribute for challenge caches, but not a new cache type. I think the requirement for "Challenge" in the title, plus the tools at Project-GC.com, make it easy enough to find challenge caches to seek out. It would be a lot of work to migrate existing challenge caches to a new type, since not every mystery cache with "challenge" in the title is, in fact, a challenge cache. Also, since the majority of my mystery cache finds are challenges, creating a challenge cache type would (ironically) disqualify me for several challenges for which I'm presently qualified.

A huge thumbs-up for mentioning this. I recently did a caching roadtrip across Kansas, and was unexpectedly surprised at the quality and variety of the caches we found. What I expected to be a boring drive on Interstate 70 transformed into an adventure in creative gadget caches. In large part, this is due to the efforts of ottieolsen. Click here for ottieolsen's hides, sorted by favorite points.

You can see how many people earned each Planetary Pursuit and Hidden Creature souvenir here on Project-GC.com - the numbers decrease predictably as the levels go up.

I went on a geocaching roadtrip last weekend - my first since the latest promotion began. I wasn't keeping track of my points, so it was quite a surprise when the "you've earned a souvenir" message popped up. Coincidentally, that happened when I finished logging one of my primary targets for the roadtrip: Grand View, a two stage letterbox hybrid cache in a Victorian cemetery overlooking Chillicothe, Ohio. I wanted to find this cache, more than 150 miles from my home, as part of qualifying for the "Ohio History Challenge." The cache made my "Top 5% Greatest Cache Hunts" bookmark list - one of the first 100 bookmark lists ever created on Geocaching.com. I like how I earned this souvenir in style! Here is the view at stage one of the cache:

Martinsburg, West Virginia is the place to go and enjoy WVTim's famous "gadget caches." There are other terrific cache hiders in the area, including GR8Caches. From Martinsburg, you can travel west to hike in the mountains, or to the east to experience the history in places like Harpers Ferry, Baltimore and Washington, DC.

I'm a budding county cacher, having just topped 500 counties cached. I like planning in GSAK (using any map choice other than Google to show counties), and in Project-GC (especially the "Map Counties" tool). I am learning how to use Cachetur, which looks to be the best resource of all to bring with you into the field after the planning is finished.

raistlin306, thanks for the follow up post. Those specifics are a lot easier to think about and discuss than a general request to get rid of the official Geocaching app. I agree with you on Cachly's capabilities for filtering and working with trackables in the field. I have all my bookmark lists and pocket queries available to me on the official app, which makes me happy since that is how I transfer my planning at home into a cache plan on my smartphone. Most of the other Cachly features you cited aren't important to me, since I do my planning at home 90% of the time. I think the answer to your questions about when other features will come to the official app is this: the goal of the official app is to provide a good basic tool for finding caches with a smartphone. If you find yourself needing more than that, then invest in a more full-featured app like Cachly. That's why there is an API that is used well by Cachly's developers and by other authorized API partners. A good analogy: I am a personal statistics junkie. The official statistics on my profile just don't cut it for me, so I use Project-GC and I support that site with a voluntary membership and additional financial contribution. I am glad that you've found the additional features you need by using Cachly. I don't feel a need for them.