wmpastor

I've traveled to about 20 different countries in the past 10 years and have never had customs look through my luggage. In most countries you don't even have to fill out a customs declaration form and can just follow the "nothing to declare" signs after going through immigration. Entering the U.S. is one of the few exceptions, where you actually have to stop and hand a declaration form to a customs agent who might ask a couple of questions regarding where you had been and the reason for traveling. I've seen a couple of other variations. In Ethiopia I had to run my luggage through a x-ray machine before leaving the airport. In Mexico city, there was a button that you had to push that activated a red or green light. I saw several people push it and it always lit the green light, but I assume if the red light went on you'd have to stop and talk to a customs agent. I've been through quite a few airports where there were officers with submachine guns (including Paris). It might be a bit shocking because it's something that you don't see in the U.S. but it's "normal" in may places.

Interesting listing. The CO is interesting too. He has -0- finds & owns 1cache - the oldest unfound one. Publicity seeker?

Apparently according to some posts, FTFs are not like wine that tastes better after a few years, but more like soda that has gone flat!

Spying on the FTF crowd! I love it! Thanks SO much for the great, entertaining idea!

You've got THAT right! This topic is called "FTF chickens." The next topic could be called "FTF Whackos"!

Bad coords on a FTF quest are annoying. The posting for one near here said something like, "If you get better coords, let me know and I'll update them." He was 70 feet off....and he wasn't new to the game. Have also seen noobs publish caches with bad coords, of course.

I was surprised by the comment suggesting mystification at why someone was watching a cache. If I see an interesting listing, I may watch it. These are sometimes caches I have found, sometimes caches I intend to find, and sometimes caches I will probably never find. I get the email notices of postings, and it's interesting to see what's happening. My reason for watching is slightly different in each situation, but the general theme is, this is a cache that interests me, and I enjoy seeing the "news" and "activity" regarding the cache. I am now watching a cache in Austria that bills itself as "Biggest Cache in Austria" (written in German), and consists of an entire underground wine cellar with its own ground-level door (and hidden key). Facinating postings from visitors! I also enjoy watching extremely difficult caches.

After all, newer cachers have had less time to build up their "postings count." So the real test of either brilliance or verbosity (depending on who you ask) is not total posts, it is average posts per day (for you statistics-lovers)!

A full range of statistics should be provided. For example, average posts per day, what day of the week you post most often ... well, you get the idea. There are the cachers, and there are the "arm-chair cachers," it seems!

I suggest one more item in the suitcase - a page or so printed out on the subject of "what is geocaching?" Why? To cover a worst-case scenario, which I presume is why the question was raised in this forum in the first place. The camo tape will clear US inspection for airline security, we all agree. Now imagine the inspection on arrival in a third-world country. The Customs Officer opens the suitcase. Officers with submachine guns stand near the exits. (I'm not dreaming this up - I've seen it!) The Officer asks, why the camo tape? The adult bringing it in says it's for a hide-&-seek game. The Officer looks at you like you've got two heads and you're escorted to a back room for a more thorough search and interview. Etc. Let us know how it turns out after you're back from your trip.

Okay, got it! It worked! Here's a short summary for the complete novice (like I was). (This deals with the "background" or "border" image. The photo in the listing itself process is similar, and is described in some of the other posts.) Save any desired photo to your computer desktop (choose one that will look good when repeated side-by-side or "tiled"). Open up your cache listing. Select "uplod photo" & upload the photo to the listing just like you would a photo of the park or whatever (no editing yet). Then move the title of the photo, right from the cache listing, to the website browser address bar. A new listing appears in the address box. Copy it. Then click "edit" on your cache listing. Go to the "background" line and paste what you just copied. Check the "agree to" boxes at the bottom and submit. Open the cache listing. Your background is there. Don't quite like it? Repeat the process with a new photo. Done!

And I guess it's the same for a tiling border picture - just paste the self-generated url into the appropriate box while editing. Thanks!

Okay, can someone give me a short, basic run-through of the process to add the image? I understand where to put the URL for the repeated, tiling image. What I need is a photo of tree bark for a listing. I've seen plenty online. What do I do next? Do all stock photos even have a URL? Suppose I have the image on my computer (.png, .jpeg, etc.). Can't I use that? Thanks.

Sounds like we've solved the shipping issues, but we're all interested to know what country you're going to that doesn't sell camo tape.

We'll wait for the computer gurus to give a longer answer, but the short answer is that you can always edit the listing, and then use standard HTML script to add text, graphics, color, banners, photos, etc. Just click "edit" and do your thing. Not familiar with HTML? Neither was I, but with a bit of help from friends or online, you can do it. All the basic HTML commands already exist, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel and actually write programming script. You just cut and paste them in.

Not every kid is adept with computers, even though most are.....

I am very strongly in the camp of those who like their TB's to "visit" multiple caches. What's the difference if one cacher takes my TB to "visit" 10 caches, versus 10 cachers "placing" it in 10 caches??? The "visits" method gets the TB to more places faster. That's a good thing! I've done the "visits" routine with TB's I've picked up - but in moderation. A few visits to give it some mileage, get it around, add some history. Then I place it and let others take their turn.

Here's another point. Don't just think of "how close can I place it and still get it approved?" Think of the comfort level of the cachers. Some cachers will not want to do caches in settings where there is a chance that someone will consider them suspicious. It's stressful to have to explain geocaching to a police officer, as I can imagine, having heard this from two nearby cachers.

Just curious - if the married team divorces, who gets the joint cache account??? It would be bad enough to lose your house, but a true horror to lose your 5, 000 finds!