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In our company we make employee interviews once a year, where team leaders and employees talk about the (not) accomplished goals of the last year, the goals, trainings etc. of the upcoming year, and so on. My team leader fortunately doesn't like to do these interviews at the office. Instead he tries to find a place that the specific employee likes. He and I share the hobby of taking photos, so we always try to find a city or place with good motifs for taking photos and after taking photos we eat lunch in some restaurant and make the interview there. Last year we drove to Hollabrunn and afterwards I was able to create several waymarks. The year before it was Retz and I also created several waymarks back in 2018. And this year I found another great spot. Another "city with a population with more than 10,000 and no single Waymark" for the Waymarking Challenge. So, fingers crossed that I find enough waymarks to once again fulfill this challenge. But, most of all I'm looking forward to this trip, because we will also visit the only Bismarck tower in Austria. So far there are only 46 waymarks in the Bismarck Towers category and mine will be and remain the first and only waymark in Austria. WooooooHoooooo!!!!! Depending on the weather and the mood of my team leader we might also visit some other spots that will help me fill my category grid, but for now I keep dancing when I think of the Bismarck Tower. And even if you tell me, that the approval of a waymark in that category can take a loooong time, I will still not stop dancing.

And it's scary talk like that that helps explain why foreign visitor numbers to the the USA have dropped. And why I hear people here in Australia (and I can imagine in Europe too) warning friends not to visit the USA and if they want to go to that part of the world visit Canada instead. (That and your unfriendly immigration officials who make the most outrageous claims that are rarely encountered when visiting other countries. Such that your biggest desire is to stay and work in the USA. Really...um, NO WAY! There are whole threads on the internet about this one.) Thank goodness I live in a country that knows that civilisation is not toting around guns. For whatever his other faults were, the Conservative Prime Minister John Howard will be long remembered and thanked by Australians for bringing in gun control (guns are not banned in Australia despite the lies spread). Sensible laws such as a background check and banning military style guns...except for the military. He had a big job doing this and his coalition party leader Tim Fischer was even in a tougher position, standing up to many in his party to get legislation through. Many people are alive today because of this. It is possible to own a gun in Australia. Just give a reason, such as being a farmer, hunting, belonging to a gun club, and then being able to pass the background check. No big deals, but makes gun ownership a lot safer. I had two friends (and had met a third person) killed at the Port Arthur massacre which triggered this. Within days the men had built a case for gun control and proved they were leaders.

SLT, I wouldn't expect that combination to be well supported. Phones with GPS have been common for 8+ years at this point and development mindshare for add-on devices just isn't wide. Additionally, Groundspeak recently wrecked their developer interface and required extensive changes from apps that talk to the site, so most of the old versions of any apps you'll find appropriate for that phone - even before GLO - are not at all likely to work these days. You don't say if you already have the GLO, but if you're really wanting to stay geocaching with a phone, Moto makes some really good entry-level devices with GPS that'll run modern apps for about the same price as the GLO. (They're very popular in the weather balloon projects in schools...) Not to threadjack, but lots of Androids DO have that option. xda-developers.com Android builds like LineageOS focus on exactly the problem you're describing: capable hardware that's abandoned by the maker not keeping it up to date.

I was bushwhacking towards a dirt road. I'd been cross country checking out two spots visible from aerials, as possible springs and possible cache locations (no). Green Swamp West is opened to hikers, bikers, horseback riders and geocaching. Open to vehicles only by hunters, and only a few days each year during Special Opportunity hunts. During special hunts, area closes to all other users. Driver of officially marked truck on the road noticed me. Laid on horn, and got out of the car and waved me to him. I wasn't real happy about this, it wasn't my line of travel, and I figured he could come to me to talk. And he kept hitting the horn over and over, even after I'd acknowledged him and was headed his way. As I got close he started shouting, his language was inappropriate. I got onto the road, read his name tag. Addressed him by name, objected to the $!%*&* language, and asked what the issue was? He did apologize for the word choice. But stayed loud, aggressive and hostile, told me he was going to arrest me for being there during a Special Opportunity hunt. I asked if he were lost? That I'd be happy to help him locate Green Swamp EAST, where it was Special Opportunity Spring Turkey. He didn't speak again, got into the truck and left.

Yes! We have done that many times although when my husband makes believe he's talking on the cell...he doesn't talk or move his lips. lol Looks suspicious when he does it!

My assumption was that reviewers might only do this when they happen to know the exact location, e.g. probably not all that often. I don't really know how much responsibility any individual reviewer has to enforce any particular rule, so I perhaps wouldn't go there. Well no, I was assuming the multi was blocking large area, as that was the premise. (somewhere between a single waypoint and an entire town) Addressed in my premise: "unobtainable to most cachers for a reason that isn't related to the location (e.g. a run-of-the-mill T5 tree climb near a waterfall) ". There's also been talk of "dumbing down" things, which I haven't perhaps properly addressed after that premise, but I did mean unobtainable in a fairly literal sense here. The argument wasn't for popularity at all costs, and that wouldn't be an argument I could ever see myself supporting. Take your example puzzle cache, almost anyone can go look some letters in a sign if they choose to; it's just that some don't want to. But the skill and gear for T5 climbing or scuba diving, or the intelligence/domain-specific knowledge required for certain types of puzzle present a barrier that can't be overcome by simple choice. In fact there's probably a very finite set of people in any area that can ever do those caches. The few hour hikes and boat caches that don't require an actual seaworthy boat and skill fall somewhere in the grey area in my mind. I'm still healthy enough to do that kind of thing fairly effortlessly, and I kinda like doing them, so I might easily come to think that anyone could. But that might be biased. It will but the reviewer wouldn't normally even know what the container is. So what was the scenario you imagined that this would come up in? I imagined a perhaps inexperienced CO asking the reviewer, typically a more experienced cacher, if their container of choice was fine, and getting an answer like "that container type has the following known issues: [...] so it might be a good idea to consider something else if those issues apply to your hiding place." I'm getting the idea that you think reviewers shouldn't be able to talk about this kind of thing at all, so I thought it relevant to point out that the example you chose is something reviewers were arguably meant to enforce at one point. E.g. that the "allowed topics" can change. Of course now that it's been agreed that PTs are ok, individual reviewers have to stick to that. If that's trivially possible, then I guess the location isn't completely blocked. I guess I'm assuming either the reviewer would notice that and not ask, or the CO would notice that and point it out in their response to the reviewer and that would be the end of it. I own a multi, the last time I found a multi was today. But my premise to this was "Ignoring remote locations for a while, is there any merit to this type of targeting of unpopular caches in otherwise busy caching areas?" And I said I have not decided what my own opinion on this is, but acknowledged that I'd play the devil's advocate if need be. So if you'd like to discuss this further, could you perhaps do it without making it be about me personally? I was taking "leaving almost no space for anyone else" to entail that there in fact is someone else. From this response, and your many others, I understand this generally doesn't seem to be the case in your area. So if these were the rules and I were a reviewer in your area, I probably wouldn't think they apply. (As a side note, that kind of location would have been great use of one of the new virtual caches.)

We talk about Argyle Socks, replacing one square at a time.

Vielen Dank schon mal für Eure Antworten... In der Tat geht es mir eher weniger um die GEMA Thematik. Die ist mir in groben Zügen bekannt. Auch, dass die GEMA bei jeder Gelegenheit zuschlägt, ob es nun passend sei oder nicht. Auf Musik würde ich sicherheitshalber bei JEDEM Event verzichten. Bezüglich öffentlichem oder privatem Event hatte ich mal versucht selber im Internet zu recherchieren hatte aber nichts zufriedenstellendes gefunden. Deswegen hatte ich die Frage ins Forum gestellt, um zu erfahren, ob sich andere schon mit der Thematik beschäftigt haben. Tenor im Internet scheint zu sein: wenn man alle Leute persönlich mit Namen und Vornamen kennt und schon eine persönliche Beziehung zu den Teilnehmern vor diesem Event bestand, dann wäre es ein privates Event. Sobald man die Leute nicht mehr persönlich kennt (also zum Beispiel nur der Cachername) oder die Anzahl über 100 Personen ginge (außer bei Hochzeiten) wäre es ein öffentliches Event. Ich mache mir da keine Sorgen für Sit-and-Talk Events. Oder Meet-and-Greet-Events. Allerdings hatte ich die Idee mal etwas mit originellen Spielen zu veranstalten, und da tut es mal ganz gut zu wissen, worauf man sich eigentlich einlässt. Wahrscheinlich ist das wohl der Grund, warum es für größere Events oft "Geocaching e.V." gibt. Nur ginge mir dies organisatorisch zu weit. Wahrscheinlich werde ich wohl doch wieder auf "Wo kein Kläger da kein Richter" spekulieren... Viele Grüße, Remburn

We are pretty new to geocaching. We started it some years ago but quit do to a very bad experience unrelated to what I am writing here. I want to make a travel bug hotel. Here are my ideas so far and if you have thoughts that would improve it let me know. It will be on our property near a hwy and active park so it seems like a good place for people to drop off or pick up travel bugs. There is a lane way on the least used corner of our property where geocachers won't disturb our dogs. There is a dense bunch of cedars beside that laneway and the cache will be tucked in there. The cache is an old Canada Post mail collection box that was put out of commission decades ago and given to me as a gift. Inside I want to put in a plastic tool drawers for the hotel "rooms". I want to set it up with a fun theme like that famous one in Florida did such as have a hotel lobby were the large TBs can hang out and a box of tradables as well as the log book. I want the hotel to be precisely at the co ordinates. I know how to do that by checking carefully multiple times on different devices. I want to make opening the lock on the cache a good tough challenge. I've been working on ideas for this. When we first started geocaching two things turned me off. One is still to upsetting to talk about. The other one was buying a geocoin, giving it an assignment and putting it in a cache only to have it stolen that same day. I say stolen because it was never logged as removed from the cache, never entered a new cache, and is now marked unknown. I have 2 unknowns now. I realize it happens but when you first start it makes for disappointment. I sent out a stunning Ontario coin and was quite worried about it. I would like to retire it and get it back. I wonder if that can happen? Thankfully it is in safe hands that keep it visiting caches and I can learn about it's travels. I have purchased a number of geotags, geocoins, and travel buddies and have been holding them, building up to stock this TB hotel. I won't put them all in at once but release them slowly. Hopefully my cache will provide a safe place for other people wanting to move TBs along their assigned missions. My hope is that people would read the missions of the TBs and only take one if they can help move it on it's mission. For example, I have a friend with a tb that he wants to have go to harbours. If you don't plan to go to harbours then leave his TB for someone who can. That seems fair to me. I have one that's mission is to visit forests, that is pretty easy and so I expect it to move frequently. People grabbing all the TBs in a cache might not be stopping to read their missions and see if they can help the owner move them in the direction they wish. It doesn't feel thoughtful to empty a cache of TBs just because you can hog them without thinking of their owner and the assigned missions. The owner wants them moved along yes but according to their missions. Someone here mentioned they feel TBs are becoming somewhat rare. If that is true could it be from people who grab them and hoard them, people who had them in their possession when they quit the game, and from caches that were muggled? Those aspects would discourage someone from buying TBs. I think a secure TB hotel cache could be a fun and useful place if it is near where people travel through. I think cachers are on their honour to take only the TBs whose mission they can help and leave some for others, preferably swapping with one you are carrying if it doesn't contradict or impede the mission of the TB.

The makeup of a local region's cache landscape really is dependent on the local community. I get the concern - it would be annoying if say a whole neighbourhood was taken up with LPCs. Or tree climbs. Or challenge caches. Or ... whatever. OTOH if the community likes it, they really do sort of dictate the 'feel' of their own community. I think the way to change that would be to change people's thoughts about what geocaching is, or can be, in their local community. Groundspeak won't implement a worldwide style-guide for the variety of cache experiences within some arbitrary regional scope. The closest they've got to that is the proximity rule. That's about as universal as it can get it. The other age-old recommendation is - hide what you like to find. Put a watch on a caches close to where you'd rather see a different style of hide. If/when that gets archived, snap up the location as fast as you can. Or talk to that cache CO and see if they'd be willing to give up the spot for a hide of another style. Again I get it - in my area we have some regions that are blanketed with the same styles of hides. But those regions become known for that style of hide. If anyone wants to change that, there are ways to go about it. But HQ won't tell people "Nah you can't put a T5 there because there's a bunch of other T5's in the forest 10km away for people to find", or "...there's a beautiful waterfall right there, try to make it a T2 so more people can enjoy it", or something like that. The game is filled with variety, but ultimately the community shapes the face of their local geocaching hobby.

Sounds like the problem has been resolved, and even though I'm still not sure what the problem or the solution was, I'm going to guess that the reviewer thought someone could find the fairy light by just knowing it's "somewhere around here", then find the cache from there without a GPSr. GS draws a fine line here. It's hard to understand, and I'm not sure it's worth drawing, but it is a reasonable requirement, so I can't argue with it. Even though you posted coordinates, even though you gave them an offset to follow, you've nullified all that if you then say, "the cache is at the foot of the statue of Joe Shmoe" since, assume Joe Shmoe's statue is an obvious feature of the park you told them the cache was in, you've turned it into a follow the clues game instead of a follow the coordinates game. In your case, it sounds like you just needed to be more clear. That's the big lesson here: always, always, always, your first reaction to a rejection should be to talk it over with the reviewer until you fully understand the rejection...or the reviewer understands what wasn't originally clear that makes his objection invalid.

Welcome from down by Toronto! I assume you're talking about this cache: https://coord.info/GC1QDGN You could log a Needs Maintenance on it, but it already has 5 NM logs. From the looks of the logs, the cache owner doesn't do maintenance on it anyway. Even with the 5 Needs Maintenance logs is has, there has been no owner maintenance. Many of the Found It logs talk about a broken container. If it were me, I'd log a Needs Archived on it - to alert the reviewer to the issues, since the Needs Maintenance logs haven't gotten any response from the CO. I'd post facts in the NA log, such as, "This cache was in a tree that has fallen. The cache listing has 5 unanswered NM logs on it, and many mentions of a broken container. The CO has not responded to these logs. (I don't know how to log a NA or NM using the app. You can log in on the website, go to the above link, and click on Log Geocache, then Write Note, then Report a Problem.)

You're not getting any of the issues here ? Talk locally shows I'm not the only one who's got most of 'em. I can log, but then I have to click on the cache link from the blank log page, and refresh before I get back to the cache page (to see if my log's even there).

Read my irk on the irk thread. I was brought to this thread by another member on that thread who thought it would be helpful. Okay, so I went back however many pages in that thread and found your first post, and yes, it looks pretty much as I surmised. So my advice still stands: contact the CO, explain the situation and ask them about those signatures. Were they intended to be official finds or just a bit of fun for their kids? The easiest way to solve things like this is to talk to those involved.

Sure, but actually the guideline is "Cannot be set up for the sole purpose of finding geocaches." The events are as usual, a meeting of folks to talk about the hobby. They get an "Attended" for the event. What they do afterwards is up to them. I usually wait a day or two, so I'm not "waiting-in-A-line..." to sign logs... We did a scavenger hunt-like event with others, with prizes for time. Takes all day. The event's afterwards. There's one in a state nearby (we attended a couple) that has folks caching in the snow before the event that's held at a pub. One doesn't have to participate in either to get the "attended" for the event itself.

I kinda feel the same. I'm really picky about areas I'll visit. I'd be at that "remote" location. If it was changed to a spot unrecognizable to the area I visited (like in town...) , it'd be a subject of discussion at events. I'm not a numbers person, so my find deleted, and the use of the ignore function would be my first move. - But I feel the Reviewer here might try to talk them out of it, the new location not close to original. Odd, but many locally actually agree on this thinking (which is rare), when this came up last. The CO should really take past finders into consideration. They think they weren't getting much activity before...

I know this thread is 1 1/2 years old, but it's something we talk about on Waymarking. We visit Little Free Libraries all over the place, everywhere we travel. I've found some great reading material in those book exchanges! So yes, they really do get used! We leave fresh books in LFL when we travel (and magazines that are sent to me and I can't get cancelled!). There are stamps you can use that say something along the lines of Not for Sale, donated to a LFL. Visiting these libraries is one of my favorite things to do when I travel. I've really enjoyed browsing the books and leaving something I hope someone else will enjoy. That is so cool! I love the poker chip, too!

I would talk to the reviewer. Although his note talks about "for lack of maintenance", this is obviously boilerplate, and, I would assume, the phrase is not meant to apply specifically to this cache. In a sense, you disabled the cache because you were doing maintenance: you found a problem and were working on fixing it. Whether that was the reviewer's intent of not, it still seems excessively strict to penalize you for disabling the cache instead of archiving it. I'm pretty sure I've been seeing caches unarchived in cases like this regularly, although not frequently. So I have reason to suspect that at least my local reviewer is open to discussion about reviving a cache even though the strict letter of the law says he shouldn't. In my opinion, the rule about not unarchiving a cache is meant to avoid a CO that doesn't maintain his caches from continually letting his caches slip into archival and then pulling them back out at his convenience. I would hope that a CO with a good track record would get a break when the log seems to make a good case for the CO being forgetful rather than irresponsible.

If I had never found geocaching.... I would not have met so many wonderful people both here in Australia and on my overseas travels. The friendships I've made are amazing. Also, as a result of this game, I was invited onto Danish Community Radio in Copenhagen for a two hour program to discuss geocaching in Australia. We even had talk back with people phoning in to ask questions. It was a hoot!!!!!

Right. We archived an entire series because the area was changing, with very-large trees falling (a couple while we were there), and we felt safety a concern. - Attention not a given with many we've seen for a while now. There's more than a few videos on phones and attention... If I'm busy and folks don't know my phone number (I talk on the phone), it might be a day or better before I get back to them. I think it's really odd that someone would assume that I'd "appreciate" whatever throwdown they'd leave "to help me out". We've never used mediocre containers. Since I'd have to go back to replace the container they left anyway, I'd rather they log a NM and move on... - Though we act on logs, fixing 'em before waiting for a NM. "Log damp" not needing a NM a few weeks later to go fix... Now if they're replacing 30/50cals with 81mm mortar boxes, I've still got half a pallet for trade.

I have a cute "getting permission" story to share. We wanted to do a simple light pole cache (a match stick cache we bought on geocache.com). The parking lot it was standing in was a quaint minimall. We asked one of the store owners who owned the parking lot and explained why. He knew about geocaching and was very helpful, gave us the name & number of the owner and also said he would talk to him. We called the owner, explained what geocaching was, and asked if we could leave a "cache" under his light post. It was fine with him and then asked us...who keeps the "cash" people leave behind. lol

Old topic but it is coming around again. There is again talk of barring anyone that doesn't have a hunting license from hiking on PA Gamelands. Applies year round regardless of hunting seasons.

Moderators rarely start forum topics, but I hope the community can indulge me this soapbox to mark the occasion of my 20,000th forum post. Here is a collection of things I wanted to discuss. 20,000 Posts is quite a posting power trail. Why, and do you have a life? Those posts accumulated over 16 years. I've been a moderator since the very first day when the forums had volunteer moderators. Those posts are a combination of steering discussion participants towards following the forum guidelines, explaining the cache hiding guidelines and process, and helping people (especially newcomers) by answering questions about how geocaching works. I like that last part the most. I enjoy helping people and, like all who read this, I love reading and talking about geocaching. How are the forums now, versus 2003? When I first became a moderator, the forums were like the wild wild west. It was super busy and super chaotic, 24/7. New flame wars lit up every week. In part, that was because there were no moderators from 2000 to 2003. Jeremy Irish did a lot of the explaining and moderating. His style was blunt and direct, and that tended to stir up the beehive. Also, we didn't have the tools back then to moderate effectively, like permanently locking threads, efficiently stopping spammers, and suspending posting rights when appropriate. Finally, Geocaching HQ has improved greatly since then, with a supportive staff that helps head off problems in the community and to ensure consistency in application of the site terms of use, cache hiding guidelines, and forum guidelines. That wild west label applied in 2003 to site volunteers, too - myself included. My ego thought I owned this place. I didn't. Today, we can go for hours with few or no forum posts, and flame wars are pretty rare. One reason for the drop in traffic is the popularity of social media. Geocachers love to talk about geocaching, and now there are many ways to do that which didn't exist in 2003: Facebook, twitter, blogs, vlogs, etc. This is a good thing. So, how are the forums still relevant? Heading into 2020, in my opinion the two highest and best uses where the Geocaching Forums stand out are (1) helping newcomers and others with questions, and (2) announcing and explaining website features, changes and promotions. Newcomers often find the forums first, and they tend to receive more complete, accurate answers than in other channels. Site features are best discussed here and in other Geocaching HQ social media - announcements can't be posted to hundreds of local Facebook groups. I know that a lot of people read here, but don't post - they link to discussions and carry the news to their local community by posting elsewhere. If that's you, thank you for doing that, and please consider joining the discussions here. How can the forums be better? Be kind to others, especially newcomers. It may be the 132nd thread you've read, asking how it's possible to find hundreds of geocaches in a single day, but the person asking doesn't know that. Don't scare them off. Be nice to veterans, too - it is boring when everyone agrees with you, so keep an open mind when someone expresses an opinion which differs from yours. Finally, stay on topic and keep your posts relevant. Not every remark requires a reply. One of the best features of the forums is that there's an easily searchable, permanent database of answers about geocaching. Don't clog up the search results unnecessarily. Thank you for reading this, and for affording me the privilege of serving the geocaching community as a volunteer forum moderator. It's an honor and a pleasure.

I noticed that too. Requiring the event to last 2 hours implies that HQ feels these are elaborate, special events with a lot going on. This seems to conflict with the 20200 number, which implies the exact opposite (widespread, common events). While officially these events will be listed as being 2 hours or longer, the reality is that many will end up being shorter, especially after cachers have attended a dozen of them already. We'll thus have totally expected conflicts as follows: ...10 CC events are held in an area... The 11th CC event in the area is held, with a listed event length of 2 hours 30 minutes into the event, everyone realizes there really isn't much more to talk about since the CC event last month (and the organizer couldn't think up many activities that haven't already been done at the other 10 events). The attendees gradually leave until only the organizer remains. 1 hour into the event, the organizer gets tired of sitting there doing nothing, so they leave. 1.5 hours into the event, another cacher arrives. Not seeing anyone else there, they log that they attended and leave. The organizer, having not seen the above cacher at the event, deletes what they see as a bogus log. Drama ensues. Sure, that might not happen. I bet it does, though.

For anyone interested there have been a couple podcasts this week about Wherigo. The first one is put out by Groundspeak and gives a little information about the development of Wherigo. Although the part about Wherigo is pretty short, it still gives some interesting history about the team who created Wherigo. https://www.geocaching.com/blog/podcast/episode-31-jen-smith/ The second video is a tutorial/template for creating a simple Wherigo with URWIGO. Enjoy!