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Some reviewers group playgrounds in with schools as an inappropriate cache location, due to concerns about protection of children. This is supported by text in the Help Center: "Avoid areas near schools or playgrounds, where cache hunting behavior may worry parents or school staff." Ordinarily the concern is the suspicious nature of someone poking around in bushes, bending down to peek underneath park benches, etc. In your case, you say you are hiding a virtual cache. If the verification method involves photography, this can also raise suspicion. ("Why are you taking pictures of my grandchild, you dirty old man?") To answer your question, to know where to place a geocache: Talk with the land owner/ land manager Read the listing guidelines Read the Regional Geocaching Policies wiki, linked from the listing guidelines Read the "Hiding a Cache" section of the Help Center, linked from the listing guidelines Contact your reviewer by email or by submitting a cache page (even in draft form)

You're right, I checked it and all worked. Now it's not working again, so I will talk with the developer again later. Strange.

Hello, I am very new to geocaching. I just found a new/unopened DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 in my garage. I have learned that Garmin bought DeLorme and I have already contacted them, but they refused to help (sorry, not our product). I have downloaded the system updates but cannot figure out how to get my computer and geocache.com to "talk" to the GPS and send geocaches. I think I need a plug-in (which is what I contacted Garmin about). I tried to download Garmin's alternative but keep getting a message that I have a Chrome window open (as directed I'm using Internet Explorer) and I know I have no windows open. I also made Garmin a trusted site and tried loading through Firefox. Any suggestions? I'd really like to use this device. Thanks!

So far the new way seems to be to use lists. Save a cache to a list. On the list page you can then download each one individually to the garmin through their supported garmin express software. In a future update they should change their -send to gps - garmin tab to go link to the garmin express software which will work instead of an unsupported plugin, communicator, which probably won't work. Going through the garmin express software seems to be the current way to talk to a garmin gps.

I also do not like distance rules, because for me, the objects of the individual categories are all equivalent. Whether it is 2 or 10 in a certain radius. For this purpose other areas are completely excluded in certain categories. When we talk about the fact that the doves are usually part of a something bigger, I agree with you, for example, in the already mentioned churches. But there are so many categories that are also available in the churches (Town clocks, Belltowers, Signs of History, Doorways of the World, Trigonometric Points, etc.) and have also made it into an independent category. The dove of peace in general already has a story to tell. It is regarded as a symbol of peace, and thus stands for people's desire for peace and a friendly coexistence without war or violence. And that is something important for me. What, for example, has the category "Pikachu Sightings" for a special background?

First of all: Distance rules are always bad from my point of view. If one waymark is already listed, why pass on another (maybe much better) waymark, just because it is too close to the other? If we talk about the category idea in general: I think that most doves of peace will be part of something bigger. Either a peace memorial or a mosaic or a mural or... It will be a mix of various things and I personally wouldn't be interested in that kind of collection. In BK-Hunters example I would rather want to learn something about the cultural centre than to go there and take a picture of that dove of peace. Besides, what should we write in the long description of such a waymark? @ BK-Hunters: How much Information can you give us about this dove of peace? The size, the color, the material,...? Most of them will have no hi(story) to tell. For the same reason I'm also not too enthusiastic about the hourglasses and some other categories, but if you find enough proponents, I wouldn't vote against it.

That seems unnecessarily complicated. To quote Teen Talk Barbie, "Math class is tough! Want to go shopping?" Here's my take.

Well now you know someone who doesn't first talk about about numbers having done the series a few years ago. The first thing I tend to mention is the experience of it being like a marathon, about how it only works if you're with friends who are there for the same reason, and because of that we have many great memories. Does the number come up? Yeah, and inevitably discussion about strategy, but the best thing about that trip for me was not the numbers. It totally was the experience. And the rest of the trip that wasn't just swapping a container every 170m. And for them too. Honestly though, doing a series like that, if you are in it for the numbers, you have to be aware that it's gonna mess up the rest of your stats if you want to get some of the older ratio-style challenge caches. That many traditionals will take quite some time to balance out with non-traditionals. And it heavily weighs your low end DT grid. If anyone cares about that sort of stuff. If not, then memories all the way, man! Great times, with friends. (but even then, the experience itself is still not something everyone might enjoy, and that's just fine )

I must admit, compared to others in this forum, I am pretty inexperienced myself (only 207 finds) and I've only been to 1 event. However, I've been looking at events near me (wishing I could go) for a very long time. And I can tell you what they had planned. - some meet at a nice bicycle or walking trail and do a planned walk/ride. - some reserve a picnic shelter at a park and use the BBQ grill for burgers and food. - some do a CITO (Cash In Trash Out) where they all bring a garbage bag with them and pick up litter in a certain area while they are also looking for geocaches. - some meet at a body of water (lake, river, etc) with canoes, kayaks, rowboats or whatever they've got and do a big paddling convoy - some meet at a pub or winery and taste local beers or wines - some organizers plan way ahead of their event/gathering and hide several caches for the attendees to find (the organizer should commit to maintain these caches for at least several months after the event so other folks can also enjoy them) - some organizers just select a location for their event that already has several caches nearby, and attendees of their event meet up and go find those. At any or all of these meetups, cachers can talk, share stories about caching, the veteran cachers can teach the newbies, those who also participate in the Trackables side game can trade and share their trackables. The thing to remember with event caches is - like any other kind of cache, always get permission from whatever land manager or authority person you need to in order to hold a gathering somewhere. And always submit your event cache enough days ahead of time for the review folks to do their thing, and for the potential attendees to put in on their calendars and show up. *edited to add: I forgot to mention, several geocaching events around here (especially recently) have been centered around watching some big, memorable event such as an eclipse, a meteor shower, or even a city fireworks show.

I'm quite new to geocaching (only 22 smileys so far), but I am crazy about it! There is not a geocaching Meetup in my area yet, but a little bit of interest. I'd love to organize a gathering, but I have some questions. What do you do when you gather with other geocachers? I'd like ours to be family centered as I have a tween and 2 small children. Do you search for caches together? Just meet to talk about geocaching? Some of both? More? I appreciate any input!

Looked at the few I know who talk about their stats and didn't see anything unusual. Number wise, mine, and the other 2/3rds separate account don't have issues either. We usually don't look. Was going to look and see if I might luck out trying help you figure it out on yours, but "This user has elected to not display their detailed statistics" kinda thwarted that...

On a case by case basis, we all need to be concerned about geotrails. Different landowners will feel differently about them. During talk with the State Parks on NJ, Geotrails were a big concern, citing everything from they look bad, are unsafe and cause a liability, on the other hand Delaware wants cache more than 100 ft form the trails as to not create a geo-trail to the cache. Go figure. I remember some time ago someone posted that the Kokopelli trail was visible on aerial images. Recently, this example was pointed out to me. GC30

Hi im only 10yrs old and could really do with some help. I have started geocaching and have got my papa to take me. I would like to hide my own caches but neither me or my papa can work out how to get exact co-ordinates on his iphone. he has an iphone 6s+ if that matters. If there is away or an app, could you explain it to me without any computer talk as i'm only learning about computers at the moment. If not could you recomend a cheap gps unit i could maybe get him to buy me. THANK YOU.

Never thought I looked as a threat to others, but have had way too many issues in quite a few small parks (forget playgrounds...) . I can see it if some idjut putting a cache in a small playground, and issues with " a woman there with two small children", but I've had them move to the other side on trails as well. The folks who say "talk to " or "explain to them" ... well, reality says 911 (and 5-O) is now a couple seconds away... - And in case someone thinks I may look like Quasimodo, I've asked other males, and they have the same problems as well. I just feel that some have become way too fragile at life in general lately, or whipped up in some odd non-existent state of alarm.

Actually, I think quite the opposite. It's not a problem of a cache placement, it's a problem with the place. I give a lot of credit to the Community, that they can figure this stuff out on their own. I don't need to put any context on my Listing pages. If you have a problem with these places, talk to your local or state governments that put them there in the first place. Don't come to us preaching that we need to fix your problem.

Earlier this year I was scouting out a new multi with virtual waypoints along a series of waterfalls in one of the local national parks. About 500 metres into the park, where the track crosses the creek on a bridge, I was surprised to see a "Keep Out! Private Property!" sign nailed to a tree, and just as I was about to go upstream to the next waterfall a car came down the track and pulled up alongside me. The woman in it firstly accused me of tresspassing on her land, but when I said I thought I was in a national park and asked her where the park boundary was, she pointed to the bridge. I told her I wasn't going that way and she relented at that point, but when I got home I checked my maps which all showed the private property boundary a further 3.5km along that track. I contacted the national parks office to find out whether the park boundary had changed, but they assured me that the private property sign had been illegally placed, that I was welcome to walk anywhere inside the park and that the ranger would have a talk to the owner of the property at the end of the track about removing the sign and not harrassing park visitors. A few months later I went back to check but the sign was still there so I ended up abandoning the cache and archiving my unpublished listing. Best not to draw cachers into what was turning out to be a standoff between national parks and the property owner.

In this case, try to talk to the people and explain geocaching, let them know that it is a game where you want other to enjoy the beauty of Ohio and especially the very interesting location here. "Get them into your boat", get them involved, you only can win. All the best, MB

May I just ask, what's so important about those locations, something special to see, a historic site perhaps, a place really nice so you want to share it? If any of those are given, you might want to talk to the people and explain the situation, if it is just a guard rail and nothing else, you might want to think about, why you have places the cache right here, why you want people to come to this location. Regards, MB

I was a little worried about your title because "found a geocache" can be used to mean many things, but the question you asked in the text clears up that you're asking when I think one should claim a find, and I agree with your standard and the standards others have mentioned. People that logs finds when the cache is missing are focused on the number, so they go for the +1 even when they haven't really found anything. The count doesn't mean anything to me, so I don't understand why someone would want to post an inaccurate log, but I don't worry about it too much as long as they're clear about what actually happened so anyone reading their log can see the cache isn't there. I'd rather they didn't log a find when the cache wasn't there, but I don't have much hope that they'll change their ways. Once in a while, I might bend the standard in order to log a find in a special case, so I'm more sympathetic towards people that don't do it habitually. And since you're in Iceland, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of visitors find themselves wanting to stretch a DNF into a Find just so they can say they found a cache in Iceland. So try to go easy on them, but by all means talk about standards with any locals you see that make you think the cache is in good shape when it's not. That's how trash accumulates in the geocaching environment. It's not really a good idea to post pictures of the container since that is often a spoiler.

In another thread, we talk about "what irks us the most" about geocaching. How about listing some of the little things that we enjoy about it? Some of mine... 1. Finding caches located near scenic overlooks. 2. Finding caches with the original logbook, especially if they were placed earlier than 2010. Given how many logbooks get destroyed, it's fun for me to see the older ones completely intact. 3. When somebody else logs a cache on the same day as me, particularly in cases where the previous find was many months earlier. 4. Going after a previous DNF and finding it quickly. This always leaves me wondering if it was moved/replaced since my first visit or if I was just blind the first time!

Although essentially it's nothing more than recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. Yes, that's "discrimination between". The term used was "discrimination against", which normally means identifying differences in order to declare one thing inferior to another. Anyway, this talk about "discrimination" seems kinda silly. The marketing guys just never even considered that two geocachers might use the same IP address, so I don't think there's any reasonable application of the word "discrimination" in this case. It was just an oversight.

I would at least make sure that I'm talking to the shift supervisor - not the new probie who you first spotted while he was mopping the floor. Whoever you talk with, ask them to pass on the information to the other shifts. There are a few examples of bomb squad call-outs at police stations because the day watch supervisor granted permission, but didn't tell his colleagues or superiors. In my experience as a reviewer, fire departments are usually eager to help with a cache placement at a safe spot (see Mudfrog's good advice) near their station. Watching geocachers and striking up conversations with them gives the firefighters something to do in between calls. In contrast, caches hidden without permission at locations like this often go horribly sideways. That is why "government buildings" are listed as one of the "off limits" locations in the guidelines. Be sure to say on your cache page, and in a note within the cache container, that permission was granted by the City XYZ Fire Department -- just in case a geocacher is asked what they are doing. If you document all your efforts in a reviewer note ("I spoke with Chief Jones, who helped me pick out a spot way in the back....") then your reviewer can get comfortable with making an exception to the listing guidelines.

Odd that I haven't heard all this talk of geocaching and youtube, nor an agreement with another site. Please explain. Thanks. I don't believe enough people actually watch others geocaching (some deemed "professional" were still boring...) to affect the hobby. - But, if you feel there may be an issue, contacting Groundspeak directly through the Help Center is a good option.

Sorry for the vague title, I didn't know how else to address this. So, I know there's a lot of talk about Geocaching and YouTube, and there's been a sort of agreement as far as I can tell that as long as you don't really post spoilers about a cache and it's specific location, for the most part all is well. Well, there's a pair of YouTubers whom I occasionally watch called MoreJStu that make all kinds of vlog type videos, several of which have recently included geocaching. At first I had no problem with what they were posting. I figured if it got some more people interested in our hobby, that's great! But then they posted this video today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEub1s5AXUI There is so much misinformation in it about geocaching that I was nearly yelling at my screen. I think it's okay that they're wanting to share a geocache with the fans, there's nothing wrong with that. Except they show where they pack snacks into the cache and encourage others to come out and trade snacks too. Not only that, but they practically bury the cache. It's one thing to hide it with some foliage, but they literally made a hole to put it in. I'm not here to get them in trouble or anything, but I just hate the fact that they're demonstrating behavior against the rules of Geocaching to their 2.7 million subscribers... They also make it kind of known that in more than one video they usually don't trade swag, only take it. If you look on the comments on their vids, you constantly see things like "Ya'll inspired me to start geocaching!" and "Because of ya'll I'm building a geocache fort!". Which is great, except the majority of their followers are young kids who I know aren't going to read any of the rules before going out and geocaching, which will just create more problems... What are ya'll's thoughts?

I think you're correctly describing the situation, and, furthermore, I believe this is what GS would say they did. Well, except they'd probably talk about "less sophisticated cachers" instead of "TFTC-cachers", but we still know what they're talking about. The problem is that the underlying logic is that if more people post more NMs, then cache quality will automatically improve. I don't think that's the case. I don't think the increase in NMs generated by simplifying the process of tacking an NM onto a find log will have any impact at all. Meanwhile, the process of filing that TFTC that those TFTC-cachers are filing is twice as complicated just to try and convince them to click a button to report problems with their TFTC logs.