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There's been a lot of talk lately about Power Trails, with very heated opinions on both sides of the coin. Seems to me the crux of the con argument is the uninspiredness (I'm aware that's not a real word) of a film can or hide-a-key every 528'. That kind of got me thinking. We have some pretty good rail trails around my town. I'm thinking a power trail of sorts geared toward newbies, kind of a way for them to "get their numbers up" and address one of my little annoyances, caches with the wrong size rating. Start out with the micros: Cache 1 is a blinky, cache 2 a bison tube, then film cannister, etc. Move on up the food chain, culminating in a five gallon bucket. If done right, I could wind up with a 20-30 cache "Power Trail". Now if I can just get the time off work and get the wife to let me out of painting the house this spring, I'll be all over it.

To clarify, the moderating team's message to you explained that your prior post was hidden from view because it described a workflow using an "unauthorized application," but the message went on to say that it is fine to "use the Geocaching forums to discuss the official Geocaching apps and authorized Geocaching Live! partner applications." Therefore, it's fine to talk about solutions involving GSAK or Cachly, for example, because these authorized partners use the Geocaching API. That said, the OP asks about websites, not apps.

First, if there's no issue with the cache, then answering reviewer questions shouldn't be a problem or an issue. Rather it should be great if he can talk to a reviewer and confirm that the cache is good to go; that firms his stance and the cache status. Second, if his initial response to your OAR log is anger given what you said, that is not a nice CO and I wouldn't bat an eye if the reviewer decided to do something about the cache. This is another reason why having a strong community is so important! More local events, let cachers meet each other and get a sense of who each other are and what their ethics are. Even ideally build a good rapport with others around. hmph.

I've been all about challenges for years. We started the Challenge Talk podcast in 2020 which is great for challenge enthusiasts. Personally there are so many challenges in Ontario now that I'm not so much working focused on specific challenges any more, but passively working on any I don't qualify for yet As mentioned above, I have a doc that lists all the challenges I know of and I periodically update them all with current progress, and whether they're qualified (then log it as such with a note); and if I sign in first I mark it in the doc as found as I know once it's qualified I can just log it found. Going on trips is prime time to prioritize finding qualifying caches. But I also have them sorted by priority. Dates needing find specific qualifying caches go straight on my calendar so I know "today I've got to find 5 caches, 2 letterboxes, 1 Other, and a 3.5/4" for example. If I'm traveling then region and location becomes priority. Any rare caches in the vicinity of travel go on the stop-and-find list. Especially region oldests, jasmer caches, rare DTs, or even just properties that don't appear nearly as often near to home. Rarely ever on a trip do I just casually find caches. There are too many and the vast majority don't help towards any qualifications. Even so, before casual caching I'd be searching for high favourite points for the best chance at maximizing my travel's experiences. Challenges give that extra goal, a new layer on top of regular geocaching (like geocaching on top of the real world :P)

When interacting with other people, it's important to distinguish what you consider "poor behavior" from what, to an impartial observer, is a difference of opinion. I spoke up here precisely because I thought the consensus here is wrong. And if there's an established guideline that supports you, I'm not aware of it because the only commonly cited standard is to keep TBs moving, and these are moving. And even if there is something in the guidelines, it couldn't be called "established" because I regularly see this behavior. Anyway, the point remains that you should approach this as a difference of opinion, not being judgemental with your "good behavior" vs. their "bad behavior". Saying "you are behaving badly" -- an accurate reflection of your opinion -- is not significantly different from saying "you're a jerk" even if you feel better about it. Setting a time limit is actually part of this wrong thinking. If you don't like what they're doing but you are respectful of their point of view, you don't have to wait a month. You can talk to them as soon as you notice. The whole idea of "one month or two?" is based on the assumption that they're doing something wrong, so you want to give them some time to come to their senses or whatever. They aren't doing anything wrong, they just aren't doing what you'd like them to do because until you tell them, they won't know what you want them to do. Sure, some of them might not listen to you. Some might even be annoyed what you talk to them. I don't know. But I do know it's more likely they're react negatively if you come at them with "poor behavior"....or even if they're quietly reading this thread and know you're thinking "poor behavior" even though you try to pretty it up in your messages.

If you can eliminate the presumption of "poor behavior", the best course is to contact them and discuss it with them. They've been geocaching a long time. You have not. If you talk it over with them, you can get better insight into what they think they're doing. My guess is that they are under the impression that TB owners like to see their TBs travel, and that most TOs don't really care whether the TBs stop in any particular cache so they can pass from person to person. That might very well be because that's what they like for their TBs. And since it's happen to you multiple times with various geocachers, it sounds like a cultural position in your area you need to be aware of. Like you, I'm not that interested in mindless visits to vast numbers of run-of-the-mill caches. If you talk to them, you can explain your feelings about it to them. But it won't get you very far if you start by accusing them of being jerks. Yes, it's true, some of them may have entirely forgotten that they grabbed the TB and don't know where they put it, but even if that's the case, it will be counterproductive to lead with that possibility. But, actually, that seems unlikely to me because these are seasoned geocachers. If they're acting poorly, they must be doing this with hundreds of TBs by now, and that's hard for me to believe. So I'd assume they have the mistaken belief that they're doing good over the possibility that they're doing it for no particular reason just because they're not nice people.

So, your talk about privacy was misleading. You are affraid of strange motivations. Let's compare this airtag with a logbook. Logbook reveals your private data. Logbook is tracking you not the airtag. You should opt-out all of them because there are huge number of airtag owners with more strange motivations compared to the OP. For example, a business owner may be tracking you when you enter the shop and can count how many times you have visited - spooky - isn't it?

If forum participants want to talk about challenge caches, the General Geocaching Topics forum is the place for that. This is the Creating Adventures forum.

Hi all, I'm trying to locate someone in the NYC area who might want to speak at an event we run called Hobby. It's a monthly event where we invite 4 speakers to talk about their hobbies for 5 minutes each, and answer some questions from a group of very interested semi-strangers. We've got an event coming up very soon, (Tuesday, November 16th, from 7pm-8pm), and we'd be thrilled if someone in the NYC area wanted to share with us? Here's our HOBBY page: http://www.getHarvest.com/hobby and here's out HOBBY channel, with video of previous lectures: http://vimeo.com/channels/hobby What do you think? Anyone game? Feel free to contact me directly at karen [at] getHarvest [dot] com - We'd love to have one of you geo-caching mavens share with us about what you do! Best Wishes, Karen — Karen Community Manager, Harvest — Harvest / 212.226.4160 / 187 Lafayette St, 6th Fl, New York City http://www.getHarvest.com http://twitter.com/harvest

When I've introduced people to geocaching, I have never had them create a geocaching.com account or install an app (any app). As kunarion pointed out, that's a lot of finicky technical work, and it's more productive to introduce them to the "finding tupperware in the woods" part of geocaching. When I've taught one-hour classes on geocaching (usually, but not exclusively, to kids at church), I've spent the first half of the class explaining geocaching with as many hands-on examples as possible. Then I've taken everyone outside to a nearby spot where I've hidden a bunch of varied containers, and I've had them raise their hands when they've spotted a hidden container. In the class, I start by explaining that geocaching is like a modern scavenger hunt or game of hide the thimble, using GPS coordinates to show roughly where the container is hidden. (I specifically avoid the term "treasure hunt" because that gives people the wrong idea about what geocaching is.) To demystify GPS, I have three colored strings/ropes hanging from the ceiling. I explain that the GPS device (whether built into a phone or a separate handheld device) measures the precise distance from it to a GPS satellite. I grab one string and show that with one satellite, it defines a circle. Then I grab a second string and show that two satellites define two points, the places where the two circles intersect. I grab the third string and show that three satellites define a single point... except that there's another point "up there" so you have to assume I'm on the ground and not "up there". All this takes just a few minutes. The bulk of the explanation part is explaining and showing them different containers (sizes, types, camouflage), different trade items ("Trade up, trade even, or don't trade."), and different trackables (and that they are NOT trade items). I also explain difficulty and terrain ratings, and I briefly explain that most caches are traditional (a container at the GPS coordinates), but that some are more complicated (multi-caches, puzzles, etc.). By then, it's time to go outside to look for hidden containers. I generally try to have at least one hidden container per kid. If you don't have enough real cache containers, then any recycled jars/bottles covered in camo tape will do. Before the class, I hide them in an area where there are plenty of bushes, trees, and other landscaping features. Vary the hiding spots, and make a few of them really hard. I have the kids stay behind a line and raise their hands when they've spotted a hidden container. I try to call on everyone once before I call on anyone a second time. It's important to have a count of the number of containers hidden, and the number of containers spotted so far. As we get to the end, I let the kids know how many containers are left to find. If we run out of time, then I reveal the ones they missed. The other style of class that I've helped with has met at a trailhead parking lot in a county park. After a brief "chalk talk" explaining the basics (pretty much the same way I described above, without the colored strings/ropes to explain GPS), the new geocachers break up into small groups, with one experienced geocacher assigned to each group as a coach. Each group receives a preprogrammed GPS with real caches hidden along the trail. We used a popular trail that had become naturally saturated with a variety of caches placed by different owners (what we called a "power trail" before the advent of modern numbers trails like the ET Highway trail). Over the course of 2-3 hours, the new geocachers could find an assortment of different caches and be back at the trailhead in time for lunch. The experienced coach in each group was there mainly to answer questions, and to make sure there wasn't any confusion about trackables or replacing the cache as found or things like that.

To start off, I was in Maine yesterday and met a customer right at the Delorme building exit off of I-95. I went in and bought a spiral bound atlas. Looked at the software for the pn-60, NEAT!!! My question is... Can you use your laptop as the screen for a pn-60. Bascially, if I have a mount for my laptop in the truck, can the gps talk back to the laptop and display the information? Since the 60 has a small screen I thought thismight be kind of cool. I know thay offer the small gps units to plug into the laptop, but I thought this might just save some $$$. Don't know why I didn't ask when I as at Delorme. Thanks Hud

i know that there are furries all over the world. i am also aware that a few of us geo cache. so i thought this could be a place we could meet and talk on line. so who else is out there * waves*

If you don't need the vicar in the zone after the player talks to him, you could move the vicar to the next zone as the first command when you talk to him. If you still need him around in the current zone, you should be able to disable the command, at which point the player app is supposed to be smart enough to recognize there isn't an object in that zone anymore that has that command. If that's not the case--it really depends on how the player app handles things--disabling the command and then toggling the zone's enabled state should do the trick. So: - On Talk() - - Disable Talk command - - Set zone.Enabled = false - - Set zone.Enabled = true - - Do things for Talk

This water fountains, with the intent of providing water to the population - now or in the past - is definitely something deserving its own category. They are usually interesting, many are historic, pure heritage, and still, no place to place them in Waymarking. From time to time there is some talk about creating a category but so far, nothing came up. Fountains - as far as I can remember - only accept decorative fountains.

A lot depends on who it was that took it. For example, you'd talk very differently to a church custodian who didn't realize it was supposed to be there, than you would to a bored preacher's kid who got into some mischief.

I met pmaupin at the Mega GIFF in 2021, after I saw his signature on another event earlier that day and we had a good talk. I also know that some cachers I've met personally some time ago (in about 100km distance) do some Waymarking - but caching is more on their focus.

Please can you advise how to shut off the talk to command for each zone. I am doing a Church Wherigo and I want the vicar to pop up at each question point. As such he is in zone 1, has a talk to command, asks a question, gives commands to move on or retry if answer wrong or right. I am stuck at the next bit, as in how do I turn off the talk to, or attribute it to one zone only so I can do a further talk to at zone 2...

Ethical discussion on collecting countries. I realized a few days ago that it's still possible to visit Russia: Go to Gdansk, take bus to Kaliningrad. Well, it's not that simple. Depending on your home country you need an invitation, insurance and visa, or you need to actually talk to the Russian ambassador to get this visa. In some countries it's not possible anymore at all. But it would theoretically be possible here. How you actually get rouble for your stay is a completely different matter as creditcards might not work. But it's possible. On that note, there are buses from Austria to Ukraine. Just saying. Discuss

So there are threads about crazy caches you have been to or stuff you found in them....but what about caches you have hid? Which is your favorite? What kind of swag do you put in them? What size is your favorite to hide? What general area are most of you caches in (woods, public, outta the way places, etc..)? Camo Job? Basically just talk about YOUR geocache containers. Even brag a little if you want. We all wanna learn some other cache hiding/creating techniques.

왜 무조건 영어로 대화 하나요!! 한국어로도 대화해요! 무조건 한국어로 대화하는 창입니다 꺄하하하 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 포럼에 나밖에 안노는건 아니겠쬬? ㅠ_ㅠ 완전 슬픔! 날씨 좋은날에는 모두 함께 지오캐싱을 하러 갑시다!

Hi! I have a newspaper assignment on geocaching and need someone to talk with to add "local flavor" to the piece. Is there anyone in Green Valley, Arizona willing to help (either with or without real names)? I'm also an absolutely new member (just getting ready to order my 1st GPS unit) and want to get started. Would love to talk with locals about that too. Are you out there Green Valley? annette in gv

I feel like a total dummy... I know I need a pda...I looked above at the FAQ, only the wiki link worked and I felt overwhelmed by all the info. I use a garmin etrex legend, I think it's H? It's the blue one. I do not have the cords so I have to hand enter each cache, if that matters. I also use an apple macbook. And I do not have a smart phone. If I were to get a pda...what should I get? I'd be looking to get something used, or on the cheaper end (as much as possible...), and am willing to save up to get one if I have to (I am going to start saving up for a new gps with cords too! This one by one thing is too much). I know I'll have to become a PM for PQs, and then do I HAVE to have GSAK? or no? And then I'll need another type of software, too...am I right? So much to know... Thanks for any help!!

would like to discuss with local geocacher about geocaching & how to go about hiding them

I eagerly anticipated attending an event hosted by a sort of infamous new geocacher who placed hides on private property, had hide coordinates hundreds of feet off, etc. In fact, several of those of us who attended were really interested to meet this person and talk to them about proper hide techniques. The event owner never showed up. Bummer! And hasn't hidden a cache since. And I think all their caches are archived at this point. I still attended the event with several others and we all logged it as attended. The event owner didn't though lol.

I've had a Garmin Forerunner for over three years now, nary a problem. All that time I've had a USB to serial connector plugged into a USB port, always ready to connect the Forerunner, first to a Garmin program, then to GSAK, and lately to Garmin's Connect website. Now, all of a sudden, I can't connect anymore. GSAK says "Garmin: Can't Init Com5." The Garmin program CRASHES with a blue screen that says "IRQL NOT LESS THAN" The connect website just says there's nothing there. If I unplug the USB connector, Vista promptly removes it from device manager, and re-installs it when I plug it back in. Manually remove and re-install the driver, to no avail. Garmin won't help me, says the problem is with the USB connector. The things only cost $16, but I really don't think a new one will help. Anyone else had this problem? Thanks, all! Mike