Road Trip Thoughts

[+Melrose Plant]

I recently returned from a road trip where I travelled from Iowa to Georgia and back, and not really in a straight line. I really enjoyed the trip, but found it somewhat frustrating that I didn't have enough time to cache, even though I spent four full days doing nothing but caching.

 

It's just that I had to cover too much ground. For example, my first day I started out very early and got to camp at about 7 p.m., but I only had time to look for about 10 caches that day, because I covered about 600 miles.

 

For the whole trip, I covered about 2500 miles, searched for 32 caches (of which I found 27), but had programmed about 125 into the GPSr. I was hoping for a bigger percentage, but I had to skip a lot of them due to time constraints. What was I thinking when I planned this thing out?

 

So here is the question: What is the best way to plan a trip for maximum caching enjoyment? Should one look at caches per day instead of miles per day? Should a person limit the miles covered per day to something like 200-250? What are your thoughts?

[+treasure_hunter]

What we always do is just, search for caches along the road on the way to where we are going, we dont usually get them if they are over a mile or two off the road. We cache the whole way wherever we go, and we do pretty good sometimes. We dont plan to get say this many in one day or nothing, we just say we will stop and try and get these on the way down, and the same on the way back.

[+The Leprechauns]

Having done all different types of road trips, I think they all can be fun if you define what you want to accomplish, and the caches meet your objective.

 

I still fondly remember my first big georoadtrip on Labor Day weekend in 2002. My trip was inspired by this forum post by the legendary BruceS, one of the pioneer powercachers. He opened my eyes to a type of geocaching entirely different from visiting the local parks with my daughter. On my trip, I covered 600 miles in three states, bagging a total of 19 caches in places like Zanesville and Athens, Ohio, and Parkersburg, West Virginia. Back then, that was pretty much *all* the caches in the territory I covered! The feeling of driving aimlessly, stopping every hour or so to discover a new state park or historic site or quaint town, gave me a sense of freedom and adventure that redefined geocaching for me. I still enjoy trips of that nature, where the find count is irrelevant; it is all about the journey. One recent example was in March, when my daughter and I wandered around Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, grabbing something like 12 caches but seeing a whole lot of wide open countryside.

 

I have also enjoyed caching for the numbers, targeting a dense area and plotting a route to get to it and back again. It is very easy to rack up 30 to 50 finds per day that way, stopping every 5 to 20 minutes for the next cache on the route. You get into a caching rhythym where you really are on a roll, stopping the car, logging the find, and charging ahead to the next one. The extreme example of this was going to Nashville and finding 240 caches in 24 hours, setting what was the one day record at the time. It is a different type of adventure, and it's not for everyone.

 

Either type of geocaching trip can be FUN if you allow yourself to have fun.

[+budd-rdc]

So here is the question:  What is the best way to plan a trip for maximum caching enjoyment?  Should one look at caches per day instead of miles per day?  Should a person limit the miles covered per day to something like 200-250?  What are your thoughts?

For maximum enjoyment, I wouldn't set any caching goals or expectations that you'd HAVE TO meet. On a road trip, getting to the destination is the most important, so just cache along the way. Get some, skip some.

 

But that's just me. I know many people who get enjoyment from achieving goals - I just get a kick out of wandering around, enjoying the scenery.

[+StarBrand]

I'm impressed, 600 miles and 10 caches - that is quite a day!!

 

My wife and I generally never plan to drive more than 350 miles in a day to give us time to enjoy the trip and not feel bad about suddenly taking a side stop at unexpected places. While traveling I sometimes plan to stop at 5 or 6 caches in a day but I don't feel bad if I go 350 miles and only bag 4 as long as we take the time to enjoy the scenery and the unique sites that roadtrips in the heartland offer.

[+Jamie Z]

I've done lots of caches on roadtrips of different types. I often have the same feeling you do, Balboagirl, that I didn't get to look for many caches, nor did I travel very far that day.

 

Now.. my main goals aren't lots of caches and lots of miles. I prefer quality in both caches and roads, but I like to see lots of different places, as well as eventually make it to my destination (if I have one).

 

A trend that I began to notice is that I'd drive for hours through beautiful farmland, or forest, or hills, and there wouldn't be a cache for miles. Then I'd come into a small city and there'd by two dozen micros stashed in and around the town.

 

I like to have my caches a little more spaced out, and to take me to somewhere a little more out of the ordinary.

 

So, what I often do now is get a pocket query for the area I'll be traveling, except I exclude micros. No, I'm not a micro hater... but micros tend to be stashed in clumps, and usually a regular sized cache means there is some space to get out and take a walk.

 

Then, I plot this pocket query in Microsoft Streets and trips. From there I'll do one of two things. First, I might just have S&T make me a route (avoiding interstates) and then I manually pick out caches to find along the way. Or second, I might pick some caches and have S&T choose a route for me that passes through the caches I'm interested in.

 

The first couple of times I traveled in this way, I was impressed by the places the caches brought me, and they were more-or-less not so clumped up around the populated areas. Sometimes I'll search for a couple in and around the towns I pass through, but I don't need to find ten caches for each town.

 

Jamie

[+VegasCacheHounds]

Yeah, my last two road trips left next to no time for caching, and that was dissapointing. I was able to grab a few near the interstate, but I would of liked to get a lot more.

Of course, thats about how every day is for me, if I had more time I'd get a lot more caching done

[+WeightMan]

I am currently working on a trip from Seattle to the San Francisco area going south on I-5 and coming back on Highway 1 and 101. At this point I have added three nights to the driving portion of the trip. One night was added for the southbound trip and two to the northbound one. The northbound trip has over 140 caches on the list at present. Will I actually try all of them? Of course not, but they will take time so I just added time to the trip. Being retired has its advantages.

 

Edit: speling

Edited June 16, 2005 by WeightMan

[+fly46]

I agree with what Lep said... Define the type of experience you're after and then decide on caching after that.

If you're going for big numbers of caches, plan for driving between cities and caching once you've made it there. If you're going for experience, places, etc, plan for small towns and to experience the journey along the way.

[+Melrose Plant]

I am currently working on a trip from Seattle to the San Francisco area going south on I-5 and coming back on Highway 1 and 101.  At this point I have added three nights to the driving portion of the trip.  One night was added for the southbound trip and two to the northbound one.  The northbound trip has over 140 caches on the list at present.  Will I actually try all of them?  Of course not, but they will take time so I just added time to the trip.  Being retired has its advantages.

 

Edit: speling

Well, I guess I didn't tell the whole story about my trip in my original post, because I didn't want to bore people with my troubles, but part of my problem was that I had to cut two days off my planned trip. I'm sure that if I had stuck to the original plan, I would have had a better caching trip experience.

 

Still, it was an exciting trip. I got to see things I've never seen before. It's just that I didn't get to see as many things as I'd envisioned before I actually took the trip.

 

My last day, I stayed up for 25 1/2 hours, drove 1000 miles, and I did this cache. Plus, I believe I managed seven other caches. I guess I packed that day full. I'm not a spring chicken any more, and I didn't know I still had it in me. And then I came within inches of hitting a deer in Missouri at about 1:30 in the morning.

 

Yes, it didn't go anything like what I'd planned, but there are still plenty of stories.

 

The reason I started this thread was that I was trying to figure out how I would plan differently were I to do this sort of thing again.

[+WeightMan]

When you are planning a trip such as mine, you have to keep priorties in line. I enjoy traveling 10 to 15 miles up the road for another awesome view to looking for micros in light poles. If I have to get someplace by a certain date, then caching comes last. It has to. I would still leave a number of "leg stretchers" along the route. It makes the trip more interesting looking forward to the next stop. I would have to stop every 90 minutes or so anyhow, I may as well find a cache at the same time. On the interstate, I generally look for the rest stop caches to break up the drive. On my upcoming trip the return up the coast is primarily looking at the views from areas where I would not normally stop. I have several finds along the Oregon coast already and most of them were from spots I would not have visited otherwise. It just takes time. I happen to have the time so I can take it. Others on a schedule have to deal with that.

[+The Leprechauns]

The reason I started this thread was that I was trying to figure out how I would plan differently were I to do this sort of thing again.

I'm sorry; I will try posting again with more philosophy on route planning.

 

When I plan a big caching expedition, I split up the caches into three categories. The first is "destination caches." These are the ones I'm travelling 200 miles to go visit, and they're worth it. They came to my attention in the forums, by word of mouth, by hider's reputation, by bookmark lists, etc. The trip would be a total success if I only found three destination caches out of three. The trip would be a failure if I only reached one of the destination caches, having to skip the other two because of time constraints.

 

The second category is "proximity caches." These are caches in the same park, along the same trail, etc., as a destination cache. They may not have that fancy puzzle or cool container or other special appeal of the destination cache, but hey, they are there and I'm parked in the right lot, so load those waypoints too.

 

The third category is "route caches." These are caches along the way to the destination areas. These should be within a half mile or so of the roads I'm traveling on. The category includes rest stop micros, park 'n grabs, etc.

 

So, with the caches classified that way (either in my head or on a written/printed list), I take off on my day trip or weekend road trip. Say I get delayed at the first destination cache, and also enjoyed two proximity caches in the same area, and I've chewed up three hours instead of the budgeted two. To make up the time, I will skip the "route caches" between destination caches one and two. If I'm still short on time, I'll skip the proximity caches.

 

Always keep your goal in sight. Don't let the run of the mill caches get in the way of your desire to find the kind of caches you like the best, whether they're puzzles you've solved or long hikes up a mountain or historic points of interest.

[+byonke]

I'm impressed, 600 miles and 10 caches - that is quite a day!!

 

My wife and I generally never plan to drive more than 350 miles in a day to give us time to enjoy the trip and not feel bad about suddenly taking a side stop at unexpected places. While traveling I sometimes plan to stop at 5 or 6 caches in a day but I don't feel bad if I go 350 miles and only bag 4 as long as we take the time to enjoy the scenery and the unique sites that roadtrips in the heartland offer.

That's pretty doable. Last September we motored thru your neighborhood (Casper to Kansas City) and picked up 11 along the way. We normally wouldn't do that, but I had broken a tooth and had a dentist appointment the next morning. We even grabbed 4 of yours along the way.

 

Brian

[+Sagefox]

So here is the question: Should one look at caches per day instead of miles per day? Should a person limit the miles covered per day to something like 200-250? What are your thoughts?

We travel cache a lot. The trip itself usually governs how much caching will be done and it will be different if Spark and I travel together or if I'm by myself.

 

We travel from N. Cal to Seattle, 770 miles one-way, at least three times per year with an overnight stay on the road somewhere. We leave at different times of day and don't always know what time of day we will be in certain areas. If I travel alone (got one of those coming up soon) I cache between 6 am and 11 pm.

 

When we travel in the deserts we designate a general area to visit and then go freeform from there. For those trips I have to download for several possible routes.

 

To compensate for the uncertainties I download hundreds of caches in a combination of pocket queries for urban areas and painful cache-by-cache search for the rural in-betweens. The goal is to have lots of options for caching as we drive along.

 

For a long trip (500+ miles) I have never tried to schedule a cache-by-cache itinerary. I can't imagine that working well with our style of travel.

[+bthomas]

Interesting question for me, because TeamAlamo, dgreno, and I are doing it on a cross country scale in a few weeks. We'll be packing laptops and looking for WiFi. We'll cache density in Florida and New Orleans, but by and large it will be a linear thing, looking maybe 0.25 to 0.5 mile from the interstates. Personally, I think the look of a string of cache finds across a map of the country is a pretty thing in itself.

 

On roadtrips, I think in terms of caches per hour and caches per mile. Locally, we're usually dialed at 4 per hour and maybe 50 caches per 100 miles. Wonder what it will be across 3000 miles?

 

I look forward to seeing the Shuttle at Cape Kennedy, visiting Bourbon Street and the New Orleans cemeteries, and going to the basement of the Alamo.

 

Perhaps across Texas, Snoogans can seed a mix of keyboxes, decons, and ammo cans for us.

[+Zekester & Simon]

Some food for thought:

 

Motel 6 allows pets at all of their locations so if you like to travel and cache with a dog, they make it easy. Alos, if you follow the links at their webs site to a specific property, it will list the location of that property by Lat/Long in decimal degrees. This makes planning a caching trip somewhat easier....