Anyone Else Enjoy Paperfull Caching?

October 25, 2005

I don't know if I'm weird, or maybe it will get old as we go since we are n00bs to this whole thing, but does anyone else here enjoy paper caching??? I have a PDA that I haven't used in a while, so I suppose I should try paperless, but I actually like printing out the cache sheets, and a nice google map hybrid for each cache we goto. I also hand enter all the coords into my GPS instead of downloading them. I guess for me I like being as untechnical as possible since I work with computers all day, I like have the piece of paper in my hands... Also the PDA would be another electronic gadget to worry about batteries for and worry about dropping, and it's not waterproof. (It's been raining here for 15 of the last 20 days...

Anyway just wondering if I am the only one.

Ben

October 25, 2005

Though I mostly cache paperless, I do use printouts from time to time. It's like getting back to basics. I never hand-enter the coords though, for me that's just asking for trouble.

Cool thing about having paper is that you can write notes (like on multi/puzzle adventures) and if there's no logbook or it's damp or ruined, you can just rubber-stamp your cache page and leave it in the cache as a temporary logbook.

-Hugh Jazz

22k · October 25, 2005

If I'm out doing just one cache that requires writing anything down or has very detailed instructions then I like to print out the cache details. PDAs are not that convenient when I need to do a lot of reading or writing.

edit: reworded.

Edited October 25, 2005 by BlueDeuce

October 25, 2005

If I'm out doing just one cache that requires writing anything down or has very detailed instructions then I like to print out the cache details. PDAs are just too small for me when I need to do a lot of reading or writing.

Yeah, I always write what we leave and take on the paper, and I also don't like the grafiti very much. I actually have a keyboard for my PDA but it doesn't work without a flat surface...

October 25, 2005

I too am one of the few and proud. I print out just the most important cache info and then enter the coordinates by hand. I too work with computers all day so holding something in my hands every now and then just feels good.

22k · October 25, 2005

I too am one of the few and proud. I print out just the most important cache info and then enter the coordinates by hand. I too work with computers all day so holding something in my hands every now and then just feels good.

Ok, keep it family friendly.

2k · October 25, 2005

I've always liked paper. :laughing:

I print out the cache description and map for any cache I intend to find. (I do use GSAK to manage and download cache coordinates to my GPS, however.)

I'm another computer guy who likes to have something real in his hands.

Edited October 25, 2005 by beejay&esskay

1.7k · October 25, 2005

I've never used a PDA. I find it very fast and easy to write the time/date I found the cache, and what I took/left on the printout. I just got a new GPSr I can send coordiantes to, so that'll be a new experience. To me a PDA is extra weight and something else that can break. A printout can be folded and jammed into any pocket, and the pen needs to be carried anyway to sign the log. As a plus, part of the printout can be torn off and used as a logsheet should the one at the cache be ruined or missing. I'd much rather carry a piece of paper than a breakable piece of electronics that costs as much or more than my GPSr.

Edited October 25, 2005 by geognerd

2.5k · October 25, 2005

I cache with paper out of necessity. I don't own a PDA, am not a Premium member, and right now am out of ink. Now all my cache printouts are in blue or maroon, until I get a new cartridge.

I do like having the paper with me though, to write things about the cache I'll need to remember when I log, and to solve multi puzzles.

October 25, 2005

I too do the paper in hand caching and entering coordinates by hand. Being new to the caching world and bringing my daughter in it with me, I figure we will learn basics first and go hi-tech after logging a few finds.

6.7k · October 25, 2005

Paper caching isn't a problem, as long as you are fairly rigid in your planning and know in advance exactly which caches you want to go after.

Myself, I moved to paperless as soon as I could, as I never know when or where I will be caching.

I keep a PQ of the 500 caches nearest me, updated weekly, in my laptop, GPS and Palm.

I usually pick the nearest cache to where I am and don't read the cache page, anyway, unless I get to the coords and can't find anything.

Ten minutes effort a week to load a PQ into my devices and I am set. Anytime or where I find myself with time on my hands I can go after the nearest cache(s), or any time a friend calls and says "Let's go find some" I am ready to go!.

11.3k · October 25, 2005

I did the same. I already had my Palm M500, so that was easy. I just downloaded Cachemate, and somehow figured out GSAK. :laughing:

I live in a rural area surrounded by a very cache-rich area. I like to be prepared with hundreds of caches in the Palm corresponding with hundreds of waypoints in the GPSr. I've found 17 caches in a single day . . . without really knowing exactly where I was going to go before I set out from the house . . . :laughing:

Sometimes writing in a little notebook is faster than writing in the Palm, but otherwise, paperfull caching would be too frustrating . . . and those printer cartridges are expensive.

3.5k · October 25, 2005

I remember the good ol' days. I had a black clipboard that I would fill with cache pages and head out to find them. I also remember a lot of phone calls back home to my 11 year old daughter, asking her to get online and look up cache information because invariably I would fail to print out a cache or two that would pop up in front of me in my travels.

I was paperless before paperless was cool. :laughing:

Prior to the advent of Pocket Queries, there was a short-live service where you could download cache pages through AvantGo. I've been a Palm user for years and have had an AvantGo membership as long as I've had a Palm. It was a perfect fit for me.

Honestly, when PQ's came along it took me a while to adapt. I have Cachemate but I do prefer Spinner/Plucker. However, lately I've found something new that is working incredibly well for me. Hopefully I'll have an article out about it in the next month or so.

I did go through a short period where I printed out AND carried my Palm too. It took a few trips to ween me completely off paper. Now if a new cache pops up and I have to print it out because there's not enough time to transfer it to my Palm...I just feel dirty. :laughing:

Bret

October 25, 2005

. . . and those printer cartridges are expensive.

Yeah, that is one point that does stink about using paper... As for the 500 caches in a PQ, we are jsut starting and doing the caches closest to our house and spreading out. But we also plan our day around caching and only go on the weekend when w can cache together, so this isn't something we do at the drop of a hat... For this reason it's easier to plan ahead and make sure we have the necisarry printouts... I can see why paperless with large PQs is nice is you have the chance to just go all of a sudden.

38.2k · October 25, 2005

Over a year after I went paperless I'm still finding stacks of cache sheets in my car and around the house. I think I killed every tree in the state of Maine

I love my PDA with Cachemate. I have it in a hard shelled Rhino Skin case and it stays in my pack unless I need it, so exposing it to weather isn't an issue.

October 25, 2005

I use paper, but am poor and cheap. Toner is expensive, and paper is landfill, so I cut and paste the cache description, delete the junk and can often fit 12-20 caches on both sides of one sheet. If all the caches are in one park or tight area, I'll start with a GC.com map. I click 'identify,' so that all the caches have numbers. I copy/ paste that list, map and all to a Word document. The I visit each cache page, copy whatever I want from the desciption, paste it into the list on Word and I'm done. In the beginning, it took some time, but now I've been working it so long, I can do a full day's cache games in 10-15 minutes. Which is less time than it would take my old printer to print all those full pages.

PDA? :laughing: I'm sure I mentioned that I'm poor and cheap.

October 25, 2005

I used to love paper caching...until I tried going paperless. :laughing:

I often ran out of ink or paper. And it gets expensive

On multi raids - I would have packets staples together and they ended up all over my car

The sheets often got wet

I never wrote down what I traded and it got hard to remember

I also found myself doing one cache at a time with paper.

With paperless:

I go out on my free time and cache until I run out of time. No worries about printing out enough or the closest caches.

I always have a good log of my trades.

No more wastefull and wantless piles of paper in the backseat of the car.

But seriously, it wasn't any less fun when it was just paper!! :laughing:

October 25, 2005

I went paperless in Aug 04. I had printed out a bunch of pages . I carried a bunch of folders in the car with the sheets separated by area (VERY cache rich region). AS I still find some of tehse cahes, the info gets written down on the sheet, but the folders now hold maps of the region or specific open space trails.

October 25, 2005

I've always liked paper when searching, though have never used my Palm IIIc for paperless. :laughing:

I usually have my cell phone, digital camera, GPSr (or 2) and all the kids' stuff, water, etc and typically the dog so I'm already packed. With all the commotion we bring, I have about 20 seconds to log and record so I like paper to quickly jot notes.

Plus it's nice when I get back home I can match my notes with my pictures to publish online.

Plus, I always feel better walking around looking at a piece of paper and not my GPSr and Palm. But I'm weird that way! :laughing:

2.6k · October 25, 2005

I haven't had a working printer at home in years. I used it so seldom, the cartridges kept drying out on me. And those puppies are expensive.

For every day out, though, I make small paper note. I write down the waypoint name of all the caches I consider likely, with any facts from the page I consider noteworthy and a sketch of my route and directions. This also gives me a piece of paper to jot down any trades I made.

My absolute favorite caching day is one long hike, or several along the same trail, or a multi. I write down several likely candidates in case the first falls through, so I don't have to go home to a frowny only.

I love Cachemate on the Palm. But the little piece of paper is nice to have, too.

October 25, 2005

Paperless for urban targets of opportunity when we go shopping in the big city (Tucson, AZ).

Paperful (including topos) for backwoods caches where we don't want to rely on fragile electronics to get the cache and/or get back home.

October 25, 2005

Funny, I was just thinking about posting a similar topic.

I cached paper-only for almost two years, and then bought a palm on ebay this summer. I figured I'd love it, because I love gadgets and computers and etc.

Thankfully I got a decent deal on the thing, because I almost NEVER use it. I find that I get a much better sense of what I am doing if I look at each cache page, print them out, semi-map my route, make sure the cache is currently active (I will never understand the people who don't read cache pages before a hunt).

I found the PDA to be a pain to pull in and out of the pack, poke at with the stick - I don't know, everyone that I know who caches paperless LOVES it, and I just didn't take to it at all.

I did, however, find it useful when we did a caching weekend on the Cape, as we cached up and back and used the PDA to find the closest ones along the meandering routes down and back - that way we weren't married to taking a specific route - so that was cool. Other than that, I don't use it much at all.

October 25, 2005

I seem stuck in the habit of having the cache page printed and with me for most all caching I do. I make notes on it, and use them for logs when needed-

Also, for me the most important part was writing down what I took, what I left, etc, time we found it, etc-

I doubt I will ever go completely paperless, but am leaning towards getting a PDA pretty soon, so you never know!

October 25, 2005

I cache with paper out of necessity. I don't own a PDA, am not a Premium member, and right now am out of ink. Now all my cache printouts are in blue or maroon, until I get a new cartridge...

CLASSIC Only a non-paperless geocacher can appreciate this post. I too am a non-paperless kind of guy, I like having the cache page in 'hard' form in my hands when I tromp off into the unknown.

1.8k · October 25, 2005

I also use paper. I can see the benefits of paperless I just haven't found the time to learn Cachemate, GSK, spinner, plucker, etc.

October 25, 2005

I'll bet I'm in the minority here -- I hand write the pertinent cache info in a small pocket sized notebook before I go out. Of course, there's not a lot of caching to be done in a 100 mile radius of home base...

October 25, 2005

We always use paper and we hand enter coords into the GPSr. Our GPSr came with a cable to download from the computer and I tried it once but didn't have enough time and apparently I need to have some kind of program. Tried easy GPS, but it seemed confusing. Quite frankly entering coords by hand is just fine by me.

If the instruction booklet that came with the GPSr had picture instructions with the written instructions it would have been great as I am a hands on please show me the basics learner. I had to read the instruction book a few times and there are still things that I don't understand about the GPSr but we can find caches and that is what's really important.

We always plan our caches together before we go out and that is part of the fun. We keep all cache pages in a folder until we find them. If we log a DNF, we write notes on the page that could help us in our next search.

October 25, 2005

I liked paper until I ended up carrying a 2" binder to hold all the printouts. Also the way some caches are listed even "printer friendly" could take several sheets per cache . Paper is also a lot more expensive in the long run. I think the best thing about paperless is that you can have thousands in your pda at one time. As far as manually entering waypoints into the gps, accuracy,is the big advantage.

3.8k · October 25, 2005

I love high tech gadgets, but I own few. Call me old fashioned; I am perfectly comfortable with paper. In addition to having the paper for notes, extra logs, etc., it is nice to use the printout for explanatiion when you run into curious people, like cops and muggles. Also, if you happen to run into another cacher, a printout is handy if you know about additional nice caches in the same area.

My typical caching vehicle is a bicycle. :laughing:

October 25, 2005

My first few were done by writing out the important info down in a notebook. This was really because I didn't need much beyond the coords and I didn't have access to a working printer. Went to do a multi cache for which I needed photographs of various locations in a park, so I took a photo with my camera of the photos on my PC screen then just looked on the camera screen.

Coords entered by hand, just check it once you've input it and its not a problem.

Recently, I've started printing out the cache pages but would like to try paperless just don't have a PDA at the moment.

adambro

9.2k · October 25, 2005

I use a combination of "paperful" and "everythingless". I'll pick out an area, and load up my GPS with all the traditionals in the area. Then I'll pick some non-traditionals, and print those out. Then I just wing it. I encode the d/t ratings in the waypoint name, so I have that info. If I need a hint, I use my WAP-enabled phone.

1.7k · October 25, 2005

I use paper, but am poor and cheap...I cut and paste the cache description, delete the junk...copy whatever I want from the desciption, paste it into the list on Word and I'm done.

Oh my gosh! We must have been separated at birth! I do the exact same thing. Copying, pasting, and cleaning up the cache listings does become pretty quick after a while. I've never searched for more than 22 caches in one day, and don't plan on doing that again, so this method works for me. I like adding to the description my own parking directions or notes about the location based on my observations from the maps.

October 25, 2005

I am also a paperful cacher. I don't have a PDA so that's out. I input my coordinates manually since I generally research caches while at work and print out sheets here too. I have high-speed internet at work but only dial-up at home. I can't connect the GPS to my work computer and simply never tried it at home. It might take to long to download with dial-up anyway.

My husband doesn't like the screen littered with waypoints, so I have to input them, find them, and then delete them.

I research caches for when we travel and print out the sheets because the husband likes to see them. It works for us. I'd like to be able to logs our finds online while we're traveling, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

October 25, 2005

Another vote for caching with paper. Yeas, I'm a premium member, and a GSAK user (though not very proficient). When I get frustrated looking for a cache I like to pull out the paper and reread it for inspiration and clues. And if that doesn't help, I have something to ball uo and squeeze in my hands. I would have smashed many a PDA if I tried caching paperless. So for me and mine it is both cheaper to go with paper and more usefull.

1.2k · October 25, 2005

I have a cache dedicated to paperfullness

My Webpage

October 25, 2005

I have no pda, so If I think I need the info, I'll print out the cache page. :laughing:

October 25, 2005

We have a PDA alas no GPS. Besides we kinda like using the topo maps. Keeps the lowtech skills from getting too rusty.

Once we get a GPS, we'll probably use the maps anyway and just check ourselves with the GPS.

TroutAngler of TheFreshwaterAnglers

October 25, 2005

I use paper, but am poor and cheap...I cut and paste the cache description, delete the junk...copy whatever I want from the desciption, paste it into the list on Word and I'm done.

Oh my gosh! We must have been separated at birth! I do the exact same thing. Copying, pasting, and cleaning up the cache listings does become pretty quick after a while...

Awwwwwwww! Triplets! We must have kept Mom very busy!!

October 25, 2005

With no GPS nor a PDA, it's either paper or a map memory exercise (I've managed a few dozen of those, usually easy ones). I can fit 1 to 7 descriptions (extraneous junk cut out) on a page, depending on how much map/aerial photo I need to print. If I feel like adding any log notes or photos that might help/spoil, I can add those too.

For me, carrying a piece of paper (even with a baseplate compass) seems to draw less attention than carrying a GPS.

October 26, 2005

Paper, not plastic :blink:

PDAs are the anti-KISS

22k · October 26, 2005

Paper, not plastic
PDAs are the anti-KISS

You must print your sheets at work like I do. :blink:

2.4k · October 26, 2005

Paper, not plastic
PDAs are the anti-KISS

You need to try a better PDA. Paperless caching is much simpler than printing out cache pages, keeping them current, etc.

Spend an hour or more searching for a cache that was archived 5 days ago, because you're working off week old printouts, and you'll wish you'd went paperless.

October 26, 2005

Over a year after I went paperless I'm still finding stacks of cache sheets in my car and around the house. I think I killed every tree in the state of Maine

You obviously aren't a lawyer; the amount of paper that gets wasted or only used once in a law office is staggering! I've been thinking about making a bumper sticker:

Save the trees, Disbar a Lawyer

(you can substitute k-i-l-l for disbar, but there are kiddies who may take the message to heart; or maybe "recycle a lawyer")

Since I am a lawyer (actually, a recovering lawyer), I am allowed to make that joke. It's in the fine print here somewhere, I know it....

Team Maccabee's Abba

3.8k · October 26, 2005

...Spend an hour or more searching for a cache that was archived 5 days ago, because you're working off week old printouts, and you'll wish you'd went paperless.

...or at least checked your computer before you ran out to cache. :blink: :lol:

October 26, 2005

Paper, not plastic
PDAs are the anti-KISS

You need to try a better PDA. Paperless caching is much simpler than printing out cache pages, keeping them current, etc.

Spend an hour or more searching for a cache that was archived 5 days ago, because you're working off week old printouts, and you'll wish you'd went paperless.

undefined

Yes, I have cache pages that were ran off acouple of weeks to a couple of months ago, but I still check my GSAK page and then double check any caches that look questionable. So unless you have some miracle PDA that that updates itself without turning on a computer and syncing with it, I do not see how using a PDA is any better!

October 26, 2005

I like both. When I'm caching by myself, I use the PDA. When I'm out with the kids, I like paper. That way I give them the entire stack and let them choose which cache they want to find - seems to keep them more interested and I get to cache longer.

d of Jdakj

1k · October 26, 2005

I don't own a PDA, and I refuse to carry around another confounded electronic gadget. I print cache listings (the "printer-friendly" version) if I think I will need it. I sometimes print a small topo map centered on the cache location--especially if it's deep in the woods.

Edited October 27, 2005 by reveritt

October 26, 2005

Spend an hour or more searching for a cache that was archived 5 days ago, because you're working off week old printouts, and you'll wish you'd went paperless.

Normally I print the page the day before (or the morning) I look for the cache. If I find a page that I printed a few weeks ago, then I take 5-10 minutes to check the computer before we run out for the cache.

I don't have a PDA so this may be wrong, but what's the difference if I printed the cache page last week or if I downloaded the cache into a PDA last week. It's all old info unless the PDA automatically updates whenever I turn it on.

Edited October 26, 2005 by Team Red Oak

2.7k · October 27, 2005

Paper is the way for me. I'll make notes about the cache, put them in a log book and look at it while in the field. Coordinates are put in Nat Geo TOPO, then I have a map. And then the coords can be downloaded to GPS.

20.7k · October 27, 2005

I gave up paper because I never knew wher or when I'd go caching. It was just too much of a hassle to keep notebooks updated with caches that I might visit.

Anyone Else Enjoy Paperfull Caching?

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