Planning A Road Trip

[+m_and_w]

We're planning a February or March geocaching road trip; like fly to Atlanta and rent a car or 4x4 to drive back to PA, a-geocaching-all-the-way. Does anyone have any suggestions on good software or other methods for organizing and planning which caches to do and/or which routes to take.

 

We use a pocket PC with Mapopolis which is great for the real time routing and hunting, but I was hoping there was a software program for Windows that would make organizing all the caches along various possible routes easier to research. Google Earth seems like a good tool, but a lot of the views when zoomed way out show random samplings of caches instead of showing everything.

 

Mark

[+papatom2]

I use DeLorme on my laptop for the map. GSAK for storeing and managing the waypoints. ( it can give just the caches along a route. And cachemate on a palm V.

 

It does take time to learn how to use all of these. It would tke time no matter what software you wanted to use.

[+Alan2]

You'll have to select PQ downloads along the route. Then using arc select in GSAK, you can select the nearest caches along the roads you'll be using.

 

Again using GSAK, create waypoint descriptors that include D/T, smart name, type of cache, container type, etc. These are all set in the GSAK GPX output page. In GSAK Waypoint name descriptor I insert %smart %dist %By %code set for 10 which gives me the Smart name in 10 digits for my GPS. and will show in the Mapopolis the distance from home in miles, who placed the cache and the GCabcd code. In cache desption format I use %typ (%Dif/%Ter) %con which additional shows the cache type, D/T and type of container. I believe that some GPS will also display this info like Mapopolis but I'm not sure if it will show as much info.

 

Then using gpxtomaplet, you'll create files that you paste into your PPC that will overlay your Mapopolis county maps. Then when you tap the icon on the Mapopolis screen you'll have the afrementioned description. If you decide to go there, tap again and Navigate To.

 

If course, you want to use gpxsonar for the paperless description of the cache web page but the maplet icon description saves loads of time when you're trying to select whcih cache to hit along the way. This is a great feature when I'm just driving around my home area too.