Iso: Help On Getting Around To Find Caches

[+Mom the Cook & cashnhubby]

It seem that sometimes we get stuck at dead end streets, gully's, etc and had spent more and more time driving then finding the cache. Any suggestions? We did for yesterdays hunt print off the geocaching.com with google map for the area we were in that was more helpful.

[+Miragee]

That is one of the more frustrating parts of Geocaching, more so now that gas prices have gone up so much. If you can use Google Earth and print out a couple of views from it, that is fantastic. Some of the people I hike with do that. I upgraded my original GPSr to a Vista C that auto-routes, and that helps . . . but sometimes it doesn't.

 

When I was on a recent roadtrip, I spent an hour and drove 15 miles around the little town of Montrose trying to figure out how to get to a cache my maps said was on the other side of the river. I never did get close to the cache. . . It sure would have been nice if the cache owner had put access information on the cache page so non-locals could figure it out. I think that is something cache owners should do and the new "additional Waypoint" feature of the GC.com site facilitates that, if cache owners use it.

 

Although some people think the caching "adventure" includes those dead end streets and impassible gullies, I think it is about getting to the parking or trailhead easily and getting out of the car. Caching shouldn't be about driving around and around to find an elusive entrance to a neighborhood park or hidden canyon.

 

If you check out the cache before you leave the house and it looks like access might be a problem, you could email the cache owner, or previous finders, to find out how they got to the trailhead.

 

Last Saturday, we made a quick call to the cache owner when we found access to a trailhead to be elusive, but that only works if you know the cache owner . . . and their phone number . . . and you have a cell phone . . . and reception.

[+briansnat]

A mapping GPS is a big help, but not foolproof. Same for looking at the Google, Mapquest, etc... maps.

[vagabond]

Another software is USAphotomaps, it's a free download, but does have a small nag screen when you close it down. Its not the best for newer streets, but for hiking I like it better then google. It's saved me a lot of time and frustration

[+Munin]

I did a little writeup last year in a thread called Vague Locations In Towns Are Hard To Find! that showed the type of prep work I often do when heading to an unfamiliar area. Occasionally I enjoy playing "lab rat in a maze", scurrying along loopy little residential roads and bumping into cul-de-sacs trying to find my way to the "cheese", but most of the time I'd rather spend 10-15 minutes mousing around the web from the comfort of home if it might save me 20+ minutes of driving around feeling lost and frustrated.