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What occupations are good for geocaching?


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I work in an IT department for a statewide professional association. We have 14 offices all over Pennsylvania, and I occasionally get to travel to them. Besides the business travel, we also get almost all of the federal holidays off, plus the entire week between Christmas and New Years. I also get 20 vacation days and 3 personal days a year. So, even though most of my job involves sitting at a computer (makes it easy to run PQs and prep for my next cache trip) I have ample time off to actually get out and do some caching. I think pretty much any job that involves some business travel and a lot of vacation time is great for caching.

Edited by DocDiTTo
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I would think that the best occupation to have for a Geocacher would be a Wealthy Philanthropist.

He would probably have the best equipment money can buy, be able to find, and place caches all over the world with the best swag you ever saw this side of Fort Knox.

FTF races on any of his caches would probably be a nightmare, but fun to watch.

 

Logs would be fun too...

On the way out before daybreak I picked up a dozen dogs from the junkyard to let loose near the parking area.

Found the cache without too much trouble. Took Trimble Gps unit, a couple of South African coins and Two tickets to Bogotá.

Forgot what I left because I had to leave in a hurry .I heard screaming, and what sounded like faint gunfire in the direction of parking area.

TFTC

Ol Bluesguy & Pamela

 

PS left local Reviewer tied to a tree at alternate co-ordinates I wrote in the log book

Edited by olbluesguy
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Truck driver not the best, don't kid yourself. It can be difficult sometimes to find a place to park a vehicle 75 feet long and weighing up to 40 tons. And, for those more adventuresome caches, fitting a 13' 6" trailer under the tree limbs and overhanging rocks isn't easy either, not to mention the outrageous fines for driving a tractor trailer off-road in a national park (darn rangers got no sense of humor at all!!) And some states want to fine us if we just pull off on a ramp for a few minutes!!

 

But still, I will be fashioning a bicycle rack to allow me to lock mine in place when the truck is in motion, and I will be using some of my break time to cache when possible.

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I'm a geologist, my work takes me all over southern California.

 

You, that are teachers, are working too hard. My wife works from 730-230 on contract of what 187 days of the year. IF she works summer school, its 730-1230 for a few weeks. Last year, for "school," we went to Ecuador/Galapagos Is., Florida, and San Francisco allowing for finds in each area.

Edited by karstic
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I'm very new to caching (just since Christmas time in '06) and I'm a commercial lender in banking. During the warmer months most bankers tend to disappear at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon for a round of golf. So why can't I disappear for a cache or two? My schedule is flexible enough and I come and go as I please, so I certainly intend on doing it!!!! :laughing:

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I am a surveyor. My work takes me out into the woods. I don't have time to cache while on a job, but nothing says I can't get one on the way back!

 

Unfortunately, the area where I am working for the next few years has very few caches, and even fewer cachers to come find something I might want to hide.

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I travel alot in the summer to map DED infected trees. The government provides me with a nice big 4x4 to access forested areas. Also some time in hotels in other cites.

Computer and mapping software are included in the job!

Any environmental Tech job probably would be the best. (ie fisheries, wildlife, forestry)

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I am a surveyor. My work takes me out into the woods. I don't have time to cache while on a job, but nothing says I can't get one on the way back!

 

Unfortunately, the area where I am working for the next few years has very few caches, and even fewer cachers to come find something I might want to hide.

 

But you can go benchmarking!

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There is still one more that I haven't seen on this list. I am a REALTOR which has been great for geocaching. Since I am basically self-employed, it allows me to go after that new cache the morning it was published. I also travel the area quite a bit working with customers in neighboring towns. Whenever I show houses in another town I always try to arrive early enough to pick up a couple of caches in the area. If the sale goes through, I know that I will be returning to the area at least three more times.

 

I think being a REALTOR is a great job for geocaching!

 

:cool:

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I have both a real job and a volunteer job and both are great for geocaching. My real job is working for a TV station maintaining radio sites on mountain tops. I have found many caches will on repair trips that I was able to drive to on closed to the public fire roads in a company vehicle. And nothing like finding caches while getting paid, even if it is your paid lunch hour.

My other job is a volunteer mountain rescuer. I also get to drive to many usually only hike in caches in county trucks. As search and navigation training of course.

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To be honest although I signed up on this site last year I've never technically been geocaching. I can relate though. For most of my professional career my job has involved reading clues and using techniques similar to orienteering to locate objects. Then I would analyze what I had learned to determine what to search for next. Lots of time outdoors using state of the art equipment for a nice salary.

 

I'm a land surveyor of course. The only thing that keeps it from being an ideal job for a geocacher is the same thing that prevents most military fighter pilots from buying Cessna 172's- Why do it on your own time with basic equipment when you get paid to do it with state of the art gear.

 

As my kids grow up though it seems that taking them geocaching is the best way to show them what daddy does for a living. In addition this community seems to be a good place to recruit the next generation of land surveyors.

 

Jim

So-California

USA

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Oh, yes!

 

I'm very fortunate in that I work for myself, and mostly from my home office. I own a company that provides business/marketing writing and editing services (www.customline.com), as well as doing a significant amount of writing on my own. So I'm either working at home, or traveling to a client site or to research a book or article.

 

Either way, it's perfect for geocaching! As long as I am available for occasional conference calls, and get the work done, *when* I do it is pretty much up to me. Now if I could just get enthused about becoming a first-to-find hound!

 

Jeannette

www.jeannettecezanne.com

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How about the U.S. Army!!

 

The advantage: You can travel all over the globe.

The Disadvantage: You can travel all over the globe.

 

You can geocache wherever the Army sends you but its not as fun when its someplace where the muggles shoot at you. (okay...most are on bases...but still....). You can still get stationed in Europe and places like Korea. When you are state-side you can get stationed all over the U.S.

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I envy pilots. Very lucrative and they are always traveling and for free. Cant' get better than that.

 

Yup. Airline Pilot. Not as great as it used to be, but lends itself well to geocaching. Lucrative? No so much anymore. If you have a choice, make avaition a hobby not a career. Go into IT.

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Any job - as long as your boss is a geocacher too! <_<

It's not always an advantage as "The boss" can follow you everywhere through your gc.com profile! He will know when you are caching on a "sick" day! :D Plus he knows, when you're late for the 1pm meeting and come back with half a tree on you, what you've been spending your lunch time on! :D

 

I know a choir conductor who his a geocacher. Works only a few night a week and travels a lot for concerts around the world!

Edited by Mr. Speedy
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How about the U.S. Army!!

 

The advantage: You can travel all over the globe.

The Disadvantage: You can travel all over the globe.

 

You can geocache wherever the Army sends you but its not as fun when its someplace where the muggles shoot at you. (okay...most are on bases...but still....). You can still get stationed in Europe and places like Korea. When you are state-side you can get stationed all over the U.S.

 

Or even better- the Air Force! I'm a C-130 Navigator (yes, even with GPS we still have them!) and we get to fly all over the place so I make sure to have my GPS ready to go. While I'm in training, I have lots of half days and days off while we wait for our simulator time and flight time so I'm always grabbing caches. Geocaching lends itself well to my job!

 

In my spare time I fly smaller planes for fun, and have found a few at some municipal airports. I wish people would hide more at them, I'd fly out to get them!

Edited by dmbfan73
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Property management and investment here. great for caching because i don't sign in and out, mostly work for myself, and i do a lot of local travel.

 

the other bonus is that all i need is for an investor to say "go across the county and check out this property", then i just cache along the route that and another on the way back and it is great.

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Aside from the obvious 'truck driver' and 'traveling salesman', are there any lucrative jobs that tend to be well-suited for a geocacher? Do any of you have a job that allows you to do a little extra geocaching 'on the clock' or travel to far away destinations for geocaching?

 

Fire or EMS employment! I work on an air medical helicopter, two 24 hour shifts/week. That leaves five days a week I can geocache! Well, at least a little extra time. Guess I have to see my family every now and then! Also have to travel for CEU's on a regular basis, so that helps too. I even got to snag an out of state cache on a flight one day. We flew a specialty team to another hospital and there just happened to be a cache in the hospitals little park out front! Yayyyy!

 

JohnTee

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With all these responses I am very surprised that my profession has not been mentioned. I have been caching since July after a coworker mentioned the sport. I was hooked the next day. By this weekend I will have over 1100 finds in 40 states (DC included). If everything works out I shall have all 50 states plus DC by my one year anniversary. Along the way I may log three Canadian provinces too. I get to fly for free and cache almost exclusively on my company's dime (with the exception of my home area). Most locations my company contracts for hotels have caches within walking distance.

 

As a side note: This has led me to to some wacky things like walking from LAX to Manhattan Beach and even then stretching it into a 16 mile "walk".

 

What is this life I lead? How about that of an airline pilot.

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How about my job: grad student.

 

But don't grad students have less time than other jobs? The secret is to go into field biology, and to set up study plots in another state. During the summer, I travel bi-weekly between Mississippi and North Carolina, and usually try to grab a few caches along the way every time I make the trip. The only catch is that I'm not supposed to make a caching detour if I'm driving a state vehicle (usually, I just take my car), but there's nothing to stop me from grabbing a cache at a rest area when I stop to take a break... :P

 

Wat really makes my job enjoyable, though, is not only the fact that my research has a lot of similarities to caching (I sent last summer locating trees using GPS coordinates), but that I get to work in a National Park. Last year, for example, the NPS actually gave me a list of coordinates that I used to locate 200 chestnut trees within their boundary. Even better, we got permission to hide a few "caches" of tools and field supplies at study sites so that we wouldn't have to carry them in with us every day. (too bad I couldn't slip a logbook in there :anibad: )

 

Oh, and after messing with various software options, I found that the best way to organize the location data, and keep track of the trees I had found, couldn't find (DNF), and hadn't yet attempted to find was... GSAK!

Edited by DavidMac
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I would think a school teacher would have it great. 3 months off during the summer, and every weekend off all year long!

.....

My wife is a high School Teacher - 9 - 14 hour days for 9 months including extra duty grading, lesson prep etc. In the summer she takes college classes for 3 to 4 weeks and attends 2 - 3 seminars. Weekends we travel with the science club to competitions, more extra duty and more grading. She puts in all the hours and more of the average 12 month worker.

 

Back on Topic - I repair computers, teach, build web sites and do computer consulting. I get to travel my local areas within 150 miles frequently and I try to grab a cache or two when I can.

Yep, school teacher here, too and I can vouch for what StarBrand says....I get paid to work 180 days a year, but I usually work at least two hours after school each day grading papers and preparing for the next day. And then too, there are the extra duty assignments I'm expected to do (I coach the Academic team and sponsor the Key Club as well as chairing the science department and being on two other committees) and the games and other extra-curricluar events you really ought to attend now and then to make sure the kids know you care about them. I also run the corporation Planetarium and run the shows there. I just finished my masters but I'll still need to take some classes over summers so I will be able to renew my license when it's time. Attending seminars and conferences just means more work to leave for a sub and it still gets graded by little ol me. Weekends I update my webpage and plan for the extra-help class I teach (without extra pay) for kids that haven't passed the state-required tests yet. My husband is a 70-hour a week truck driver, and his 10 hour day is often over before mine. The three month summer is a myth for Indiana teachers--we get out of school in June and are back there by mid August.

 

Years ago I was a chair-side dental assistant with Wednesdays and weekends off. If I had been a cacher then I never would have cleaned my house!

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I think my new job is awsome for geocaching. I fix pharmacy robots all around the United States and Canada and sometimes Europe.

 

I go in the office for one day, then travel for seven, back in the office for one and then off for five.

 

My first rotation took me to Missouri, Iowa,South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I got to bag the Minnesota Cache across America cache and added south Dakota to my states cached list.

 

My second rotation took me to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Massachusetts. I added the New Hampshire Cache across America that trip

 

My third trip took me back north to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and North Carolina. I added North Carolina and the Delaware Cache across America cache.

 

My forth and most recent trip took me to Utah, New Mexico, Texas, California, Washington and Idaho. I added New Mexico, California and Idaho to my states cached list. No Cache across America caches but all in all a very productive week.

 

I also bagged my 2000 cache in Idaho this week.

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Aside from the obvious 'truck driver' and 'traveling salesman', are there any lucrative jobs that tend to be well-suited for a geocacher? Do any of you have a job that allows you to do a little extra geocaching 'on the clock' or travel to far away destinations for geocaching?
I guess since you said lucrative, unemployment would not count. Sure would give you plenty of time, though.
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