When is a UAE cahce not in the UAE?

[+Desert Trekker]

As of today there are 54 caches listed as being in the UAE. In fact 9 of these are actually in Oman! Interspersed with these are 3 caches that are correctly listed as being in Oman. Now, while I admit that the 9 “UAE” caches are actually easier to reach from the major conurbations of the UAE than those of Oman, it does strike me as odd that the caches are given the wrong country.

 

There is a new boarder crossing being constructed just south of Jebel Rawdah which means that in the future, geocache searchers may need to bring along passports when going for these “UAE” caches starting from Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

 

I have also noticed that the Oman listed caches seem to get fewer visits that the UAE listed caches in the same area – have a look at “Surrounded”, “Pirelli”, “Mahdah” and the newly placed “TOUCH”. Does this mean that UAE based cachers do not look at the Oman pages? I personally use a search based on nearest to specified point which shows all of the caches in the region independent of country when I am planning out our next caching trip.

 

What do others think?

Edited April 29, 2007 by Desert Trekker

[+The CAD's]

As of today there are 54 caches listed as being in the UAE. In fact 9 of these are actually in Oman! Interspersed with these are 3 caches that are correctly listed as being in Oman. Now, while I admit that the 9 “UAE” caches are actually easier to reach from the major conurbations of the UAE than those of Oman, it does strike me as odd that the caches are given the wrong country.

 

There is a new boarder crossing being constructed just south of Jebel Rawdah which means that in the future, geocache searchers may need to bring along passports when going for these “UAE” caches starting from Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

 

I have also noticed that the Oman listed caches seem to get fewer visits that the UAE listed caches in the same area – have a look at “Surrounded”, “Pirelli”, “Mahdah” and the newly placed “TOUCH”. Does this mean that UAE based cachers do not look at the Oman pages? I personally use a search based on nearest to specified point which shows all of the caches in the region independent of country when I am planning out our next caching trip.

 

What do others think?

 

Hi DT,

 

Yes, I noticed this last year when we had a drive accross to Muscat for the first time from AD.

 

I now upload all of the UAE AND Oman caches into a single loc file periodically so I can view both countries caches on the same map.

 

We camped north of Al Ain last weekend, on the UAE side (We had some friends with dogs who didn't wan't the hassle of crossing the border into Oman) and that is a major fence that has gone up through the mountains.

 

I also think it would be wise to list caches more strictly by country now, as visitors from some countries can have difficulty exiting the UAE and re-entering on visit visa's

[+Renegade Knight]

Why is probabaly the the placer is from the UAE. As you have said it's easier to get there from the UAE than Oman.

 

Regardless of why, it should probably be fixed by the owner, or perhaps a local reviewer.

[+tliuska]

Since there isn't that much caches in the region, I think it shouldn't cause too much problems to create for example pocket queries that contains all caches in both countries. Or if you aren't a premium member, you can see all the caches in both countries with Google Earth and with gc.com maps for example. If you happen to check the area map before going geocaching you should quite easily see that there's Omani areas on the way. But as visitors are quite probably coming from UAE, I would recommend to specify in cache details if you need to go through passport check and/or if you'd need special permit for rental vehicles to enter the country.

 

So, I would be personally in favour of fixing the country details in those caches. If you are using some external geocaching statistics service, such as www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com, you would get the correct per-country statistics that way.