Jump to content

Geocaches for Travelers


Recommended Posts

I am going to be in and around the UK in March 2008 for a spring break trip with my school. I already know that this trip is going to be very scheduled, so I will only be able to look for caches that are near touristy places. London is the only place that I'll be in for more than a day, so that'll probably be my best bet.

What I need are some 1- or 2-star difficulty caches in towns/cities that I will be visiting. I will not have a car and will probably not be able to go very far on public transportation. As I said before, think touristy places, i.e. muggle-rich areas. So far I have pinned down Last Delivery (London) as having good potential.

 

Besides knowing what caches to look for, I'd like to know if there is anything I should know about caching in the UK as opposed to the US. Do I need to put my GPSr on a different setting? (I have a Magellan eXplorist 210.) Any other information/tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here is my itinerary for my trip... Know any good caches near these locations?

 

 

Day-By-Day Itinerary

 

Day 1 : Fly overnight to England

 

Day 2 : London

Arrive in London

Take a walking tour of London:

* Trafalgar Square

* Leicester Square

* Chinatown

* Covent Garden

 

Day 3 : London

Take a guided tour of London:

* Piccadilly Circus

* Big Ben and Houses of Parliament

* Westminster Abbey

* Hyde Park

* Tower Bridge

* Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace (if scheduled)

Optional: Windsor Castle (probably won't be going)

 

Day 4 : Oxford • Stratford • North Wales

Take a guided tour of Oxford:

* Brasenose College

Take a guided tour of Stratford:

* Shakespeare's birthplace

* Gardens at Anne Hathaway's cottage

Travel to North Wales

 

Day 5 : North Wales • Dublin

Visit a Welsh castle

Travel through Snowdonia National Park to Holyhead

Take a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin

 

Day 6 : Dublin

Take a guided tour of Dublin:

* Georgian squares

* O'Connell Street

See the Book of Kells at Trinity College

Visit St. Patrick's Cathedral

 

Day 7 : County Kerry

Travel to County Kerry

See Cashel Rock

Visit Blarney Castle

 

Day 8 : County Kerry

Travel through Killarney

Take a guided tour of the Ring of Kerry

Visit Bog Village

 

Day 9 : Depart for home

Link to comment

Here is a post I did just a couple of days ago... hopefully there is info in it you can use!

 

Well, we just came back from a 2.5 day quick tourist trip to London...

 

WOW... so much to see, so little time! The plan had been to do some caching, but our gps'r's battery is only chargable via car cigarette lighter, and it came on in our backpack on our way over, soooo... no caching for us.

 

We did prepare before we went, we looked at the areas where we were staying using the "map-it" function and printed out the main map-it map and then the caches around it we were interested in.

 

There are a TON of virtual and micro/mini caches in London. We didn't see many that were bigger than that.

 

To be honest, we spent so much time consulting the tube map and figuring out where we were, lol, that we probably wouldn't have had much of any time to do any caching, anyway, with the exception of the virtuals that were directly at the areas where we were going, like Westminster Abby/Houses of Parliament and St Paul's Cathedral, which both have virtuals.

 

If you take the tube in London you will be fine with a 2 zone daycard. It is good for both tube and bus and it takes you to the vast majority of the places you'll want to go in the London major area, it cost 5.10£.

 

Be prepared to spend a bit of money. It costs anywhere between 8 and 20£ per person to get into most attractions, there are some that are free, but St Paul's, Westminster, the London Eye, soforth and so on, they are not cheap, they are pretty worth it, but expensive. It was kind of disappointing that you weren't allowed to take photos in the cathedrals.

 

As for food, there was a great little sandwich joint called Pickles that if you're walking down Birdcage row by the guard museum and then turn right to go to Westminster Abby is on a little side road on the right, danged good sandwiches and other food, we found that those type little joints all had decent food and had better prices than the places that were more "open" and usually a fun, "different" atmosphere and we enjoyed them a lot!

 

Beware that the tube is VERY busy starting around 3ish until 6ish. At one line we had to wait for 3 trains before there was one that had the space for us in it. Walk down to the end of the platform, all the way down, you have a better chance of finding a car that has space if you do that. If you've got kids in strollers be prepared to carry the strollers up and down stairs everywhere as London doesn't seem to be at all friendly for them. There are very few tube stations that have more than stairs, most are stairs only, although there are a couple that have elevators. Most don't. The tube stations, at least the ones that are all indoor and not outdoor, are very, very warm, it's something you might want to remember and keep a bottle of water with you. Because of the heat a backpack style carrier really didn't work, we tried our patapum and it was much too hot for the baby and for Mr Mousekakat. Be sure to keep a good hold on older kids as people push and shove to get on and off the trains.

 

Oh, and if you want to watch the changing of the guard, get there at least 10:30 and go to the big statue facing the castle but across from it. If the castle and its fence is at 12:00, sit facing approximately 11:00 and you'll have decent seats and should be able to see inside the fence, too... we couldn't, kidlet was disappointed!

 

Anyway, those are just some of my observations on our whirlwind trip to a wonderful city!

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...