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Caching in a foreign country


MickieD

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My daughter is USAF and being sent to Germany. There are tens of thousands of caches there! Only prob, all the descriptions and logs are written in German.

 

Has anyone here cached in a non-English country? How did you read? I know one can just download the coords, but my family really enjoys reading the stories behind the hide!

 

Any ideas out there?

 

TIA

Edited by MickieD
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http://babelfish.altavista.com/

 

Learn the language, don't be an ugly American. :yikes:

 

Absolutely, in the long term. In the short term, it would be nice to get in some caching!

 

I grew up over-seas and learned conversational Spanish and French. I hopefully have given my children a broad world view rather than an "ugly American" nasty attitude! We'll see if it "took" ;)

 

ETA - thank you for that link!

Edited by MickieD
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I've never heard of a geocache sittin' on the territory of the United States published in German....

 

But you'll surely find cachers providing English translations in every specific area of german-speaking Middle Europe, we are not "ugly" as well ;)

 

And if there are no more caches to do, tell your daughter to start hiding some by droppin' them off from an aircraft :yikes:

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I recently returned from a vacation in France, I was hoping to go Geocaching while I was there, and found that the pages on the geocaching.com website were translated into English. It made for a GREAT experience for me and a new geocacher. For one of the caches, I just used the coordinates, and was successful in finding the cache.

 

 

I was in the USAF, and stationed in Germany for 3 years (many years ago) - she will have a great time. Wish her luck from OverTheEdge...

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My daughter is USAF and being sent to Germany. There are tens of thousands of caches there! Only prob, all the descriptions and logs are written in German.

 

Has anyone here cached in a non-English country? How did you read? I know one can just download the coords, but my family really enjoys reading the stories behind the hide!

 

Any ideas out there?

 

TIA

 

I have cached quite a bit in the Netherlands and Belgium. Most cache pages there are in at least two languages, some 3 (in Belgium: French, Flemish and English!)

 

Conversely I found that caches in Quebec were often only in French

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The first time I geocached in Europe, many of the caches already had an english translation, but some didn't. For those, I carefully printed translations using an online translator.

 

The next time, I went, I didn't bother. I limited my PQs to traditional caches so I would be (somewhat) assured that the cache is at the given coordinates. I'd still try to read the cache descriptions that were in French, Italian, and Spanish (the local languages), but if I couldn't make it out, I'd still go take a look and hopefully make the find. Naturally, I understood that if I couldn't make the find because I couldn't translate the description or the hint, it was my own fault.

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My daughter is USAF and being sent to Germany. There are tens of thousands of caches there! Only prob, all the descriptions and logs are written in German.

 

Has anyone here cached in a non-English country? How did you read? I know one can just download the coords, but my family really enjoys reading the stories behind the hide!

 

1/ If she's going to based at Ramstein AFB, she will be able to meet lots of geocachers. There are plenty of caches placed by US personnel in the area, with descriptions in English (and sometimes with a German translation, which is occasionally hilarious). Just search for caches around the coords of the base and you will find plenty of listings. If they're in English only, maybe contact the placer to see if they are also with the US forces.

 

2/ As you noted, traditional caches are pretty much languageless. OK, you might miss the hint. There are more multis and mysteries in Germany than in the US, but 75% of caches are stll trads. The description is sometimes worth reading, sometimes... not.

 

3/ Many caches placed by German people have an English translation. If not, try mailing the cache owner. They are often delighted to help, if their English is up to it.

 

4/ And as someone else said, learn the language. The first word everyone learns is Stau. :D

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I've found a few caches while holidaying in France and Croatia. As others have said, Babelfish is a useful tool for translating cache descriptions. I also use InterTran (http://intertran.tranexp.com/Translate/result.shtml), the accuracy isn't quite as good as Babelfish but there are a lot more lanugages covered. I also use one of these tools to translate my log entry back into the local language, just as a courtesy to the cache owner.

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I have found caches in four European countries, including Germany. There were plenty of cache pages that were written with English sections. The translation tools will help, although they often return a result with some amusing grammar since the structure differs between languages.

 

But the biggest problem with caching in Europe is thinking in the metric system instead of feet as that is what will show up in your GPS display. :laughing:

Edited by wimseyguy
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Geocached in Italy last summer. The language proved to be a non-issue. You'll need to know a certain amount of the language's basics in order to order food and ask drections and other such travel basics. This will be more than adaquate for the purposes of geocaching. :wub::D:D

Edited by Team Cotati
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You guys have offered GREAT advice, which I appreciate very much. DD is so excited about traveling and experiencing a different culture. She hopes to live off base and integrate to maximize her experience. She's so cooooooool! :) * yeah, I'm a proud MAMA :) *

 

Yes, Ramstein is her destination. Y'all so know I'll be traveling for a visit... or a few visitS. I can't wait!

 

Viajero Perdido, I emailed your message to my DD so that she can take a look... thanks!

 

OVER THE EDGE, I will pass that message!

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Thanks so much for all the helpfull posts. MickieD is my mom. I will be going to Ramstein with my daughter in March. I only looked at a couple of cache pages that were around Kaisurslautern(sp?) and they weren't in English thus my mom's inquiries after we were discussing it. I bought a German-English dictionary and a tour guide book the other day. I'm lookig forward to everything EXCEPT the cold weather. Growing up in Texas has me very acclimated to hot weather lol

thanks again for all yall's help!

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Any ideas out there?

 

 

When I was in Germany for a family wedding, I was fortunate to be traveling with my mother, who is a German transplant. That was a big help.

 

The one thing I noted while there, was there are a lot of multis that are offset types (go to the statue of Baron Von Cacher, get a date, then go a distance/bearing from the statue). These may prove difficult wihtout some sort of translation.

 

Also, remember to change coordinates from English to Metric!

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I have found caches in four European countries, including Germany. There were plenty of cache pages that were written with English sections. The translation tools will help, although they often return a result with some amusing grammar since the structure differs between languages.

 

But the biggest problem with caching in Europe is thinking in the metric system instead of feet as that is what will show up in your GPS display. :)

 

Uh, if you bought your GPS in the US, wouldn't it stay in feet unless you change the settings to be the metric system (which you may want to do anyway if you get used to that there?). I imagine when you buy GPSr's in Europe they probably do the same in reverse (default to metric, but you can change to feet), if nothing else, the UK is only partially metric (they still use miles and I believe feet :)), so they would have the setting to cater to that market/area.

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