So where's your cache centroid?

[+StumpWater]

Mine's here:

 

N 35° 47.596 W 79° 09.603

 

In the middle of the woods somewhere, looks like a halfway decent place for a cache!

 

Anybody have a funny one? A prison or something.

 

StumpWater

[+StarBrand]

N 41 38.042, W 103 29.182

 

About 25 miles west and a little south of home.

 

It has migrated North and East from the last time I checked.

[+Arndtwe]

How do you determine your centroid?

[+StarBrand]

How do you determine your centroid?

Fizzy's findstats program: http://www.fizzymagic.net/Geocaching/FindStats/

[+gvsu4msu]

here is mine as of 2-17-2008

 

N 42° 55.903 W 85° 28.954

 

If I cache a tad more west I will be in the Thornapple River in the Grand Rapids MI area.

[+DavidMac]

N 35 32.948, W 88 22.016. Doesn't look like a bad spot for a cache to me.

 

Interestingly, my centroid is 146 miles north of my home coordinates. I wonder if that's a record?

[+eagsc7]

Cool Program. Mine's at N 46 17.577, W 115 36.299 Thats 129 miles from my Home Coordinates. I thought that mine would be further away, seamings that my first 80 Finds were 1300 Miles from my Home coordinates. Ohh well.

 

The Steaks

[+Okiebryan]

I never had tried this little application before. I love statistics. My cache centroid is:

 

N 35 45.515, W 98 12.147

 

Between Watonga and Okarche, OK. 139 miles from home.

 

I think the trip to the Pacific NW in August has a lot to do with that.

[Ranger Fox]

Wow. I never thought to look. Good stuff. Mine is SW 74 miles away, close to GC17Y5G. I'm missing 100 caches in that estimate, but that won't affect it by much.

 

I have a few options:

1) Since I haven't found that one yet, I could make a day trip out of it once I'm released from lock down.

2) Fly ~400 miles NE and find ~800 caches to bring balance to the Force.

3) Fly somewhere and drag the centroid further south.

4) Play the Cache Targeting Game again, forgetting this and going after my rifle scope.

 

Centroid = N 35 14.839, W 80 34.441

Edited February 18, 2008 by Ranger Fox

[+Harry Dolphin]

Hmm... My cache centroid (as of last update) is in a swamp just north of I-80 in Fairfield, NJ. N 40° 53.543 W 74° 18.575. I think BrianSnat has one of his Bottom of Lake Passaic caches near there. Jimmy Hoffa might be buried nearby...

[+Arndtwe]

N 40 03.007, W 89 09.919.

[+Rich the Bushwhacker]

Mine is N 41 46.005, W 77 33.096, a wooded area in north central Pennsylvania., about 317 miles West of my home coordinates in Rhode island.

 

Over the past few winters, I've taken trips to the southwest for sightseeing and geocaching.

Edited February 19, 2008 by Rich the Bushwhacker

[+TeamBaitBucket]

N 39 43.396, W 76 38.124

 

South PA, right on the state line, seems that 3 caches on the outer banks pulled me south only 55 miles.

[+stites1]

Mine's N 34 11.105 W 78 28.453

 

That's in the Green Swamp of Southeastern NC.

 

I hear banjo music.....

[+Laserman]

Hmm last time I checked it was a few miles SE of the original cache, doubt its changed much. Maybe I'll check again when I get home.

[+macatac1961]

N 40° 33.752 W 74° 07.709

 

Mines on Staten Island, NY. 49 miles west of my home.

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

N 43 12.273, W 84 14.537, about 670 miles from my home in Rhode Island.

 

I guess caching in Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Guam, and Germany helped skew this just a little!

[+out12]

Mine is N 42 09.397, W 72 13.986 just about 3.25 miles from home.

[+FamilyDNA]

N 38 34.952, W 121 21.345

 

About 8 miles south from home. Funny, I haven't found any of the caches right around that spot.

[+Miragee]

Well, bummer. I was curious about my cache "centroid," but for some reason, I can't get the program to run on this computer . . . OS is WinXP Media Edition.

[+9Key]

Mine is northwest of Denton, Texas @ N 33 20.956, W 97 22.318 about 40 or 50 miles from my home coords. 86 finds in Utah and a handfull in California pull it that way I guess.

[+9Key]

Well, bummer. I was curious about my cache "centroid," but for some reason, I can't get the program to run on this computer . . . OS is WinXP Media Edition.

The newest version of the FindStatsGen macro for GSAK also does a centroid calculation.

[+LeoGeo]

Mine's in what looks like a moonscape northwest of Albuquerque. (Cue "Bugs Bunny" voice muttering about that "left toin".....) And I've never even cached in New Mexico! But there are a number of caches not far away, like "Here Comes The Sun."

 

Whaddaya wanna bet that within a couple of years the "moonscape" will be covered with condos and malls?

[BRTango]

A couple of days ago I got curious as to where my centroid has moved since I started caching. So I started playing with findstats in gsak and came up with the following stats on my centroid:

• Total distance centroid has moved: 1896 miles
  
• Number of times the centroid has moved: 25
  
• Average distance change per move: 76 miles
  
• Number of months caching: 32
  
• Average distance change per month: 59 miles
  

• Furthest Distance from Home Coordinates: 572 miles (Sep 2005 Home coords in NH)
  
• Nearest Distance to Home Coordinates: 57 miles (May 2006 Home coords in NH)
  

• Northern most centroid position: 43°26'58.44"N 73°26'47.10"W
  
• Easter most centroid position: (Same as above)
  
• Southern most centroid position: 38°45'32.40"N 78°30'8.46"W
  
• Western most centroid position: 38°51'46.68"N 78°34'50.52"W
  

My original home coordinates were in West Lebanon, NH.

My current home coordinates are in MD, just north of D.C.

 

My current centroid is amongst some nice rolling hills in western VA (near Rieyville, VA): N 38° 45.851 W 78° 21.443

The nearest cache is: Over the River and Through the Woods

 

Edited February 20, 2008 by BRTango

[+StumpWater]

That's a great graphic, BRTango! ... how'd you make it?

 

StumpWater

[+DavidMac]

 

Wow, that's a great map! I wonder if somebody could make a GSAK macro that would calculate your centroid for each month.

[+TrailGators]

Mine is located about 40 miles NE of my house in the far NW corner of Anza Borrego Desert State Park: N33 29.065 W116 28.161. ABDSP doesn't allow caches there anymore. I wonder if they allow centroids...

[+Miragee]

My cache centroid is about 35 miles NE of my house and it is also in Anza Borrego Desert State Park -- N 33° 07.882 W 116° 29.169 -- a more-than-600,000 acre State Park that suddenly changed their policy about allowing Geocaches.

 

Too bad . . . that location looks like a challenging one for a cache. It isn't too far from a couple of caches I have found, and one I didn't find before it had to be Archived . . .

 

[BRTango]

That's a great graphic, BRTango! ... how'd you make it?

 

StumpWater

 

 

Wow, that's a great map! I wonder if somebody could make a GSAK macro that would calculate your centroid for each month.

 

Thanks, I have no idea how to do a macro... and hadn't considered it, maybe there is one out there or someone who knows how to do macros could put one together. Maybe I'll suggest this at the GSAK macro forums.

 

Here's what I did (I'm sure there is an easier way):

1. I filtered "My Finds" PQ in GSAK for each month (building on each other)
   
2. I ran the findstats macro (month by month) to find each centroid
   
3. I plotted each centroid in Google Earth and drew a path between them
   
4. I exported these to a .kml
   
5. I uploaded the .kml to Google Maps (my maps feature)
   
6. Changed the map to "terrain"
   
7. Did a screen capture
   
8. imported into a photo program
   
9. cropped out the bit that I wanted
   

Wheww!!! Didn't realize it was that many steps

 

It was fun and killed time while my son was napping.

Edited February 20, 2008 by BRTango

[+StumpWater]

My centroid is gonna make a major move within the next couple months (Asia business trip coming up, will get to cache in at least two countries while there). I have a small number of finds (117, I think), so if I find even 10 caches while I'm there .... my centroid will move from central NC to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay West of here.

 

That'll be fun to chart, and then the gradual creep back East.

 

StumpWater

[+DanOCan]

My centroid is 82km from home at N50 17.822 W114 56.435 which puts it just off a road north of Elkford, British Columbia. That would be a great spot for a cache by the looks of it and there is no proximity issues since the nearest cache appears to be about 12km away.

 

Little too much of a drive for me to place on there though -- the road is remote enough that it would take me 312km of driving to get there...

Edited February 20, 2008 by DanOCan

[+Blaidd-Drwg]

I'm not sure exactly how the centroid is caclculated. Looking at my own data, it must be an average of all finds. It definitely isn't the mid-points of Lat/Long. For instance here are my extremes for N/S/E/W

Most Northerly cache found: N 64° 49.313, Fairbanks Travel Bug Drop Box GCHPMV

Most Southerly cache found: S 45° 51.527, Centennial Memorial (Dunedin, Otago) GCB6C

Most Easterly cache found: E 174° 46.078, Albert Blimp Cache (Auckland) GCH0XK

Most Westerly cache found: W 155° 27.978, Hairy Hill Cache GC325E

 

With all of my finds calculated, my cache centroid: N 35° 56.050 W 96° 39.447

 

This is a spot NE of Chandler, OK, which is about 120 miles NE of my home coords

[+Prime Suspect]

A good doctor can prescribe something to get rid of those painful centroids.

[+TrailGators]

A good doctor can prescribe something to get rid of those painful centroids.

Or you can try using some Preparation-C.

[+Trucker Lee]

Neat program! Thanks.

 

Centroid = N 32 42.534, W 98 04.270

 

Mine is about 45 miles west of Ft. Worth Texas, USA, at a point 5.43 miles north of Interstate 20 barely into Palo Pinto County. There is a rest area with a cache directly south of the centroid on the highway. Curiously, this is about 6 times closer to my mother-in-laws home than mine!

 

The nearest published cache is GCYQJ4, about .8 mile to the northwest. Guess I'll put that one on my list to do.

[+DavidMac]

I found a macro in the GSAK forum which can calculate a centroid for a set of caches. If you filter your database, the macro will only consider caches in the current filter. I'm about halfway through calculating it for the end of each month since I started caching and am thinking that there's probably a way to automate the process. Will post a map when I'm done.

[+StumpWater]

Shamelessly BTTT-ing my own thread for any centroid enthusiasts out there. Mine has drifted a bit to the NE lately. Local finds diluting the effect of some more SW-ly caching when visiting relatives.

 

StumpWater

[+Rattlebars]

Mine's in West Virginia on what appears to be an oval dirt racing track for bikes?

 

Anyway, mine is horribly skewed since early on I found a variety of Locationless caches originating in such places as Australia and the like. Would be nice if there was a way to filter those out.

[+minnesotabrad]

N 44 50.312, W 92 42.904

 

As of 3-2-2008. It is 46.4 miles SE of where I live. It is also in the state of WI. It appears that is is by a very nice house. Wonder if the owner would let me place a cache there?

Edited March 9, 2008 by minnesotabrad

[+Team GPSaxophone]

1637 unique caches

1637 finds logged

 

My centroid is between Gunnison and Saguache, CO

N 38 14.277, W 106 34.723

 

[+GPSlug]

N 49 03.300, W 106 57.052

 

Southern Saskachewan

Grasslands National Park

About 3.5 miles north of the Montana border

More than 43 miles from the nearest cache

More than 300 miles from home

 

I don't think I've ever been closer than about 180 miles to that point, not including fly-overs.

[+Maingray]

Tobaccoville, near Winston Salem, NC!

 

Majority of my finds to the East, including quite a few in the UK. I guess the 70-odd in CA and NV dragged it west a tad.

 

What a great looking location, cloudy : http://maps.google.com/maps?q=36.246796586...mp;t=h&z=15

Edited March 19, 2008 by Maingray

[+StumpWater]

N 35 48.505, W 79 07.876

 

I am using all of my powers to gradually pull my centroid home to 27516.

 

I am stealthily pulling it through the woods, under cover of darkness, hoping no one notices.

 

Yesterday, it almost landed on a deer.

 

I hope to see it again soon.

 

StumpWater

[besem]

I've been interested in getting a progressive track of the centroid of all my caches found for a while now, but didn't really know how to go about it until I found this thread.

 

What sparked the interest was my convoluted start to Geocaching - I heard about and found my first cache while on holiday in Spain. I then returned to my home near Cape Town, South Africa to find a few more caches, before going to the Gauteng province for two months to prepare for my move to the Netherlands, where I currently am. The result is a path that starts off by making a loop through southern Africa, homing in on Pretoria and then shooting off across Africa towards the North.

 

The odd thing is that technically, my "home coordinates" are still for my home in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, and my cache centroid has never come closer than 500km to my home coordinates, and probably won't come near it for a long, long time. I return to South Africa in 2009, and by then I expect the centroid to hover around central Africa for the forseeable future.

 

Have a look at the map here.

[+StumpWater]

Had forgotten about this thread. Found a bunch of caches in the UK a couple months ago (almost 20% of my total finds). Buggered up my centroid something fierce. Rather than near home (NC), it's off of the Mass coast somewhere. Need to cache more, bring it home.

[+trainlove]

My 'Life' centroid is in the middle of the Quabbin Reservoir. It's migrating NE slowly. In a past life I might have lived in one of the 4 flooded towns.

[+StarBrand]

Not much change this year - Just about where it was - West of me and just a bit South - 21 miles. Odd when you see where I do most of my caching.

[7rxc]

My centroid is 82km from home at N50 17.822 W114 56.435 which puts it just off a road north of Elkford, British Columbia. That would be a great spot for a cache by the looks of it and there is no proximity issues since the nearest cache appears to be about 12km away.

 

Little too much of a drive for me to place on there though -- the road is remote enough that it would take me 312km of driving to get there...

 

I'll check that out while I'm calculating mine... Come spring thaw I might be able to help you out...

edit... just noticed the post date... make that S T 2009

Of course your centroid might shift a bit by then...

 

Doug

Edited December 8, 2008 by 7rxc

[+supertbone]

My centroid is N 37° 46.840 W 113° 59.886 and that puts it just inside the Utah / Nev border, SW of Modena, UT. It is approximately 215 miles SW from my home coordinates.

 

My centroid has fluctuated a lot due to trips to Washington DC, NE Wyoming, and frequent trips between So. Cal and No. Utah. For the first two years I cached I lived north of Los Angeles then I relocated to the Salt Lake / Provo area. Overtime the centroid has gone in a mostly NE direction.

 

Edited December 8, 2008 by supertbone

[+trainlove]

My centroid has fluctuated a lot due to trips to Washington DC, NE Wyoming, and frequent trips between So. Cal and No. Utah.

 

I take into effect about 6 months of visiting Florida over my ~50 years of life in my 'life' centroid. But that only amounts to about 1% of about 1200 miles so it's only about 12 miles. I expect my 100+ cache finds in Canada and dozen finds around DC to not impact my approximate 2200 finds centroid in the least. I just have to do the true conversion to UTM (and somehow account for different Zones) to calculate the real centroid. Lat/long is just non-Cartesian enough to make simple calculations almost meaningless.