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Road trips & caching


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So, I am not a real avid geocacher, perhaps just lacking the time with work, school, and family things to do.

Anyway, we (the family) only geocache locally and only occasionally.

As you all are probably the same as me, meaning you know the zip codes for all the surrounding towns in your area and don't have a problem getting a few caches to go find, getting the general locations or coordinates are not a problem.

But here's my question to you all. My family is planning a road trip from Utah to South Dakota come July, and I have no idea what zip codes are between here and there. I've done some basic research, and have not come up with a relatively efficient manner in which to get coordinates for caches between here and there.

Is there a web page for road travellers to map out where they are going, and from where, and the results are a list of zip codes or some other form of info so one can put together a list of caches to chase while travelling from point A to point B ??

Secondly, what do you do when you plan a long road trip ??

 

Thank you for your advice and insight in advance, it really helps.

 

Hangman :)

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If you have high-speed internet, download Google Earth and install the geocaching .kml file. Pan along your route to find interesting caches.

 

Select the "Geocaching.com Google Map" link on any cache page, then pan along the route to find caches.

 

Premium members can do a route pocket query, which locates all caches within a set distance (usually 0.5 mile or so) of the road you're planning on taking.

 

Edit:

Actually, these are more for finding a continous string of caches along your route. Since you said you aren't "avid" geocachers, I recommend planning your route like normal (I assume you're planning on stopping for food and bathrooms). Concentrate on the locations where you're planning on stopping already. On the "Hide and Seek a Cache" page, enter the local town name in the "Address" box for a list of caches.

 

However, I do recommend making at least one or two finds in every state you drive through.

Edited by J-Way
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hello hangman, this is what i do. i travel from colorado to minnesota at different times of year. since i'm driving at times in the winter i want to know what the weather is going to be in the cities that i'm passing through is going to be. this tells me if i need yto take a different route to avoid say a snow storm.

 

now i use weather bug (weatherbug.com) locally to check my local weather and weather in towns that i might pass through in the winter if i want to go hunting or fishing to also adjust my route.

 

now weather bug is amazing i think. this is what you can do. first look ath your route on the atlas and write down thw the cities on your route that you want to stop at. down load weather bug and set your setting to your town. once you get it squared away with your info, you can go up to the "change location" click on it and it will bring up a location manager page. from there you can either choose enter zip code OR city and/or state. now on the far right is a "choose state"option. now on thr right click on the arrow and it brings up a drop down screen with a lists of states, say south dakota, click go. no the next sreen shows a town in south dakots and another drop down arrow showing a list of towns to choose from. pick the town you want, if you don't see it pick the closest one. i picked elgan , then you would click next. now the next screen shows you a map of the cities on the left and above that the zip code of what ever city you have choosen OR the city closest. now on thw right is a list of citites you can choose from that's again clostest to what your looking for.

 

now if your paying attention to this screen your able to pull on the info and the zip code is on the upper left corner. it's relly simple and i hope i explained it clearly for you.

 

as for weather bug it pulls it weather info from schools and from the airports in those cities. notice the legend at the bottom of the map and you can refine your search. play with it it's pretty cool in my opinon, and i'f been using it for years.

 

not only have you found out the zip codes your looking for but you aslo have found out what the weather is going to be like in the cities you'll be driving through.

 

have fun and good luck caching!

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If you have high-speed internet, download Google Earth and install the geocaching .kml file. Pan along your route to find interesting caches.

 

Select the "Geocaching.com Google Map" link on any cache page, then pan along the route to find caches.

 

Premium members can do a route pocket query, which locates all caches within a set distance (usually 0.5 mile or so) of the road you're planning on taking.

 

Edit:

Actually, these are more for finding a continous string of caches along your route. Since you said you aren't "avid" geocachers, I recommend planning your route like normal (I assume you're planning on stopping for food and bathrooms). Concentrate on the locations where you're planning on stopping already. On the "Hide and Seek a Cache" page, enter the local town name in the "Address" box for a list of caches.

 

However, I do recommend making at least one or two finds in every state you drive through.

The best $30 you will ever spend is to become a premium member.

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Here's one way:

1. Get a premium membership

2. Pull up a cache near your home

3. Click "Geocaching.com Google Maps" on the cache page.

4. Follow it along the route you're going to take.

5. When you get to a point where you might like to stop, look for a cache and read the cache page.

If it looks like something you would like to find, bookmark it. (Start a bookmark list called "vacation")

6. Repeat as necessary!

Once you have all the caches you want, do a Pocket Query of the bookmark list and uplead to gps and pda.

It's a lot of fun reading cache pages and determining which ones really look interesting!

I know a lot of folks just download the nearest bazillion caches along their route and never read anything, but I believe a little preparation will make the trip more enjoyable!

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We like to take trips just to sight-see. We pick a destination, and then we plan our route through dense cache areas for maximum enjoyment along the way.

 

My method:

 

~map out my route on mapsource

 

~create a series of smaller routes on GC

 

~get PQs for all the caches (of the sort I like to hunt while traveling) within about 2-5 miles of the smaller routes

 

~load them back into mapsource to see what they look like

 

~take out the few outliers that I really won't go near (caches in the middle of nowhere, but near an interstate)

 

(the part above took me about 20 minutes last year to route us along a big loop from Indiana to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and then back to Indiana through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky)

 

~look over the caches that remain, edit out the ones that are potentially missing or otherwise undesirable--and most important look for a few that sound really special and designate them *must try* caches. This part can take a lot of time--but it's worth it in my opinion. I rarely ahve a really terrible experience even in distant cities because I take that time to look ahead. It's really pretty easy to tell if caches are decent or mundane if you read the logs and the cache descriptions.

 

I make a list (on paper) of the caches I really want to try--in the order we will get near them, with notes about the city they are located in and why I want to try them. If we do run into a few boring caches in one area, it's great to be able to pull out the list and say "Oh hey, Honey, we're only 25 miles from that really cool cache we wanted to try. Let's say we blow this area and move on" --it's encouraging to know there is hope just down the road!

 

While I am looking for the must try ones, I look a bit farther out to see if there is anything outside my 2-5 miles range that looks special, and add them into the route as needed. I also try to figure out where we might stop for a day or so, and look for a few more caches in those areas.

 

The tools I use are PQs from GC, mapsource, GSAK, and various mapping programs.

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Go to "My Account Details"

 

Click on "Find caches along a route"

 

Make sure you are on the "Search for Existing Routes" tab

 

Then type the city where you are starting and click on "Find public route"

 

Then all you have to do is look through the list to find the next city

 

Then when you find a route click on it and you will see create a pocket query which you can put in what ever restrictions you want like 1.3 mile of route or no multi.

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We live fulltime in our RV and are on the road a lot. Right now we are traveling from AZ to MD to CO and finally to WY for the summer. I sit down with Google Earth and check the locations where we will be spending the nights, then I scan the route to see if there might be a cache or two in a rest area. I look at each individual cache I might want...I can't just download all of them because they have to be ones we can get to with the RV, or drive to quickly after we park for the night. It's a bit time-consuming but to me it's part of planning the trip and I love doing it. When you look at our profile you'll see that we've managed to find several in every state we've gone through in the past 2 1/2 years.

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I forgot to say that once I get all the caches along the road loaded in the GPS I leave it turned on while driving and when we are thinking about taking a break I start looking for a cache near by and off the freeway we go. We like to stop every couple of hours. If I see one that I want to hit before I leave I make mental note of it and will stop an hour or two before it, like there is one in Arizona I am going to stop at in July on old route 66 that I want to stop at that I probably stoped at 40-50 years ago.

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