Caching along routes, rest areas only

[+grouchymedic]

I'm interested if there is a way to filter out rest area stops along a route, Like from Ohio to Florida. Perhaps someone has the locations of those with caches so that some lazy butt like me can get a cache in eache of the States along the way, without going and taking a look at all of them along the way to see if they might be at a rest area. any thoughts on this?

 

Grouchymedic

[+sbell111]

I'm interested if there is a way to filter out rest area stops along a route, Like from Ohio to Florida. Perhaps someone has the locations of those with caches so that some lazy butt like me can get a cache in eache of the States along the way, without going and taking a look at all of them along the way to see if they might be at a rest area. any thoughts on this?

 

Grouchymedic

It's possible that there are bookmark lists of these. One way to find the lists would be to identify a few rest area caches along the way and see if they show a public list on their caches pages.

 

Alternatively, you could simply run a 'caches along a route' PQ and greatly limit the distance. This will filter out most non-rest area caches.

[+LDove]

Don't plan on getting any here in WI, they don't allow them.

[+J-Way]

sbell has a good place to start; if you get lucky and find a few Bookmark Lists then 90% of your research is finished.

 

But if you're still missing a few states I've found the easiest way to locate rest-area caches is using the Geocach Viewer in Google Earth (easy and free download from your Profile page at www.geocaching.com/my). Just pan along your route and look for caches immediately adjacent to the interstate; rest areas are usually easy to pick out.

 

Don't plan on getting any here in WI, they don't allow them.

WI is between OH and FL???

[+LDove]

Let me check my maps - um nope guess not. My reply was more general for people looking for bookmark lists of these caches. I would also be interested in finding a bookmark list for states that do allow them.

[+grouchymedic]

J-Way, I like that Idea but I do not know how to see the caches. I got Google Earth, but how does that show caches? Thanks

[Neos2]

You might take a look over at GeoTruckers to see if they have any bookmarks for the route you are taking.

 

It's a specialty forum for over-the-road truckers and RV enthusiasts. They have tons of lists of trucker and RV friendly caches. Many of those include large numbers of easily accessible caches along the major highways.

 

Other than that, I've done caches along a route before keeping the distance from the route to under 1 mile and gotten good results. You still have to go through and pull out some of the caches that are close to the road but not easily accessible from the road--but it certainly reduces the number of caches you have to look at.

Edited October 17, 2008 by Neos2

[Skippermark]

I say follow sbell's advice. Run a PQ along one of the interstates you'll be traveling. That will give greatly reduce your cache list to look at. You'll have to look manually till you find a rest area stop, but then once you do, most likely, it'll be included in a bookmark list of caches along that road. Even if it doesn't get them all, it'll save you looking at each and every cache. The only thing, if the bookmark isn't updated regularly, you may miss some newer caches.

[+Moose Mob]

Like all have said, just PQ's along a route, just keep it at less than 500 miles per leg and distance from highway at .25 or .5.

 

You never know when you will take a non-rest area exit to get food, gas, or hotel.

[Skippermark]

True, and when you pull off the exits for food & gas, you'll most likely find some cool caches nearby. We've found tons of neat places not far off the highway in really cool areas we would have driven right past.

 

But, just look at them first if you go that route because we've gotten "burned" where a cache is was only .25 miles from the highway, but we need to drive 5 miles out of the way to get to it because of wacky roads.

[+grouchymedic]

Thanks for all og the ideas.

[+Wild Thing 73]

WE travel by motor home and I use the "caching along routes" often...I just narrow the distance to .05 miles or less and that makes it easy to filter out other then "rest areas" or caches just off the highway that might be quick "drive ups and go", also, you will see some waypoints that are I-10 rest area, etc...this works for me....Happy caching

[+Mother Wolf]

Don't plan on getting any here in WI, they don't allow them.

 

Does anyone have an extra map for LDove?

[+J-Way]

J-Way, I like that Idea but I do not know how to see the caches. I got Google Earth, but how does that show caches? Thanks

Go to your profile page and click the "Download Geocache browser in Google Earth" link on the right side about half-way down the page.

 

Open the file you download using Google Earth (drag and drop, or it might open automatically), and presto. You can only view 150 caches at a time, so you might have to zoom in fairly close in cache-dense areas to see all of them. Also note that the locations where the icons appear are usually NOT the actual cache locations.

 

Don't forget to save it to your "My Places" folder before exiting GE.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

J-Way, I like that Idea but I do not know how to see the caches. I got Google Earth, but how does that show caches? Thanks

 

Using caches along a route is the best approach. You can limit the distance from the route to .1 of a mile or so and eliminate most of the caches that would not be at rest stops or with easy off/on access.

 

Just go to "Hide and Seek a Cache" page then click on "Search with Google Maps". Enter an address to search on near your route (a city and state name are sufficient) then pan/zoom to the major highway on which you'll be traveling, then drag the map along the route and look at caches that are very close to the road.

[+J-Way]

J-Way, I like that Idea but I do not know how to see the caches. I got Google Earth, but how does that show caches? Thanks

Using caches along a route is the best approach. You can limit the distance from the route to .1 of a mile or so and eliminate most of the caches that would not be at rest stops or with easy off/on access.

Yeah, but then you might miss that really awesome cache that's located 0.10001 miles from the centerline of the interstate. Plus I've seen several rest-area caches that are located more than 0.1 miles (528 ft) from the center of the road. The caches along the route option works great (I'm going to use it for a trip I'm taking next week), but I also like to get a feel for the other caches in the area along the route and I use Google Earth for that.

 

By the way, the suggestion to visit the GeoTruckers website is another excellent one.