Have I misunderstood the concept of Travel Bugs?

[hungerdunger]

From my brief experience with Geocaching, I understood that the idea of Travel Bugs was that you'd drop them off at a cache, then let other enthusiasts transport them around, with the hope that one day they'd reach their goal.

 

Then yesterday I came across this page

 

It appears that this Geocacher just goes round dropping his TB into a cache, then immediately retrieving it himself. I can't really see the point of this; can someone explain it to me?

Edited March 5, 2010 by hungerdunger

[+J the Goat]

It's called dipping, and people do it to add milage to their travel bugs.

[+HookwayFamily]

From my brief experience with Geocaching, I understood that the idea of Travel Bugs was that you'd drop them off at a cache, then let other enthusiasts transport them around, with the hope that one day they'd reach their goal.

 

Then yesterday I came across this page

 

It appears that this Geocacher just goes round dropping his TB into a cache, then immediately retrieving it himself. I can't really see the point of this; can someone explain it to me?

 

My guess would be that perhaps the owner wants to track how many miles he has done between all cache finds??

Rather than add it up himself he uses the bug to log the miles...just a guess though...

[+t4e]

From my brief experience with Geocaching, I understood that the idea of Travel Bugs was that you'd drop them off at a cache, then let other enthusiasts transport them around, with the hope that one day they'd reach their goal.

 

Then yesterday I came across this page

 

It appears that this Geocacher just goes round dropping his TB into a cache, then immediately retrieving it himself. I can't really see the point of this; can someone explain it to me?

 

yes, trackables are meant to travel, but some may choose not to release them and keep them as personal items for the purpose that HookwayFamily described bellow

 

My guess would be that perhaps the owner wants to track how many miles he has done between all cache finds??

Rather than add it up himself he uses the bug to log the miles...just a guess though...

 

that guess is correct, i have a personal coin too that i use for such purpose

 

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=2265205

[hungerdunger]

Thanks to everybody for their replies.

 

I can see the point of using ONE to log the distance travelled - in fact I may give that a try myself, but this person appears to have several on the go at the same time.

[+ngrrfan]

Thanks to everybody for their replies.

 

I can see the point of using ONE to log the distance travelled - in fact I may give that a try myself, but this person appears to have several on the go at the same time.

I'll release TBs to roam and have certain goals BUT.... I have my private coin collection that I want to keep. I won't release the coins but I will take them to events to be discovered, dipped into caches, and shared with my friends. I know that coins can and do go MIA and I don't want that to happen to mine.

[GermanSailor]

I can't really see the point of this; can someone explain it to me?

It's a free country and just a hobby. Everybody can do whatever he or she want as long as no one else is bothered.

 

It's just a way to track the direct distance between caches. Whatever purpose this number might have to said person.

 

GermanSailor

[+BlueDeuce]

I can't really see the point of this; can someone explain it to me?

It's a free country and just a hobby. Everybody can do whatever he or she want as long as no one else is bothered.

 

It's just a way to track the direct distance between caches. Whatever purpose this number might have to said person.

 

GermanSailor

 

That's not entirely true. There are bug logging practices that the system allows but are against guidelines.

 

Logging your own bug through caches you have visited is within guidelines.

Edited March 5, 2010 by BlueDeuce

[+Brooklyn51]

Some cachers also 'dip' TBs to add miles to the TB itself before releasing it: for example, a TB is picked up at cache A and will finally be dropped in cache C two miles to the south, a cacher might take it ten miles north first to cache B, dip it and then drop it in the final destination in C. The TB has now officially logged 22 miles instead of just the 2 miles which would have been the distance from the initial point and the final one.

[+Bear and Ragged]

Some cachers also 'dip' TBs to add miles to the TB itself before releasing it: for example, a TB is picked up at cache A and will finally be dropped in cache C two miles to the south, a cacher might take it ten miles north first to cache B, dip it and then drop it in the final destination in C. The TB has now officially logged 22 miles instead of just the 2 miles which would have been the distance from the initial point and the final one.

Handy if cache B is a micro and the TB doesn't fit, but gets the miles on the TB.

[+Simon Mates]

I have several TB's out there discovering the world and one "special" one that stays with me to keep track of how many miles we've been together. I try to remember to "dip" it into every cache I place as well as those I find.

[+The Cache Checkers]

Dipping them doesn't sound like any fun to me. I only have a few TB's that are out there, but love it when I get an email that they've made it somewhere. But, then again, maybe if I had kept my son's slug geocoin, it wouldn't be MIA after only one pick up. Sigh.

[+BlueDeuce]

Dipping them doesn't sound like any fun to me. I only have a few TB's that are out there, but love it when I get an email that they've made it somewhere. But, then again, maybe if I had kept my son's slug geocoin, it wouldn't be MIA after only one pick up. Sigh.

 

Dipping a personal tb through every single cache is tedious and requires dedication but it's always logged promptly and never goes missing.

 

I do have another bug that just with me on special trips. Shaky Bacon loves to socialize.

 

 

Here he is at a wedding reception with my brother in law.

 

[Olifant2]

My guess would be that there are also people using a virtual coin, just to count their own milage. If the coin always stays with them there doesnt seem much of a difference between having a real coin with them all the time, or just logging the coin, even if it does not exist (or is not with them).

 

Maybe one could add one feature to the site: The site does not only add the milage of a coin but also the milage of each geocacher. That would make the coins unnecessary which only exist for milage purposes.

[sabrefan7]

I keep a personal TB attached to my geopack and dip it every cache I find. Im not much of a numbers guy. Keeping track of were I have gone is the sole purpose of the bug. The only draw back is deleting the emails from Groundspeak.

[+Team Luvbassn]

All of my new coins get dipped in the cache in my front yard so that the miles start at my ground zero.