Geocaching in Brussels and Bruges

[DreadPirateJeff]

I'm headed to Brussels in may and will spend the first weekend in Bruges on holiday before I have to attend a work conference up in Brussels....

 

I had planned on bringing my geomate along, or maybe the GPS72...

 

Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone here could provide some tips and tricks for caching in Belgium. I'm not sure how the law works there (the police) or what kind of reaction I'd get if people saw me digging around for hidden boxes... heh...

 

I know sometimes in the US such things can be mistaken for nefarious activity, though not often.

 

I guess what I wanted to find out is how geocaching friendly is Belgium? From what I've seen here, there seems to be a treasure trove of caches all over the country.

 

Also, what advice would you give someone who's from another country and visiting for the first time? I don't want to inadvertently offend anyone, or upset the locals if I go off caching.

 

Cheers

Jeff

[+VuurVos]

Hi, we actually have a very active geocaching community. But there are not a lot of geocachers visiting this forum.We have our own local forum instead.

 

Don't be afraid of geocaching in Belgium, we hardly ever see police officers arresting people for that

Unlike some stories I've read on the US forum

We don't have wildlife you should worry about (except maybe ticks)

 

Some caches are already translated in English, and if you fancy one that isn't available in English, just let us know.

 

I see you're visiting Bruges : from the ones I've done there I liked GCXKWY the most.

I don't know how mobile you'll be while visiting Belgium, will you be using public transport, rent a car ?

Edited March 24, 2010 by VuurVos

[DreadPirateJeff]

Hi, we actually have a very active geocaching community. But there are not a lot of geocachers visiting this forum.We have our own local forum instead.

 

Don't be afraid of geocaching in Belgium, we hardly ever see police officers arresting people for that

Unlike some stories I've read on the US forum

We don't have wildlife you should worry about (except maybe ticks)

 

Some caches are already translated in English, and if you fancy one that isn't available in English, just let us know.

 

I see you're visiting Bruges : from the ones I've done there I liked GCXKWY the most.

I don't know how mobile you'll be while visiting Belgium, will you be using public transport, rent a car ?

 

Cool! Yeah, I've never run into problems myself, but I've read plenty where cops have hassled cachers and a couple places where they've sent in the bomb squad to blow up a cache that was improperly marked, afraid it was an IED or something bad like that.

 

As for me, I actually will be in La Hulpe for a week for a work conference. I won't have much time outside of work to do anything other than drink and hang out, but the weekend before I'm planning on spending Saturday and most of Sunday in Bruges (I fly in at 0800) and the following weekend, I've got Friday evening and all of Saturday in Brussels with a friend of mine from Switzerland before flying back out on Sunday morning.

 

Unfortunately, no car for me... I like the idea, but this time around, I'm going to avail myself of the wonders of European mass transit. I understand it's far superior to most public transit systems in the US (meaning most European public transit, don't want to sound like I think "Europe" is a single country or anything)... So trains and busses for me.

 

Next time, if I have vacation time to tack on to the business trip, I may rent a car instead so I can visit a few different countries, but that's in the future so who knows what will really happen.

[+VuurVos]

I won't have much time outside of work to do anything other than drink and hang out

 

Check out the attributes on the caches : in a city like Brussels there are plenty of 24/7 caches