Premium Member Caches

[+dakboy]

And then learned that really you need the $30/year membership to access all the caches to find...

 

And we're back to we're poor. Having really enjoyed this hobby immensely I'm pretty bummed out about this. We thought we found something that we could afford and enjoy where class and money was irrelevant and we were obviously wrong. We'll continue doing the free ones of course because we enjoy the premise.

How many times a month do you buy lunch vs. brown-bagging it at work/school/wherever? Or buy a latte @ Starbucks?

 

If you cut that by 50%, how long would it take to save up the $30 for a 1-year membership?

[+Chokecherry]

And then learned that really you need the $30/year membership to access all the caches to find...

 

And we're back to we're poor. Having really enjoyed this hobby immensely I'm pretty bummed out about this. We thought we found something that we could afford and enjoy where class and money was irrelevant and we were obviously wrong. We'll continue doing the free ones of course because we enjoy the premise.

How many times a month do you buy lunch vs. brown-bagging it at work/school/wherever? Or buy a latte @ Starbucks?

 

If you cut that by 50%, how long would it take to save up the $30 for a 1-year membership?

 

I don't drink coffee (or soda either). I also don't eat lunch at work.

[+Lil Devil]

And then learned that really you need the $30/year membership to access all the caches to find...

I don't know about your area, but around here less than 1% of all caches are PMO.

 

That means a heck of a lot of caches for a non-Premie to find. It would take years to find all the non-PMO caches.

 

So after you've found all the non-PMO caches in your area, feel free to come back here and complain about PMO caches.

[+GeoGeeBee]

Come to find out in caching that swag is tradable and people expect better swag instead of the stuff we can afford if we plan on trading. Ok so there went our idea to hit the dollar store and buy some cheap stuff because we don't want to be inappropriate with the caches or insult other cachers (needless to say I do find the cheap swag very endearing when I find it in caches but that's another topic).

 

Many people would rather have home-made swag than more expensive store-bought items. Quality swag need not be expensive.

 

And then learned that really you need the $30/year membership to access all the caches to find...

 

This may be technically true... you need to be a paid member to access all the caches. But...

 

I assume your finds are near your home coordinates? I did two pocket queries centered on your most recent logged cache, GCR1YE. Within 50 miles of that cache, there are 342 caches that are available to all users. There are only two that are for "members only."

 

I'm sorry that you are so disturbed about these, but seriously... it's a little over 1/2 of one percent of all the caches near you. (0.585%, to be more precise.)

 

Expanding out to a 100 mile radius, there are 15 PMOC caches. I don't know how many free caches there are, because the 500-cache limit on pocket queries only gets out to 59 miles.

 

So enjoy the sport, and don't let those two caches worry you. You won't run out of free caches to find. Be glad you have an iPhone and a GPS, that's more than some people have. Think globally... in much of the world, a person who has a ready supply of clean drinking water, a safe place to sleep, and enough healthy food, is not considered "poor." Especially if he can afford a phone and a GPS.

 

(I know what it is to be poor. If you look at my caching history, you'll see a long gap. I saved up for months to buy my first GPS, found a few caches, and then my son borrowed it and broke it. I couldn't afford to replace it until last year.)

[+roziecakes]

I have a couple of things to say...

 

1) There are so many more non PM caches for folks to find, who cares if PM caches exist? You're truly not being left out of anything. People in wheelchairs cannot go to find caches with terrain ratings over a one, but do you think they would expect folks to hide only 1 terrain caches so they won't be left out? No. I don't own a 4 wheel drive vehicle or a boat, but do I expect cache hiders to not hide caches that require these types of "equipment?" Of course not!!

 

Bottom line is, we cannot please everyone. If folks want to place PM only caches, that's fine. The number of people doing that is so small that you will have plenty of caches to find. Really.

 

2) In regards to being poor. I consider myself to be middle class and I will not put out the expense of buying an iphone. Riffster is right when he says that's a contradiction in terms. $30 a year is really not that much money... I am sure that you spend several times that much on your iphone each month. How often do you go out to eat? A movie ticket is often $10, how often do you go to the movies? It's all about priorities. My favorite hobby is much more important to me than what kind of phone I have, so have a middle of the line phone that I use with a prepaid cell service (net10), and spend $30/month for it.

 

Does that mean that I think you need to have the same priorities as me? Of course I don't, but if you're going to say you're "poor," you can't be that poor if you have an iphone. Just doesn't compute for me.

 

And if you really are poor, you can still have fun geocaching, just don't sweat it that some people choose to put out PM posts, and do what you need to do for your own personal priorities whatever they may be, but there's no need to give others a hard time because they want to do something a certain way. It doesn't mean that Premium Members are elitist or mean or that they're trying to "leave you out" of something.

 

Okay... rant done.

Edited April 26, 2010 by nymphnsatyr

[+Lil Devil]

Expanding out to a 100 mile radius, there are 15 PMOC caches. I don't know how many free caches there are, ...

There are 2,481 caches within 100 miles. So, 0.6% are PMOC. Don't sweat them.

[+Printess Caroline]

...

But I agree with an earlier poster about premium member only leaning toward elitist. I wish I could afford a yearly membership but I can't and neither can he. We took our tiny little bit of fun money and invested what we could in this. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy it as much as a paying member or that I'm not as careful with the caches or travel bugs. It means I'm poor. I wish I could keep up with the Jones' in this hobby but I can't.

 

As far has PMO caches go, from my experience I can honestly say your aren't missing anything very special. Forget about the caching Jones'. We all enjoy the same cheap thrills that geocaching provides for basic and premium members alike.

[+roziecakes]

 

As far has PMO caches go, from my experience I can honestly say your aren't missing anything very special. Forget about the caching Jones'. We all enjoy the same cheap thrills that geocaching provides for basic and premium members alike.

 

That's true... a lot of them are not that special.