Bug Hoarding

August 6, 2002

I've released one travel bug so far. It was picked up a month a go and might as well be lobster bait - the geocacher who has it, has done nothing with it.

The one bug that I found was placed in a cache in aboutfive days.

What is a reasonable length of time for waiting before I graveyard this travel bug???

Perhaps this site needs a geocacher scoring system for how quickly a bug is moved...

August 6, 2002

unless it is logged into a cache and is clearly missing. Unfortunately, lots of people are slow to move TB's. Send the person a polite e-mail asking that they get the bug moving. I give people about a month before 'bugging' them. The first person said 'Oh my gosh, I forgot I had it. Sorry' and placed it in a cache within a couple days. The others said they were leaving on a cross-country trip and were taking the bug with them, and I think that ones going on 6 weeks now. Since then, I added a comment to all my TB's to please place them into a cache within 2 weeks. We'll see if that does any good.

1.5k · August 6, 2002

I'm not quite that patient... I'll probably wait 2 or 3 weeks before I'd send an e-mail. I held one for probably 2 weeks or so, the first one I found - and while it didn't seem terribly long to me, since I was dragging the bug around and taking pics of his adventures - I'm sure the owner was wondering what was going on.

It is kinda funny - I grabbed Builder Dan and took him on a journey - then placed him in a cache about 25 miles from his starting point. Wouldn't you know that the very next person to grab Dan ended up taking him straight back to where he started. Why? Don't ask me... heh

--== http://www.bigfoot.com/~rbatina ==--

1.5k · August 6, 2002

I'm not quite that patient... I'll probably wait 2 or 3 weeks before I'd send an e-mail. I held one for probably 2 weeks or so, the first one I found - and while it didn't seem terribly long to me, since I was dragging the bug around and taking pics of his adventures - I'm sure the owner was wondering what was going on.

It is kinda funny - I grabbed Builder Dan and took him on a journey - then placed him in a cache about 25 miles from his starting point. Wouldn't you know that the very next person to grab Dan ended up taking him straight back to where he started. Why? Don't ask me... heh

--== http://www.bigfoot.com/~rbatina ==--

August 6, 2002

I like the idea of giving some incentive to keep a bug moving... might also be good to give some recognition for keeping a bug travelling on the right road -- either towards stated geographic goals or "on theme."

I visited a new cache today specifically to pick up a bug to take east this weekend, only to find the cache raided and the bug gone. Terrible for its owner to have to graveyard it on its maiden flight.

CU

August 6, 2002

I like the idea of giving some incentive to keep a bug moving... might also be good to give some recognition for keeping a bug travelling on the right road -- either towards stated geographic goals or "on theme."

I visited a new cache today specifically to pick up a bug to take east this weekend, only to find the cache raided and the bug gone. Terrible for its owner to have to graveyard it on its maiden flight.

CU

August 6, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Rubbertoe:
It is kinda funny - I grabbed http://www.geocaching.com/track/track_detail.asp?ID=7451 and took him on a journey - then placed him in a cache about 25 miles from his starting point. Wouldn't you know that the very next person to grab Dan ended up taking him straight back to where he started. Why? Don't ask me... heh

That's what happened to me (except mine was on a larger scale) with a bug I eventually had to put in the graveyard. It was in a cache in Wisconsin when I gave it a new mission to get to a specific cache in Missouri. The bug worked its way south and finally ended up in a cache less than 2 miles from its destination. The person who placed it there, an expert cacher, added a note to the bug explaining that the bug should be taken only by someone heading to that particular cache and that once the bug reaches that cache it should not be removed. So what happens? Someone on vacation grabs the bug, doesn't read the note, and takes it all the way back to Wisconsin and puts it in a cache there... only discovering the mistake when he went online to log the transaction. (The bug eventually disappeared while in this person's possession... grrrr.)

August 6, 2002

Do most travel bugs vanish like this? So far I haven't decided whether to get one or not because I figure some bozo will take it and do nothing with it.

August 7, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by scubagecko:
Do most travel bugs vanish like this? So far I haven't decided whether to get one or not because I figure some bozo will take it and do nothing with it.

Weell, here's my experience. I bought 8 tags. So far I have released 6 bugs. Here's the breakdown:

- One was lost in a looted cache. Now in the graveyard.

- One was taken by someone who let a grandkid take care of it and now it's in the graveyard.

- One was taken by someone who thought the tag alone was the bug so detached it from the item and left the item behind, then never did anything with the tag. Now in the graveyard.

- One was held for 3 months by the same person and finally put in a new cache a few weeks ago, only to then be reported missing by the next finder of that cache. Probably soon to go to the graveyard.

My remaining two launched bugs are still sitting in a pair of caches I placed back in June that have not been found yet. Those could be safe there for quite a while... they are in a location that is reached by an unmaintained trail with sections of 10-feet-high overgrowth and three pairs of 300-foot up/down elevation changes.

I'll still launch my last two bugs sometime, it's fun. My four vanished bugs all managed to get around quite a bit before they disappeared.

August 7, 2002

Maybe if you make travel bugs out of things that you WANT to lose, then Murphy's Law might kick in and keep them around. How about your bad report card that you don't want your parents to see. Or maybe that picture of you in the 80's where you thought dressing like Corey Feldman dressing like Michael Jackson was a good idea?

"Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out." -Dru Morgan www.theheavenlyhost.com/dru

August 10, 2002

Since many Travel Bugs have goals (like seeing certain parks or travelling to certain states) I think many hunters hold on to TBs until they are able to make a trip in the right direction. Otherwise Travel Bugs might be doomed to remain in the immediate local area and simply bounce back and forth among the same caches.

So it's understandable (in my opinion) if someone holds on to a TB for 4 to 6 weeks in order to help it along toward it's goal. Afterall, until you get home and log the TB you're not really going to know where it wants to go.

A few months ago I found a TB in Indiana that wanted to go to Oklahoma. Since I had a trip planned for that area a month or so later, I held onto to hoping to place help get it to its goal. Later the trip fell through and I ended up putting the TB in a cache barely 60 miles from where I'd found it. THe point is my intentions were good. It just didn't twork out as planned.

On the flip side, I looked at the cache reports on the cache from which I originally took the TB and during that month NO ONE else had visited it. The end result being, my holding on to it for four weeks didn't really delay it's journey.

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

August 11, 2002

I have several bugs that seem to have fallen from the face of the earth. Out of the 8 I have traveling only 4 have been logged recently or can be accounted for. 4 are MIA I've emailed recent visitors to the last known caches and they all say that the bugs were not in the cache at the time of thier visit. A few even went to the caches with the hopes of finding a bug and found none there.

Others seemed to have bounced around all over the place without anyone paying attention to thier goals. I thought it was a good idea, and alot of fun but now I'm not sure.

Randall J. Berry

davros@mdgps.net

1.4k · August 12, 2002

Well I'm new to this and have found 2 bugs. My thoughts were to wait until I could drop them off at least an hour away from where they were found, but that would mean holding them for awhile. Do most people like it is better to just place them soon even if they just bounce around the same town or give them some legs?

Nurse Dave

---I will stand out, I am a raven in the snow.

1.5k · August 12, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Nurse Dave:
My thoughts were to wait until I could drop them off at least an hour away from where they were found, but that would mean holding them for awhile.

Personally, I don't care if my bug only moves a few miles - as long as it keeps moving. I'd rather have it take a bunch of short little hops around town than to sit in a cache, or in someone's pocket, for weeks on end.

Not sure what the general opinion is on that, though.

--==< http://home.columbus.rr.com/rubbertoe >==--

August 27, 2002

Well, I'm pleased to report that the TB that I thought was lost, has journeyed forth and is not back in circulation. In the mean time, I have released a second bug. Thanks for everyone's insight on TB traveling philosophy.

HW

August 27, 2002

Well, I'm pleased to report that the TB that I thought was lost, has journeyed forth and is not back in circulation. In the mean time, I have released a second bug. Thanks for everyone's insight on TB traveling philosophy.

HW

3.4k · August 27, 2002

I just wish the cacher that has my Prowler Bug would at least answer my emails! It has been almost 2 months since he picked it up. From now on, if I do any more bugs, they are NOT going to be $8 cool cars. That gets a bit spendy.

August 27, 2002

Take heart. My bug Tokyo Bullet Train TB25D2 went MIA from it's launch cache, 3 months ago, but this week it showed up cached 60 miles away.

September 2, 2002

I just picked up bug TB7EF (my first one) and It has had an interesting trip so far (even though it back within 50 miles of its starting point).

it looks like 2 weeks ago some one droped it off 30 miles south of me and never loged it. I grabed the bug, placed it in the cache, and grabed it from the cache again so it would show up as having been in that cache in the first place. I'm putting it in my cache tomorow.

I'm thinking of converting my cache into a TB Hotel seeing that that I am on a major north-south highway (US 131 in Michigan 8 miles south of M-72) and making a new cache some where else. I could just call it a TB Hotel & Cache and have to bags. one for the bugs, one for the cache. what do you guys think?

October 9, 2002

quote:

What is a reasonable length of time for waiting before I graveyard this travel bug???

Don't graveyard it yet, it may surface . . .

If you don't believe me check out this one Dyno.

1.8k · October 9, 2002

Regarding Dyno -- wow. Eight months?

I started to worry about my Baseball Bug after about four weeks, then almost gave up at six, and was pleasantly surprised at nine (April 23 - July 1). Maybe that's why I panicked too soon when, after being placed in a 4/4 on August 9, and when a cache finder didn't remember seeing it on his September 2 visit, and not seeing a report from the latest finder October 6, I'd given it up for dead.

I was again pleasantly surprised when a second cacher, who also visited the cache October 6, took pity on me and found the bug in the cache.

Sometimes, it just takes a while...

"I'm sure she would have been thrilled to find so much pooh in a little metal box."

6.5k · October 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Former Park Ranger:
Can we ban them from the website?

No.

i realize it must be annoying waiting, but please try to relax. if you keep bugging the ppl that took your bugs maybe they will just toss the next one they run across instead of taking it and claiming they did so.

is TB LIA, Travel Bug Lost in Action?

6.5k · October 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Former Park Ranger:
Can we ban them from the website?

No.

i realize it must be annoying waiting, but please try to relax. if you keep bugging the ppl that took your bugs maybe they will just toss the next one they run across instead of taking it and claiming they did so.

is TB LIA, Travel Bug Lost in Action?

October 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by travisl:
Regarding Dyno -- wow. Eight months?

A friendly email seemed to do the trick with this bug, and I should mention there was good reason for the long wait.

October 9, 2002

AOL Travelers

My son & wife started a TB for me in Boston, as gift while on vacation. First person to find it still has it and has never logged it off of the original site. Soooo disapointing. Now I am leery of starting my own out on journeys. Afraid it will break my heart to see them get lost. I always try to send the ones I find on their way within two weeks. Occasionally it took longer due to unforseen circumstances. Such as when you find a new cache and you had planned to put it in it because it was headed in the correct direction, only the cache was in such bad condition you didn't dare leave the TB in it. So TB came back home to await another trip.

October 9, 2002

AOL Travelers

My son & wife started a TB for me in Boston, as gift while on vacation. First person to find it still has it and has never logged it off of the original site. Soooo disapointing. Now I am leery of starting my own out on journeys. Afraid it will break my heart to see them get lost. I always try to send the ones I find on their way within two weeks. Occasionally it took longer due to unforseen circumstances. Such as when you find a new cache and you had planned to put it in it because it was headed in the correct direction, only the cache was in such bad condition you didn't dare leave the TB in it. So TB came back home to await another trip.

October 10, 2002

I love Travel Bugs. I like to find them and I like to create them. They are, however, definately not for the impatient or those who stress out easily. I have several Travel Bugs some of them seem to move very quickly and others jsut sort of languish. My rule of thumb is to try to move nay Travel Bug I find within a week, two at the most. In one instance I would have been able to help a bug considerably toward it's goal but I would have had to hang on to it for over a month. I e-mailed the owner and asked him what his preference was. He was nice enough to leave it up to me but thanked me for letting him know what was going on so that he wouldn't worry if the Bug didn't move for a while. I decided that I wanted to place the Bug quickly and so I did. If you own a Travel Bug you can hope to have someone as wonderful as Me pick it up Or you just have to be really really patient with some people. Just don't attach anything that you cannot bear to part with permenantly :

October 10, 2002

After reading all the replies, and since I have about 8 TB of my own, I decided to e-mail the owners of the bugs I have been collecting for my trip out west and let them know of my intentions. Some of my bugs have been idle for a month or so, and it would be nice to know what's happening with them, without having to bug (no pun intended) the cacher holding them.

6.5k · October 10, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Former Park Ranger:
Yes TB LIA is Travel Bug Lost in Action.

i think MIA PONG is a better term but whatever works

(MIA-PONG, Missing In Action-Prisoner Of Newbie Geocacher)

October 11, 2002

...the "welcome" note to Geocachers when we open a cache. It's a standard - every cache has one. It's the Please Read that lets the finder know how to treat the cache.

Why shouldn't there be something similar for travel bugs? Doesn't need to be big, just a small sheet that could be slipped into a zip-lock bag with the TB, that advises the finder to place it in another cache (suitable to its mission) ASAP.

just a thought. Feel free to shoot me down.

------

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet, II.2 252-253

October 11, 2002

I have seen some TB with a laminated card attached to it with instructions on what to do with it, even describing how to log the bug.

8.9k · October 11, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Chazman007:
I have seen some TB with a laminated card attached to it with instructions on what to do with it, even describing how to log the bug.

See this thread for my solution.

I'm just about ready to release 4 more travel bugs, but I'll make the cards much more abbreviated, and direct them to my Geocaching FAQ and the section on logging travel bugs. I'll be placing the goal on the tag as well except for the one that may change goals remotely.

Markwell

Chicago Geocaching

6.5k · October 11, 2002

actually not ALL caches have that note, but most seem to

as for a similar thing for TBs, several ppl have created tags/IDs whatnot to attach to bugs and there usage seems to be growing!!

if i find a bug w/o a tag i been attaching something(so far this has been most of the bugs ive found ) i havent had a tb owner yet tell me not to, most say something like "thats a good idea i wish i would have done that to all my other ones, etc"

quote:
Originally posted by Kouros:
...the "welcome" note to Geocachers when we open a cache. It's a standard - every cache has one. It's the _Please Read_ that lets the finder know how to treat the cache.

Why shouldn't there be something similar for travel bugs? Doesn't need to be big, just a small sheet that could be slipped into a zip-lock bag with the TB, that advises the finder to place it in another cache (suitable to its mission) ASAP.

just a thought. Feel free to shoot me down.

------

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet, II.2 252-253

October 18, 2002

A variation of this theme. My TB TransAtlantic #1 has been MIA for about a month. It was picked up within a day of landing at a cache in Ohio but the person who took it has not recorded it as in there posession or for that matter logged a visit to the cachem so I do not know who has it. It therefore shows as still in the cache Rather irritating for someone who goes to a cache specifically to get the TB because they can help its journey. This TB was attached to a nice model aeroplane, maybe someone picked it up for their kid and did not realize the significance of the tag.

Maybe it will land somewhere soon

Braveheart

October 19, 2002

My first travel bug, Flit, went out riding inside a ziploc bag that contained an instruction card, and a small logbook. She has been missing since June 1st, and the last logged comment read, "Cute little bird..."

I didn't think Flit was especially cute, but apparently she is too attractive for her own good.

I have sent a funny e-mail, a friendly e-mail, and a pleading e-mail, but no answer. The people holding her stopped geocaching the day they found my travel bug.

The instruction card did not seem to make any difference, in this case. For some reason, the people who took Flit just quit. I'm thinking I'll do what I would do if my cache disappeared: duplicate and replace it. I'll find another bird toy (25 cents at a garage sale!), attach another tag, and launch Flit II. I would suggest to people launching a travel bug that has a lot riding on it (it's a birthday present, or each person in the family launched one in a race, or it just means a lot to you for some reason), that you have one or more duplicates ready to send out as "Travel Bug the Second" or "Travel Bug Reincarnated."

Meanwhile, it eases my vengence-wanting heart to imagine what their really bad karma may be doing to those folks who can't seem to play a game correctly. And that is the key word- it is a GAME. It's not worth getting your knickers in a twist if someone doesn't play right. Meanwhile, I move travel bugs as quickly as I can, knowing that I don't want to accrue any bad karma myself.

-Donna, one half of The Tribe of Two

Bug Hoarding

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