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Airport caching?


joshuaSR

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

Google is your friend

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

To answer your question, no. At this time they are not publishing any new virtuals.

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When you make a list of states you have visited or countries you have visited, do you include the state or country for the airport you passed through?

I've crossed 10 feet over the border of a state to grab a cache to add to my geo-map. At a cocktail party I wouldn't say that I'd visited that state, probably, but for my geo-map I've felt it's fair game.

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

To answer your question, no. At this time they are not publishing any new virtuals.

 

Seems like it could be a category for the new souvenir feature if simply doing a search using the geocaching apps would award a souvenir.

 

There's a public bookmark around somewhere that has a list of caches near airports. It includes one I found that's a virtual inside the Frankfurt-Main airport. I've also found another from that list at Shiphol airport (Amsterdam) that's since been archived. There are two at CDG (Paris) but I didn't bother finding them and took the train into the downtown area (got off at Notre Dame) to do some geocaching during a seven hour layover.

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

It's an interesting question as the cache would likely be inside or in the immediate vicinity of the airport terminal building. TSA would pitch a conniption fit if you tried leaving even so much as a blinkie in the airport itself.

 

As far as I was in the county/state/province, well, you certainly were! Further, you paid for the privilege of being there, while you twiddle your thumbs or buy overpriced items at the airport gift shops and restaurants ("A grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips and can of Coke - dit dit dit dit ching - that will be $9.52")

 

A more intriguing question would be ... if there's a cache on the ground of the Russian Embassy and I find it, do I get a find for Russia? :P

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

It's an interesting question as the cache would likely be inside or in the immediate vicinity of the airport terminal building. TSA would pitch a conniption fit if you tried leaving even so much as a blinkie in the airport itself.

 

As far as I was in the county/state/province, well, you certainly were! Further, you paid for the privilege of being there, while you twiddle your thumbs or buy overpriced items at the airport gift shops and restaurants ("A grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips and can of Coke - dit dit dit dit ching - that will be $9.52")

 

A more intriguing question would be ... if there's a cache on the ground of the Russian Embassy and I find it, do I get a find for Russia? :P

 

No, but if you found one near the Russian Embassy you'd get a find for Washington DC (assuming it was the Russian Embassy in the U.S.)

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I understand the stance that's been taken with virtual caches, but I wish they'd allow them on a stringently reviewed case by case basis. Often times, airports would be good places for virtual caches, but they're terrible for actual caches, and against the guidelines. There have been a few other places that I've visited in my travels that I've thought, "Man, what a terrible place for a cache, but a virtual could have worked very, very nicely here."

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When you make a list of states you have visited or countries you have visited, do you include the state or country for the airport you passed through?

 

I've had that discussion more than a few times with friends who don't travel. Personally, every state that I've connected through, I've also been to and walked around outside on the ground for at least a few minutes. That's where I draw the line.

 

Here's an example: Two years ago I flew to Chicago O'Hare, walked to the hotel connected to the airport through the underground tunnels, had dinner in the hotel and went to sleep. I woke the next day, had a four hour meeting in a conference room in the hotel, walked back to the airport, and flew home. I never went outside. Have I been to Illinois??? At the time, I said no. I have since gone back and spent five days in Chicago for a conference. Now, I've been to Illinois.

 

Unfortunately for me, I didn't start caching until after I stopped traveling like crazy for work. I've been to 37 states but have only cached in 3. :P

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Unfortunately for me, I didn't start caching until after I stopped traveling like crazy for work. I've been to 37 states but have only cached in 3. :P

 

I'm in the same boat, except for countries. Before I started caching I travelled for work from Canada to many states in the US, Ireland, Belgium, England, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria and Taiwan. Now my work travels are limited to the continental US, although I did manage to snag a trip over to Ireland recently.

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Yes. Changing planes counts as having been in that state. You are subject to the laws of that state.

I've been to 47 states. Two of them were only at the airport. But, I've been to Missouri and Nevada! Geocaching vacation this year was to color in South Carolina on the map of states visited, and adding Georgia and Florida to states having found a cache in.

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

It's an interesting question as the cache would likely be inside or in the immediate vicinity of the airport terminal building. TSA would pitch a conniption fit if you tried leaving even so much as a blinkie in the airport itself.

 

As far as I was in the county/state/province, well, you certainly were! Further, you paid for the privilege of being there, while you twiddle your thumbs or buy overpriced items at the airport gift shops and restaurants ("A grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips and can of Coke - dit dit dit dit ching - that will be $9.52")

 

A more intriguing question would be ... if there's a cache on the ground of the Russian Embassy and I find it, do I get a find for Russia? :P

 

No, but if you found one near the Russian Embassy you'd get a find for Washington DC (assuming it was the Russian Embassy in the U.S.)

 

Ah, but the whole premise of embassies is that they are sovereign territory of the occupying government, right?

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

'Earth'cache or Waymark, maybe? Some interesting artwork, statues etc in some airports

 

http://www.Waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx...irport&st=2

Edited by rickctroop13
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Yes. Changing planes counts as having been in that state. You are subject to the laws of that state.

 

That's how I see it. Same thing with countries... if I have the stamp on my passport then it counts. I've only walked a few hundred meters into New Brunswick, but since I had to go through customs twice in 20 minutes I think I earned it... even though we never left sight of the US. Thankfully I've never yet been to a country where I haven't also been able to find a cache.

 

The first couple times I visited Washington state, we never left the airport. Worst part was that during my fist visit I had 500 caches in the GPS and 3 hours on the ground, but couldn't leave the S terminal due to the tram being down. And I could see a cache site just a few hundred feet across the tarmac (I think there was a Denny's or something there) :P

 

No, I'll take that back. The worst one was when I flew through there several years later, and recognized the lake that the google map defaults to as we flew over on final approach, but knew that our layover was too short to leave the airport.

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Well this thread made me reminisce about the extent I went to to find GCV56D- which cost me a $60 taxi ride away from the Denver airport, trying to get CO on my map, when I was passing through. So that's always an option... Really funny thing, that I only realized tonight, as I went to try to find out WHICH cache in CO I paid so much to find, was that when I found this one in mid-2008, I had already logged four CO caches in June of 2007! dadgum I wish I'd actually put a map on my profile page back in 2008, rather than going on memory alone, I'd have saved myself the $60 and just sat at the airport. And dadgum, am I embarassed to admit that I am only now realizing this, over two years later! :P Good thing I can laugh at myself, and good thing it's been over two years so the $60 is long gone- I think if I'd realized this back then, I would have been stewing about the lost money for awhile, rather than just laughing at myself!

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Is there a way to do any virtuial caches for us travelers who can't leave airports but hop thru different cities and states a lot? I've seen some great things in airports that make me enjoy the stay or layover, how much greater would those things be once I visited and logged a cache from there? 100% that's what. I know you can't hide stuff at an airport but if you do it via virtuial it's fine. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

It's an interesting question as the cache would likely be inside or in the immediate vicinity of the airport terminal building. TSA would pitch a conniption fit if you tried leaving even so much as a blinkie in the airport itself.

 

As far as I was in the county/state/province, well, you certainly were! Further, you paid for the privilege of being there, while you twiddle your thumbs or buy overpriced items at the airport gift shops and restaurants ("A grilled cheese sandwich, bag of chips and can of Coke - dit dit dit dit ching - that will be $9.52")

 

A more intriguing question would be ... if there's a cache on the ground of the Russian Embassy and I find it, do I get a find for Russia? :P

 

No, but if you found one near the Russian Embassy you'd get a find for Washington DC (assuming it was the Russian Embassy in the U.S.)

 

Ah, but the whole premise of embassies is that they are sovereign territory of the occupying government, right?

 

Note, I did say "near" the Russian Embassy. The question is academic though since I doubt that there are any caches *on* the property of any foreign embassies in the U.S. It would be cool if there were though. I've walked through embassy row in DC on the way to the Brickskellar (a great beer bar with hundreds of different beers from around the world) and you'll see lots of different country embassies, but there'd be proximiy issues since their all so close to each other.

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Yes. Changing planes counts as having been in that state. You are subject to the laws of that state.

 

That's how I see it. Same thing with countries... if I have the stamp on my passport then it counts. I've only walked a few hundred meters into New Brunswick, but since I had to go through customs twice in 20 minutes I think I earned it... even though we never left sight of the US. Thankfully I've never yet been to a country where I haven't also been able to find a cache.

 

I have. Twice. I was in Zambia for a workshop for a week and there was one virtual a few miles away at Victoria Falls. We took an afternoon off to see the falls but, because there was a lot more water on the Zimbabwe side we got day visas and saw the falls from the Zim side. I did find a cache there though and it cost about $75 for everything to get across the border and back. I was also in Ethiopia when there were only four caches in the entire country. One of them was close to where I was staying (the next closest was over 200 miles away). but I never got out of the place I was staying without a driver provided by the institution where I was working so I got within 1000' twice of a cache there but didn't get a chance to find it.

 

Regarding whether being in an airport qualifies as "been to Illinois":

 

Earlier this year I was planning a trip that went through airports staring in New York, to Detroit, then Paris, Johannesburg, South Africa, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Nairobi, Kenya (ended up with an unplanned stop in Kilamanjaro), Amsterdam, Detroit, then back home. The only place that I assumed a visa would be required in addition to my passport was for Tanzania. Since I had a 7 hours layover in Paris I checked the passport/visa requirements since I wanted to leave the airport for awhile. I discovered that even if one doesn't leave the international section of the airport a "transit visa" is required in most cases. Those carrying a "Schengen Visa" (basically a visa that allows EU citizens to visit all EU countries) didn't need a transit visa. Fortunately, a US passport (and a couple of other countries) was sufficient as well, so I when I got to Paris I hopped on a train to the center city and walked around for a few hours and founds a couple of caches. In any case, as far as the French govt. is concerned landing in France means "you've been to France" even if you never leave the airport.

 

My travel experience is just the opposite of those that wrote that they used to travel a lot more before they started geocaching. Ten years ago the only countries I'd visited outside the U.S. were Mexico and Canada. Since early 2007, and due to the international agriculture systems work I do, I've been to the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. If you count just landing in airports I can add Senegal and Kenya. In less than 3 weeks I'll be in China and am currently planning a trip to Costa Rica in the spring. Ironically, I still haven't found any caches in Mexico and Canada.

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