Is the travel bug idea dead?

[+M&MAsheville]

We have placed three travel bugs; the first one last August. It was picked up and kept for over three months before being placed (only a mile from its original home), and has now been in the hands of its second finder for three months. We were really looking forward to seeing it travel... The one we placed in October is in its second cache, so he's doing a little better. The one we placed in early January has been in the hands of its original finder since then, and hasn't even been logged as having been retrieved from the cache we put it in. We're getting kind of disillusioned, but it's such a fun idea. Isn't there some way that instructions for the use of Travel Bugs could be e-mailed to ALL geocachers that log in to geocaching.com!? Maybe some of them would read it. Mary & Mike

[+Mejas]

I thought the travel bug was a great idea when I first started.

I've put five out sense Nov. 02 and four of them are either in someones hand and they got them from their first cache two or three months ago and have not logged back on. One even went back to the cache page and deleted his entry. But it is still on the bug page.(7Wins) Two show they are in a cache, but cacher say they are not.

I know some of them show up later but that is not an accurate record.

It is not always newbie that don't log them. I think that moving & logging them is a simple thing. If some one can't under stand that, How can they read a GPS or a cache sheet?

 

Mejas

[+wimseyguy]

Check out the TB Cannonball Run with over five dozen entries.In addition I picked up two and dropped off one today in a three cache afternoon. They are alive and active here in the Triangle.

 

These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes;

Nothing remains quite the same.

Through all of the islands and all of the highlands,

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane

[+skandranon]

I'm seriously considering starting up a project

which would provide tracking for full color photo

printed plastic cards.

 

See Skan's CacheCard Project for details.

 

Here's a small sample:

 

[He who hikes alot w/her]

I am trying something new with my new bug. I am attaching a laminated card with instructions and information on the bug. I am also putting a "PLEA" on the card to send me on my way within a week or don't remove it so someone else can try. I hope it works and maybe Groundspeak can incorporate something similar on the bug itself?

[South_Cache]

quote:

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Originally posted by He who hikes alot:

I am trying something new with my new bug. I am attaching a laminated card with instructions and information on the bug. I am also putting a "PLEA" on the card to send me on my way within a week or don't remove it so someone else can try. I hope it works and maybe Groundspeak can incorporate something similar on the bug itself?

---

 

I did the same to my new TB. In fact I didn't even attach the dog tag, just a laminated fact card.

 

Capn Skully

Vini Vidi Velcro I came I saw I stuck around.

[Dark River Rangers]

quote:

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I think that moving & logging them is a simple thing. If some one can't under stand that, How can they read a GPS or a cache sheet?

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Mejas

 

Well, Mejas, maybe they do understand. I happen to think that some people are just so mean spirited that they enjoy spoiling other people's fun. For example: how many people intentionally include "spoilers" when they log a find??

 

Example #2: I had opened a new cache with two or three T/B's in it. I came back the very next day to check how it had faired during the night's hard rain and found that it had had only one visitor since I had been there the day before.

That visitor had taken a Travel Bug but had not made reference to it in the log book although they had entered a name. ( I can not find that name anywhere else in the GeoCache.com system.) Nor had they logged their find electronically on the cache's web page or the Travel Bug's page. That Bug is in the graveyard now, poor thing. After coming 10,000+ miles she only had a couple hundred miles to go to reach her goal.

 

As far as the concept of the Travel Bug being dead is concerned, I think the "Where's George" system works fairly well. Some of the dollars do disappear, but most stay active for a long time because the object of money is to spend it, i.e.: pass it along. So in different forms, the concept of T/B's is not dead.

 

No one wants to just keep a Where's George dollar, but they do want to keep those collectable or extra cute Travelers. Maybe a laminated, printed Travel Bug card would work because it just doesn't have the "keep me" appeal.

 

Play fair or I'll sic my dragon on you.

Go home!

 

Captain Walker, Frodo & the gang

Dark River Rangers, Florida Company.