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Ambrosia

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The recent thread about Northernly/Farthest from home caches made me realize that a lot of you are fairly well traveled. I'm a stats hound ;), and travel is very important to me, so I would love to know where y'all have been. Hey, if you want to add pictures to the thread, I wouldn't mind, as I love photos as well. B)

 

Here's my travel/caching list:

 

U.S. (25 states and D.C.)

Canada (4 provinces)

Mexico

Australia (2 territories)

Grand Bahama

Jamaica

 

It's kind of hard knowing that there were places that I've visited before caching, so I'm missing those (it's especially hard having visited some states after caching, but for some reason didn't find caches in).

 

I've visited 49 states, and also the U.S. Virgin Islands, Belize, and Guatemala.

Edited by Ambrosia
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So far not much, but this year I'm making up for it! I've only cached in 4 states I think.

I'm going to Washington in March (HQ et al on that trip).

April I'm going to Belize and I will get at least one cache there even if it means bribing someone.

Geowoodstock in July and a slim chance of going to New Zealand in December.

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I haven't done a whole ton of caching yet, but last year when I took a drive down Route 66 from Chicago to L.A., I found most of my caches. To me, it was a great "extra" reason to get to see different spots. Though I'd done the trip before and seen all the "standard" tourist fare, Geocaching was an awesome way to see what some people thought were points of note about their areas.

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Ah! Geocaching travelling!!! I'm not fond of airplanes, and they don't like me, so I try to avoid them. 19 states, the D of C and New Brunswick. First geocaching trip was to find the APE cache in Maryland (though no souvenir for that.) Last year's trip was South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. 2009 we hit Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio (and my sister picked up Delaware, D of C, Maryland and West Virginia.

Before Geocaching (when I actually fit in an airplane...) I had visited 46 states, and four countries (USA, Canada, Mexico and France (The French portion of St. Martin is an integral part of France!) Oh, and the Netherland Antilles. Maybe this year, we'll get to Ontario. New states and provinces are getting further ad further away... (Still have never visited Arkasas, Oklahoma or Alaska).

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I am in the Navy, so I have traveled a lot. I only have been on one deployment as a Geocacher...I have found a Traditional in Cuba, a Virtual in Costa Rica, and a Traditional in Colombia (my 10/10/10 find). They were over 10 active caches in Cuba, but they required an extensive hike, a ferry ride or a vehicle, none of which we were allowed to do. In Costa Rica and Colombia the caches were pretty slim or too far away. :( I can't figure out how to insert pictures in here but you can see them on my profile here.

 

In the US, I have found caches in all of the southeastern states except Alabama. But I am headed down to Pensacola at the end of the month, so that will be fixed. Most recently over the holidays while visiting my mother-in-law I picked four finds in California.

 

Costa Rica:

f936e217-5fd2-4d6b-99d4-474c5bc78016.jpg

Edited by Bosn Ski
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I love to travel, and caching is the perfect way to give a little focus to my wanderings. Oh man, the places that caching has taken me...

 

Playa Grande in Dominican Republic:

80272489-de48-4c51-bedd-69b2433293c9.jpg

 

Another rarely-visited corner of Dominican Republic. I was hoping for an FTF, but couldn't find it.

a0dc7d60-a2d9-4aaa-b979-a22b7d4e214f.jpg

 

A virtual took me to a foggy mountaintop in southern Mexico, where I bumped into the most beautiful woman in the country and ended up (maybe) on TV.

34c16196-e5bd-42ad-9128-593ddf034ddc.jpg

 

My best DNF ever took me to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua.

2bf38030-ddbb-4a55-9673-315b3b2a2c49.jpg

 

Did you know that Nicaragua has a couple of Caribbean islands? In this picture I'm standing on one of them, looking out at where the other one - with an FTF waiting - is supposed to be. Normally that island is visible from here. Took the picture after deciding that today wasn't really a good day to get into a small boat.

82a33768-5c10-4e41-8743-689f6a454e9e.jpg

 

I hopped around South America hoping for a few FTFs, including the evocatively named Treasure of the Inca Lagoon in the far upper-right corner of this picture.

40f7fc7f-24c2-4086-8b1a-034a9d18558b.jpg

 

A memorable DNFTF in foggy Chiapas, southern Mexico:

4efbf17e-fb2c-4202-a2ca-c7d5da06acbb.jpg

 

Another DNF in Chiapas, but a totally worthwhile day regardless. I learned how not to ride a zipline.

c989260d-fa7b-431d-9846-bc6fe83f6e81.jpg

 

Hidden in the back streets of Tijuana, an impressive labor of love and the first stage of an international multi:

3063fd82-7a51-471c-9a82-7ce7a9be468e.jpg

 

Buenos Aires has a ways to go before it's a caching destination. It has a few caches, but they're all besieged by muggles. Thank goodness for the odd virtual.

a81c70de-5914-4e89-a1c7-75dd88d2fd6a.jpg

 

Oh man, I could go on. The places that caching takes me...

 

(Hey, how about some souvenir icons for countries, eh?)

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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I am in the Navy, so I have traveled a lot. I only have been on one deployment as a Geocacher...I have found a Traditional in Cuba, a Virtual in Costa Rica, and a Traditional in Colombia (my 10/10/10 find). They were over 10 active caches in Cuba, but they required an extensive hike, a ferry ride or a vehicle, none of which we were allowed to do. In Costa Rica and Colombia the caches were pretty slim or too far away. :( I can't figure out how to insert pictures in here but you can see them on my profile here.

 

In the US, I have found caches in all of the southeastern states except Alabama. But I am headed down to Pensacola at the end of the month, so that will be fixed. Most recently over the holidays while visiting my mother-in-law I picked four finds in California.

Here is a KB article about posting pics in the forum: Linky B)

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I've been lot of places. Geocaching has shown me things I would never have seen otherwise.

 

18 countries

34 US states

445,000 caching miles

 

I once in a while make a map of my finds, with lines between them, in order. It's kind of amusing.

 

It's clear I need to get to Asia and Australia. And Africa, for that matter. Heck, I need to go everywhere.

 

Finds.jpg

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Cool map. I don't know how to do those sorts of things. :P

 

I couldn't agree with you more, I need to go everywhere. Although I know I won't even come close. We used to do pretty good, traveling almost every year, to different countries. Sometimes we went back to the same countries (4 times to Mexico, 2 times to Australia, and 2 times to Jamaica). I feel torn about revisiting countries. On one hand, I want to use my time and money to explore new places. But it's also nice to revisit places. Especially Australia, as we feel it's like a second home. I would go back there in a heartbeat if I could.

 

But our traveling (especially out of the country - only once in the past 5 years) has slowed down, because of my health. Hopefully we can travel more in the future.

 

We've been fortunate in our traveling, because we find cheaper ways to go places. There are ways to do it. Some of our trips have been mission trips, some have been part of business, we cut corners by sleeping in RVs or cars, stay with friends, etc. We try to go to grocery stores and eat our own food instead of eating out. I find that these sorts of trips are always more fun and adventurous than the few times we've stayed at resorts with business. :D

 

I've been lot of places. Geocaching has shown me things I would never have seen otherwise.

 

18 countries

34 US states

445,000 caching miles

 

I once in a while make a map of my finds, with lines between them, in order. It's kind of amusing.

 

It's clear I need to get to Asia and Australia. And Africa, for that matter. Heck, I need to go everywhere.

 

Finds.jpg

Edited by Ambrosia
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Thank you for starting a thread like this. I am fortunate that I have a job that takes me to many places (and isn't in sales or marketing). I have actually done a lot more traveling since I started geocaching. The basic stats are:

 

21 US States

11 Countries

4 continents

Total cache to cache distance: 119270 miles

 

Many of the US states I have visited were vacation destinations or states that I passed through to get there. I have family in California (and lived there for 40 years) and have traveled there on business twice so I have more finds in CA than any other state except my home state. After that Pennsylvania (I'm only about 35 miles from the border), Maine, and North Carolina have produced some nice finds and scenic locations (okay, Pennsylvania not so much). Many of the other states were due to travel there for conferences or business meetings so while I did find caches there I typically didn't get to spend much time geocaching and just found what I could get near the hotel where I was staying.

 

My first international cache was in the Netherlands. After arriving in Amsterdam I took a train, then a bus to Wageningen, a small university town. I didn't do any caching there but staying in Amsterdam on night on the way home and found a TB hotel near the airport hotel. I had been to Europe one time about a year before I stared geocaching and wish that I had known about geocaching before I went since I spent time in Chamonix (France), Geneva (Switzerland), and Milan and Rome.

 

I got back to Rome later (I work the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Rome quite a bit) and found caches at the Colosseum, and a few others close to where I was staying.

 

In 2007 I was working on a project that involved a week long working meeting in Zambia. I had an overnight layover in Johannesburg, South Africa on the way there and found a cache just outside my hotel (I picked that hotel due to it's proximity of that cache). While in Zambia it was pretty much all work and no play but a half day trip was arranged to see Victoria Falls and we crossed the border into Zimbabwe to see it. I found a cache there and it's in probably the most spectacular location of any other cache I've found.

 

My next trip abroad was for a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I spent two days in Rome on the way for a short meeting there and found more caches there including two at the Vatican. I was in Addis for about four days but even though 1 of only four caches in the country wasn't that far from where I stayed I was always in a car with other non-geocachers with a private driver the few times I was outside the research compound. I was within 1000' of that cache twice but never got the opportunity to search for it.

 

For my next trip to Africa I had a 7 hour layover in Paris on the way to Johannesburg. I took the train into the heart of the city and searched for a few caches but only found one of them. I didn't even try to find any while in Joburg and after a meeting there I flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I stayed overnight there but there were no geocaches within 40 miles and I had a private driver from the airport to the hotel, then was back in his vehicle early the next morning for a trip to a small twon about 120 miles to the west. Again I was in a place where there were no geocaches nearby (but was a very beautiful area which had a mountain range (Uluguru mountains) that have provided some wonderful spots for geocaches.

 

A month or so after that trip I was back to Europa. This time I had a brief layover in Frankfurt and grabbed the virt at the airport then spent several days in Montpellier (France) and had almost a full day free to do some geocaching. Although most of them were micros it was a wonderful city and walking around geocaching was a nice way to see it. From there I took the train to Barcelona where I spent a day and a half before flying home. I rented a bicycle and road around the city and found 6 or so caches including one at the Sagrada Familia.

 

About two months ago I flew to Beijing, China to deliver a keynote speech at a symposium there and had several days for siteseeing. I found a cache at the Great Wall and Tiannamen Square and also visited the Summer Palace and Forbidden City but didn't find caches in either of those places.

 

Next month I'm going to Costa Rica for a week. After a couple of days of meetings I'm spending the rest of the week vacationing and hope to find a few caches while I am there. I'm hoping to get one that is at one of the active volcanos there. I don't have any future travel plans beyond the trip next month that is set in stone but trips to Washington DC and Massachusetts are possibilities with a remote possibility of a trip to Namibia in July.

 

I'll collect a bunch of the photos I've taken and add them to the thread later.

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Cached in 40 states

 

14 countries:

Thailand

Japan

Ireland

Bulgaria

Hungary

Germany

Canada

Mexico

Belize

Dominican Republic

The Bahamas

Turks and Caicos

Antigua

 

445,000 miles last time I checked. I was in Kyrgyzstan one trip. It was really cold,-16F. I saw there was a cache about a quarter of a mile away. I walked to it but came to a fence that said, Do not Enter Use of Deadly Force Authorized. The cache was a short distance on the other side.

 

I've been in all 50 states and 65 countries.

Edited by kleetus
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I had been to Europe one time about a year before I stared geocaching and wish that I had known about geocaching before I went since I spent time in Chamonix (France), Geneva (Switzerland), and Milan and Rome.

 

Firstly: awesome.

Secondly: Who goes to Chamonix other than mountain climbers?

 

Skiers.

 

In my case, I flew into Geneva (via Frankfurt...about a 10 hour trip), took a shuttle bus to the bus station and dropped off most of my luggage in a "left luggage" service, then hopped on a bus to Chamonix to arrive late afternoon. I walked around the town a bit (this would have been a good opportunity to find a few geocaches there), checked into a small room in a hotel that I had reserved, then found a pub that served food and had Blanc de Brugges on tap (one of my favorite Belgian white style beers). The next morning I found a ski rental shop and rented equipment to go ski Le Brevent. If I ever go there again I'd like to find "The Highest Accessible Cache in Western Europe" (check out some of the photos from this one). I skied until two pm or so then returned my equipment and went to the bus station. Apparently, buses in France are not always clearly labled as I somehow didn't recognize the bus that looked nothing like the one I took a day earlier that was going back to Geneva. I wasn't the only one though. After an hour or so after the scheduled departure a group of girls from Canada eventually asked someone at the bus station (after he demanded that they ask, in French, if he spoke English) found out that the bus back to Geneva had already left and the next bus wouldn't arrive until 11:00AM the next day, I tried not to panic. There were 9 other people that also missed the same bus so I didn't feel that stupid. I ended up sharing a cab with a family from Poland back to Geneva (about 100km one way) so that I can attend the meeting at WHO (World Health Organization) the next morning. After two days of meetings I got on a train to Milan, stayed overnight there, then the next day continued onto Rome. By taking the train instead of flying directly to Rome I saved about $300, and that included the hotel in Milan...plus I got to spend about six hours exploring Milan.

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Great thread!

 

I'm another lover of travel- in fact I've been to six continents so far including a trip around the world for six months between undergrad and grad school, but most of that was before I knew about geocaching! <_<

 

I'm going to go traveling around the world again within a month though- Eastern Africa, Nepal, China, Indonesia, and Oz/NZ if the money doesn't run out (exchange rates are really tough right now). Then moving to Europe hopefully so it'll be like traveling all the time! Anyone seriously interested can follow my blog linked below, I'm really looking forward to new travels and caching along the way this time.

 

Some pics from this past year-

 

The view from the top of Cerro Otto in Patagonia- there was a cache here that took about an hour to hike to that hadn't been found in a year (and I also entered a DNF for) but really didn't mind the hike. Found a cache later that day along a river too so all good (reminds me, gotta write a blog post about that adventure yet...)

bariloche-view.jpg

 

Top of Red Hill, New Hampshire- great hike with about ten caches along the way...

view-of-winnipesaukee.jpg

 

Me at the Aconcagua virtual cache in Argentina- the highest point of the Americas!

me-at-aconcagua.jpg

 

I placed an Earthcache at this spot that still hasn't been found and is just down the road- Puente del Inca, a natural bridge and hotsprings taking over an old spa-

puente-del-inca.jpg

 

Another Earthcache I maintain- Mosi-oa-Tunya, known to many as Victoria Falls-

image249.jpg

 

Lots of caches in the Versailles Gardens, including the earliest one I've ever found placed over a decade ago I think-

versailles-garden-fountain.jpg

 

Oh, and there's a cache somewhere in this picture too-

louvrecourtyard.jpg?w=500&h=375

 

The world sure is an amazing place isn't it? :)

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Next month I'm going to Costa Rica for a week. After a couple of days of meetings I'm spending the rest of the week vacationing and hope to find a few caches while I am there. I'm hoping to get one that is at one of the active volcanos there. I don't have any future travel plans beyond the trip next month that is set in stone but trips to Washington DC and Massachusetts are possibilities with a remote possibility of a trip to Namibia in July.

 

I'll collect a bunch of the photos I've taken and add them to the thread later.

 

Namibia is amazing- you've never known desolation until you visit the endless desert like what they have there. Well unless you visit Mongolia I guess, which is actually the most empty country on the planet (Namibia is #2).

 

I still get a twinge whenever I see the cousin of this picture show up on the main geocaching website because I was at this lonely spot in Namibia four months before I knew about caching and easily could've gotten it!

picture-013.jpg

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Cached in 28 states + DC, all 16 German states, and 35 countries total. Would have a few more countries (at least Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq) but wasn't caching when I deployed. And I was less than 100' from the oldest cache in Iraq, I later found out. As the Germans say, "Mist!" ("Crap!")

 

Still have more finds outside the US than in it, but that will probably change this year.

Edited by hzoi
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Hi,

This is a great thread! It would be nice to have included on the statistic tab of the profile too :)

 

We have so far, from newest to oldest (200 caches in 11 countries):

Canada

Denmark

Sweden

Greece

Hong Kong

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Egypt

New Caledonia (kinda near New Zealand)

Belgium

Germany

 

We tried to get some in Italy, but DNF due to the limits of the trip.

 

Geocaching is so much fun!!! Really nice pics :)

 

Zedder63

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Next month I'm going to Costa Rica for a week. After a couple of days of meetings I'm spending the rest of the week vacationing and hope to find a few caches while I am there. I'm hoping to get one that is at one of the active volcanos there. I don't have any future travel plans beyond the trip next month that is set in stone but trips to Washington DC and Massachusetts are possibilities with a remote possibility of a trip to Namibia in July.

 

I'll collect a bunch of the photos I've taken and add them to the thread later.

 

Namibia is amazing- you've never known desolation until you visit the endless desert like what they have there. Well unless you visit Mongolia I guess, which is actually the most empty country on the planet (Namibia is #2).

 

A odds for trip to Namibia is pretty low but there was some discussion at a meeting I attended awhile back about someone from FAO and I presenting a workshop for a conference that is going to take place in Windhoek in July. The topic for the workshop has recently gained a little more traction so the odds might have gone up a percentage point or two. I flew over Mongolia on the way to Beijing a couple of months ago and saw just how desolate it is. I'm also 2 degrees of separation from someone that moved to Mongolia awhile back and is living in a yurt.

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I promised a few photos from my geocaching travels. I'll start with a few domestic ones...

 

Sand dunes in Nags Head, North Carolina. There is a nice earthcache at this location.

 

IMGP0999.jpg

 

On the way to the Outer Banks where the first photo was taken. I don't know much about Monster Trucks but I know this one was one of the most famous. There was a cache in a rusty altoids tin about 100' from here.

 

IMGP1030.jpg

 

Sunset over Minneapolis, taken from the top floor of a hotel in St. Paul. I found a few caches a short distance from the hotel.

 

IMGP1065.jpg

 

Double Rainbow over Tucson, Arizona. I found a cache nearby that was located near a bridge where thousands of bats live and come in the evening at dusk. I watched them come out the next night and it was amazing.

 

IMG_0487.jpg

 

More to come...

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Here is another batch of geocaching travel photos. Again, these are all domestic (U.S):

 

This is Delorme headquarters in Yarmouth, Maine. I found two caches close by but not the virtual (I didn't realize that there was a virt here when I visited the location.

 

IMGP1458.jpg

 

Owls Head, Maine. I was on a small boat that took a tour of the bay. There is a nice little cache on the beach just to the right of the lighthouse.

 

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From the top of Mount Battie near Camden, Maine. There was a nice older cache a short walk down a trail here. The views are spectacular.

 

IMG_9886.jpg

 

Just around the corner along the shore next to the trees in the background there used to be a cache. It was missing when I looked for it but I still thanked the CO for placing one at that location as it was how I discovered this wonderful beach in Owls Head, Maine.

 

IMG_0044.jpg

 

There used to be a cache here near Bennington, Vermont. It was simply called "Moose" but I believe it's now archived.

 

IMGP1476.jpg

 

International geocaching travel photos to come...

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Here is another batch of geocaching travel photos. Again, these are all domestic (U.S)

 

International geocaching travel photos to come...

Ahh... some of my favorite spots in the world. I'm sad that, aside from Delorme, I haven't had a chance to go out that way since I've been caching.

 

Here's some of mine, all in the states:

too%20tall%20john.USMap.jpg

 

a29c7bdb-0e68-4ff1-87b8-b319e57e15d3.jpg

Bryce Canyon, Utah.

 

1001d0d1-8cf6-4ad8-8d32-71e0dfe3fd63.jpg

The Zion Narrows, Utah.

 

9df5eabb-0972-4a5f-951c-909593b0bfdb.jpg

A California Condor. In Arizona.

 

361cdca4-6280-4ef8-b90f-678bc113734b.jpg

What? Venice? No, Las Vegas.

 

03fb4133-2cce-4af3-b3b8-56fc86226e9b.jpg

A cold day at Niagra Falls.

 

cf171843-2787-4396-977c-1ec0c6f8903c.jpg

In Portland, Maine.

 

I got a bit closer of a pic at Delorme:

b28e1407-5f23-42ac-9198-dcd302e4eced.jpg

(It's a virt on one of those other sites, too....) :ph34r:

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My profile map shows the places that I have cached in. If you did not restrict it to geocaching, then I've also been to Iceland, England, Switzerland, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Bahamas, and Mexico. I've flown over all the countries that border these countries.. :-)

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