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Are there any good ways to go caching on a road trip when it is super long and hard to use the Creat A Route Feature because it limits to 500 miles? We can't stop very often but if we do I want to find good caches that are nearby...I don't know, or maybe just any cache that is near a rest stop? Any ideas?

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There are several options.

 

See your later post "Vacation"... run a state by state ..date range PQ set's.

 

Run a along a route... just break it into 400-500 mile chunks.

 

Get the GS or geosphere app for your smartphone (if you do not have one.. grab one!)

 

Do it old school... book mark and research, run a book mark PQ.

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As I recall, you're the only cacher in your family. Which means family members could get bored waiting for you.

 

I'd suggest doing a cache on a route PQ that only shows caches within .2 miles of the highway, with no more than a 1.5\1.5 and have been found in the last seven days. You'll have near 100% success and won't keep family waiting. On a long trip you'll still have a large number of caches to choose from.

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Cool...I think I'm going to break it up into 500 milers and just take ALL of the caches with me...just in case...

I did that once. You see, I was planning the geocaching aspect of our annual summer road trip of 2010. This year, the trip was between Vancouver, Princeton (where we'd attend the Great Copper Rush), and Prince George. This was before I was a Premium Member, so I manually scrolled the map along the highway between Hope and Princeton, Princeton and Quesnel, and Quesnel and Prince George, clicking on each cache, reading the description, and determining whether it was a cache we might want to pursue over the course of our 10 day trip. Now remember, this was before we were paperless (we still aren't) so when I came upon a cache that seemed interesting I printed it out, stapled it, hole punched it, and inserted it into a duo tang. I didn't keep the duo tangs after the trip, but essentially our Pocket Query was more of a Filing Cabinet Query.

 

The real excitement started once we got into the field. We could never find the listing corresponding to the cache we were at, and most of the time my dad just decided to move onto the next cache before I could find the listing.

 

You're really lucky to be a PM.

 

Get the GS or geosphere app for your smartphone (if you do not have one.. grab one!)

Really? Just buy a smartphone like you would buy a donut, eh? I don't think it works that way...

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Why does GC.com let the route be only 500 miles?? Thats like five PQs right there for my trip out! Then 5 PQs there and 5 coming back a different way!! Ahhhh!

 

I know this is no help to you, but when my wife and I go on a trip, we sometimes change our minds on how we want to get from point A to point B. Sometimes this happens in the middle of the trip. So I plan for most of the possible ways to get there and back and run 10 to 15 PQs for each trip. What you are doing now may seem like a lot, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

 

We have found a lot of caches at Rest Stops, near the freeway on and off ramps and with in a very short walk from where we stay the night. When traveling we try to stop once every one to two hours to stretch our legs or to get a bit to eat and at the same stop we also look for a cache.

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Why does GC.com let the route be only 500 miles?? Thats like five PQs right there for my trip out! Then 5 PQs there and 5 coming back a different way!! Ahhhh!

 

I know this is no help to you, but when my wife and I go on a trip, we sometimes change our minds on how we want to get from point A to point B. Sometimes this happens in the middle of the trip. So I plan for most of the possible ways to get there and back and run 10 to 15 PQs for each trip. What you are doing now may seem like a lot, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

 

We have found a lot of caches at Rest Stops, near the freeway on and off ramps and with in a very short walk from where we stay the night. When traveling we try to stop once every one to two hours to stretch our legs or to get a bit to eat and at the same stop we also look for a cache.

Since I acquired my Android phone, I don't bother with caches along a route anymore. I do PQ's for my destination, and any place where I'll be stopping overnight. For searching out caches at rest stops and fuel stops, I use the Android app. Cell coverage is pretty good along Interstates and other major highways.

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Although PQs are limited to 5 a day, that means you can only *run* 5 PQs a day. You can create many more than that, and if you're staying in a hotel or can stop at an internet cafe or one of the many other places where you can get free internet access, if you bring along a laptop you can run a PQ during the trip. You can also preview any pocket queries that you create (either on a map or with a list view). As long as you don't set it to run such that it makes the results available for download you can to that as often as you'd like. So, for example, you could create pocket queries along the entire route, then preview each as a list, sort the results by the number of favorites, or look at a map to identify caches that look like might be easy to access or in a place that you might want to stop anyway and add them to a bookmark list (and create another PQ from that). It would take a little pre-planning but you'd have a good collection of caches where you might want to stop at anyway all along the route.

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Are there any good ways to go caching on a road trip when it is super long and hard to use the Creat A Route Feature because it limits to 500 miles? We can't stop very often but if we do I want to find good caches that are nearby...I don't know, or maybe just any cache that is near a rest stop? Any ideas?

 

It's a bit more tedious and labor intensive than just running the Caches along the Route feature, but consider this. Create a new bookmark list for your road trip (I actually have one that I reuse called Road Trip.) Open up the geocaching.google maps page, and scroll along the highway until you reach a point outside your home range, and at a likely distance where you might make the first stop for gas/food/bathrooms. Now zoom in tight enough to see where the exits and rest stops are. Now scroll along the route, and actually check out the cache pages for anything that is close enough to stop and if you like the way it sounds, add it to the BM list. I run firefox, so I just right click on them until I have 10-12 pages open, and then read through them in groups.

 

This way you will get a more tightly focused list of To Do caches. Many caches that end up on the CAR list are close enough to the interstate to get grabbed, but turn out to be unattainable as they are a significant distance from exits.

 

Another technique is to check for regional groups at your stops/destinations. If they have their own website, there may be a greatest hits list like we have at the NCGO site. You could also email an active cacher in those areas and ask for suggestions, but be specific in what kind of caches you are interested in seeking. Don't just ask for the best in town as that is too broad a definition. What you like, may not be what they like.

 

Happy Trails!

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Since I acquired my Android phone, I don't bother with caches along a route anymore. I do PQ's for my destination, and any place where I'll be stopping overnight. For searching out caches at rest stops and fuel stops, I use the Android app. Cell coverage is pretty good along Interstates and other major highways.

 

This is basically my answer.

For spontaneous caching (where there is cell-signal), I don't think there is a better way to go.

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As I recall, you're the only cacher in your family. Which means family members could get bored waiting for you. I'd suggest doing a cache on a route PQ that only shows caches within .2 miles of the highway, with no more than a 1.5\1.5 and have been found in the last seven days. You'll have near 100% success and won't keep family waiting. On a long trip you'll still have a large number of caches to choose from.

 

+1

 

I use this method too.

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As I recall, you're the only cacher in your family. Which means family members could get bored waiting for you. I'd suggest doing a cache on a route PQ that only shows caches within .2 miles of the highway, with no more than a 1.5\1.5 and have been found in the last seven days. You'll have near 100% success and won't keep family waiting. On a long trip you'll still have a large number of caches to choose from.

 

+1

 

I use this method too.

 

I basically did this too. Focused on rest areas or touristy areas too when I did it.

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