Oh no we're moving! What do we do with out hides!

[+TnT7686]

Ok so we are a Navy family living in wonderful Germany! We started our geocaching life not too long ago here and have loved every minute of it! The Germans really know how to geocache! Well our geocaching days in Germany are now numbered! We just got orders to move back to the states. So after 3 wonderful years oh living here we must go. We will be moving in April 2013. Our bigger concern in we have quiet a few hides! Can we archive them and take them with us or should we find someone to adopt them? We put good money and time into or caches so we would like to bring them with us but we don't know the protocol. I know some people might ask us why we would even hide them if we knew we would eventually leave. We just wanted to the whole geocaching experience and didn't want our occupations that causes us to move every three years or so to hinder that. Is there a page that gives guidance on moving?

Edited May 1, 2012 by TnT7686

[Pup Patrol]

You only have the two choices: archive or adopt.

 

It's an important responsibility to be able to physically visit and maintain your caches, so you will need to choose one of those options.

 

2.1. Listing Guidelines that Apply to All Geocaches

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=307

 

6.13. Permanent Removal: Archiving a Cache

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=56

 

3.3. Adopting or Transferring a Cache

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=54

 

If your caches have people watching them, you might want to add a note saying that you would be willing to adopt the caches to other people.

 

 

B.

[+CanadianRockies]

I don't think anyone would object if you archived your caches and took them with you, especially since none of them are more than three years old.

 

I would suggest that you add a sentence or two to your cache pages indicating when you plan to archive the caches. This way, if any of your caches are on peoples' must-do lists, they have fair warning to get out there and find them. (Also log a note, so people on the watchlists are notified.)

Edited May 1, 2012 by CanadianRockies

[+TnT7686]

You only have the two choices: archive or adopt.

 

It's an important responsibility to be able to physically visit and maintain your caches, so you will need to choose one of those options.

 

2.1. Listing Guidelines that Apply to All Geocaches

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=307

 

6.13. Permanent Removal: Archiving a Cache

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=56

 

3.3. Adopting or Transferring a Cache

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=54

 

If your caches have people watching them, you might want to add a note saying that you would be willing to adopt the caches to other people.

 

 

B.

[+TnT7686]

Thanks for the advise! I wasn't sure if archiving or taking the cache with you of you leave the area is looked down on in the geocache community!

[+TnT7686]

Thanks for your advise! I will be sure to make the note!

[+SwineFlew]

Archive them. It will free up the spot for other people to come back to enjoy.

[RuideAlmeida]

Having myself more than 100 hides in Portugal, I am moving to the Amazon by the end of May... I will try to give to adoption anytime a cache needs a big maintenance. I guess is the best idea.

It would be a pity to archived caches with almost 5 years and 1000 finds.

 

Take a look at my profile: Kelux

Edited May 1, 2012 by ruidealmeida

[+The Blorenges]

Thanks for the advise! I wasn't sure if archiving or taking the cache with you of you leave the area is looked down on in the geocache community!

 

No, it's not looked down on...

 

If you just left the caches behind when you left, with no maintenance, so that they just degraded into geo-trash - that would be looked down on.

 

As the caches have only been active a couple of weeks I'd just leave them active through to the fall, then put a note on each one saying that it will be archived at the end of the year (or whatever suits you). That would give you a few months to collect them all in.

 

Then you can look forward to creating new caches on your next posting.

 

MrsB

[+RedjackRyan]

It's better to archive them and take them with you, than leave them active yet abandoned as it seems to happen quite frequently around here.

[+briansnat]

Thanks for the advise! I wasn't sure if archiving or taking the cache with you of you leave the area is looked down on in the geocache community!

 

Not at all. I wish more people would do it. Too many people just leave them behind with nobody to maintain them.

[+hzoi]

We were in Germany from 2007-2009 and had a number of hides before we left. We archived some and left others in place with a maintenance plan, but as time went on, we started feeling guilty for asking our old friends to keep maintaining our caches. So we eventually adopted out or archived them all.

 

We then moved to Charlottesville, VA, and hid some more caches. Some are still active, some we archived before we left. I plan to leave a few here as long as I can, because unlike Germany, we will be returning to Charlottesville from time to time.

 

We have a bunch here in Alabama, and it'd be nice to leave some of them active after we go, especially the creative cache series we put out that took months to get together. Most, though, we'll archive before we leave.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Thanks for the advise! I wasn't sure if archiving or taking the cache with you of you leave the area is looked down on in the geocache community!

 

Not at all. Geocachers have lives too, and sometimes that means we move. A local Geocacher with just over 100 hides moved from my area (in central NY) to Kansas City a few years ago. He was well regarded, not only because he had created a lot of nice caches, but he was also very active in organizing events other other activities for the local geocaching community. We has been sorely missed, but he put up a bunch of his better caches up for adoption a few week prior to moving and quite a few of them were adopted by other geocachers. From your profile it looks like you only have 7 caches but if any of them are local favorites you might put them up for adoption. While the new owner may do whatever they want with the caches and the listing it's a fairly common practice for a new owner to leave the "Placed By" string with the original owner and add "Adopted by -----".

[+TnT7686]

Thanks everyone!

[+jellis]

Depending how well liked your caches are over there, you can offer in a log that you may archive them if no one wants to adopt them. Adoption process is not hard to do.

[+Team Peredox]

As a military family, we are often in the same situation. We are getting ready to leave San Antonio to move to the UK.

 

Our caches tend to be more creative than the average caches around here, so I would love for them to live on and continue to collect Favorites points, but I can't bring myself to ask someone to maintain them for us.

 

That leaves us two options: Archive or adopt out. For us, archiving will mean taking out some interesting caches (including Wherigos) out of this LPC-heavy town, which other cachers have told me they'd be sad about. But adopting them out has a downside for us.

 

When you adopt a cache out, all the stats associated with those caches go away. The cache doesn't show up on your owned cache list anymore. It's as if you never owned it. That's a hard pill to swallow for someone who puts a lot of effort into creating a unique cache. I know it sounds petty, but I would at least like those caches to show up on a list of "previously owned" caches or something. I wish Groundspeak would fix that.

 

A third option I'm thinking of doing is a "pseudo-adoption". I archive my caches (thereby still keeping my owned-cache list intact as well as stats), and then work with someone who wants the cache to create a new cache, using the same cache description and container. This workaround even lets old finders log the new cache as a find. I think this might be a WIN-WIN-WIN situation all around. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[+captnemo]

 

When you adopt a cache out, all the stats associated with those caches go away. The cache doesn't show up on your owned cache list anymore. It's as if you never owned it. That's a hard pill to swallow for someone who puts a lot of effort into creating a unique cache. I know it sounds petty, but I would at least like those caches to show up on a list of "previously owned" caches or something. I wish Groundspeak would fix that.

I really don't see this as a problem. Stats for the finders don't change. Put it on your watch list and you will be able to keep track of it.

 

A third option I'm thinking of doing is a "pseudo-adoption". I archive my caches (thereby still keeping my owned-cache list intact as well as stats), and then work with someone who wants the cache to create a new cache, using the same cache description and container. This workaround even lets old finders log the new cache as a find. I think this might be a WIN-WIN-WIN situation all around. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I do see a problem here. I would have no interest in logging a second find on what is really the same cache. Also the new cache has to meet any new requirements and if it can't it won't be listed at all and since the old cache is archived it's gone! An adoption keeps the cache and it's history alive.