To Go Premium, or Not?

[+stedmanrecon]

Pretty sure that I am going to go with the Premium Member option in the next day or two. I just wanted to know from users what the real difference is between that and being just a basic member. Yes, I know there is a page on the site that shows what "all you get" if you become a member. But that is usually a sell point and I am wanting to know from others if it is worth it or not. Like, do you actually use all those other premium options. How much would my geocaching world change if I did go with those premium options.

 

Any thoughts and answers are appreciated! Thanks ya'll.

[+dprovan]

I can't even imagine how people cache without pocket queries.

 

I use bookmark lists on a daily basis.

 

I'm not an FTF hound, but I like to hear about new caches in my area via notifications.

 

I find a lot of the other premium features useful, but I could live without them if I had to.

[+SKAMS]

Geocaching is much more convenient if you have a premium membership.

 

Favorite points, Bookmarks and Custom coords (stil improvable) are very useful to me.

 

Many external mobile apps and programs basically requite the Live-API or Pocket Queries.

 

If you search only one or two geocaches a month you probably won't need it.

[+DonB]

The bookmarks and Pocket Queries are worth it to me. For 8.2 cents a day I wouldn't worry about it.

[+the3gmen]

If the only benefit of a Premium Membership was Pocket Queries, it would still be worth the money.

[+stedmanrecon]

For 8.2 cents a day I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Lol, I guess that makes pretty good sense. I guess I just gotta figure out how to use the PQ stuff lol.

[+niraD]

Different people use different subsets of the premium member benefits, but the ones I find especially useful are PQs, bookmark lists, and full access to the API. I also like Favorites, improved statistics, not worrying about whether caches are PMO or not, and supporting Groundspeak.

[+Lieblweb]

It looks like you've only just started.....

 

Do you need it now? Not necessarily....

 

Are you hooked on this hobby? If YES - then, Premium Membership is AWESOME and will take you a lot farther into the journey of the game.

 

Once you have the ability to run pocket queries, you have the ability to do all sorts of other things. If you're really really hooked (and have mastered the usage of pocket queries), you can buy GSAK and go even further!

LOL

 

It just doesn't stop with Pocket queries alone.....

[+The_Incredibles_]

Depends on how much you cache. If you're going out and finding 1 /week and planning ahead, you probably don't need it.

 

The main benefits as I see it are:

 

pocket queries-you can load alot of caches on your GPs at once so you can be more spontaneous when you go out. also saves time.

 

you get access to all caches. if you're planning on placing caches, you'll need to know where all the caches are

 

I also enjoy getting notifications of new caches being published so I can rush out and try to get FTFs.

 

Bookmarks and favorite points are bonuses.

[+Tobias & Petronella]

9/28/08 we found our first cache. Just like you we thought about it for a while. Our big question was why should we pay for something that we can get for free. But at the time we didn't fully understand what all the benefits were. On 10/11/08 (or 10/10/08 we're not sure) we signed up for a Premium Membership to "test" it out. On the evening of the 11th was our eighth find and our first First To Find. Four years and four thousands finds later, for us and the way we have played this game, the extra fee is a small price to pay for what we get.

[+313JTG]

I'm sure you have enough input by now, but I'm tossing my two cents into this.

 

Back in August, when I got back into the sport, I wanted to find caches along my route for a vacation I was taking. Every night, I'd have to manually go the distance on the map of caches, searching for ones close to the freeway or at rest areas/the oasis'. This became very tiresome and I wonder how many rest area caches I left behind. Ever since I learned about PQ's, I have been shaking my head at all the time I wasted on the map when I could've been done in five minutes. I'm just a GPS shy of becoming a complete cacher and with all the time I've saved with the premium membership, I can honestly say I'll get to 200 finds must faster than 100.

 

Plus, there are so many premium member caches that are really cool. I have yet to find any of them, but all PM only caches in my area are rated highly with favorite points.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Premium is the way to go ( and thats coming from the east )

[+stedmanrecon]

Premium is the way to go ( and thats coming from the east )

 

I'll for sure take THAT recommendation ;-)

 

Thanks everyone for all of the input.

[+hukilaulau]

Hampster food. Don't forget about buying hampster food...

When I started almost nine years ago I know that I would be doing this for a long time. I got premium membership right away just to help make sure the site survived and thrived. That's still reason enough, but the bookmark lists are something I use every day now.

[+suchanana]

just ask me how it felt a couple of years ago when i forgot to renew my memberhip on time and poof - no more maps' details, etc...

wow,took a good long look then at all i had gotten used to that came with my membership...never have been late since

[+stedmanrecon]

So, tell me. What do you use the Bookmark lists option for? Like, how do you do it personally or what does it do to serve you? Lol looking for any and all hints to make this more fun and enjoyable.

[+Chief301]

So, tell me. What do you use the Bookmark lists option for? Like, how do you do it personally or what does it do to serve you? Lol looking for any and all hints to make this more fun and enjoyable.

 

Well, for one thing, since FTF's are not an "official" part of the game and therefore the site offers no means to keep track of your FTF's, I have one bookmark list of my FTF's. I have another I call "Wish List" which is just some real cool caches that I've heard about that I intend to go for one day. Then I have one of puzzle caches that I have solved or am in the process of solving but haven't gone after yet.

 

I've also made bookmark lists if I'm planning on going somewhere new and will have limited time for caching (say traveling on business for example) and I'll hand-pick some of the better caches in the area and make a bookmark list of them, then create a PQ of the list.

 

There's all sorts of different uses for bookmark lists.

[+BlueDeuce]

There's all sorts of different uses for bookmark lists.

 

Such as maintaining an ignore list.

[+popokiiti]

Best things have all been mentioned, and I agree with them all. One really great thing is that since I've had Premium Membership, the annual $30 has not increased at all! You could always try 3 months for $10 and some GPSs come with a free trial of PM.

[+niraD]

I use bookmark lists:

• to track my progress towards a local challenge cache
  
• to list caches of a few specific types that I enjoy (public, created before Favorites feature was added)
  
• to ignore a few caches (challenge caches in my "blast radius" that I'll never complete)
  
• to track my milestone caches (including milestones that Groundspeak's milestone feature doesn't track)
  
• to list caches that have been recommended to me, that I haven't found yet
  
• to list puzzle caches that I have solved, but haven't found yet
  
• to get emailed logs from caches in/around a nearby open space for which I am a volunteer monitor
  

And I'm sure there are other ways people use bookmark lists besides these.

[+Rosie_Posie]

I am also interested in upgrading to the Premium Membership. One thing I am interested in are the Statistics. I'd love to hear from someone who has the premium and also like the statistics part of it. What types of statistics does it show? I am a high school math teacher and was also curious what sort of statistics it shows that could be useful in the classroom.

 

I will certainly be getting the Premium Membership soon. Just a matter of waiting for the next paycheck at the moment.

[+Chief301]

I am also interested in upgrading to the Premium Membership. One thing I am interested in are the Statistics. I'd love to hear from someone who has the premium and also like the statistics part of it. What types of statistics does it show? I am a high school math teacher and was also curious what sort of statistics it shows that could be useful in the classroom.

 

I will certainly be getting the Premium Membership soon. Just a matter of waiting for the next paycheck at the moment.

 

I don't think the statistics from Geocaching.com would be if much interest in the classroom, unless it was a classroom full of Geocachers😊

 

Mostly the statistics let you keep track of your personal caching numbers....how many and what percentage of different sizes, types, difficulty and terrain rating levels make up your personal caching history. How many finds you average per month, most finds in a day, longest streak of days with a find, that sort of thing.

 

Being in the field of mathematics, you would probably find it interesting. I don't care for mathematics much myself and I still find my stats interesting. Some folks obsess over them, some could care less.

 

There are other sites, too, that will track your stats in far greater detail than what is available on the site. Mygeocachingstats.com, or something like that if I remember the name correctly.

[+stedmanrecon]

I am also interested in upgrading to the Premium Membership. One thing I am interested in are the Statistics. I'd love to hear from someone who has the premium and also like the statistics part of it. What types of statistics does it show? I am a high school math teacher and was also curious what sort of statistics it shows that could be useful in the classroom.

 

I will certainly be getting the Premium Membership soon. Just a matter of waiting for the next paycheck at the moment.

 

In addition to what Chief301, I have seen other people have some pretty amazing stuff in regards to statistics on their profile. I have been doing the cache thing for a little while now, but haven't really dove into the deep end yet. From my limited experience and researching, there is a website (or app or something) that compiles a lot of stuff that is quite a bit more in depth than just the statistics that are on the Premium Membership. I believe that it might be called GSAK or something like that, and I believe that it has a monthly cost to it. I like caching, but I don't think that I am yet that into it to pay an extra fee for something.

 

As for the Premium Membership statistics, I was pretty excited to see those on here but I was a bit disappointed with what all it showed and how it was presented. Some profiles I have seen (I believe with that GSAK thing) showed a HUGE amount of data with all sorts of graphs and stuff like that. May want to try searching the forum threads for GSAK or something like that.

[+stedmanrecon]

I just looked up the GSAK thing. It says it is a "Geocaching and waypoint management tool". Lol whatever that means. GSAK stands for Geocaching Swiss Army Knife and you can go to the website GSAK WEBSITE.

 

Granted, I may perfectly well be wrong about the statistics part, but I could have sworn that when I first started doing all this someone in these forums told me that it was GSAK that showed all that stuff. I hope that helps.

[+ngrrfan]

I just looked up the GSAK thing. It says it is a "Geocaching and waypoint management tool". Lol whatever that means. GSAK stands for Geocaching Swiss Army Knife and you can go to the website GSAK WEBSITE.

 

Granted, I may perfectly well be wrong about the statistics part, but I could have sworn that when I first started doing all this someone in these forums told me that it was GSAK that showed all that stuff. I hope that helps.

It means that there are all kinds of macros that you can have for free that will allow you to do a myriad of things with your GSAK databases.

[+Trucker Lee]

So, tell me. What do you use the Bookmark lists option for? Like, how do you do it personally or what does it do to serve you? Lol looking for any and all hints to make this more fun and enjoyable.

As an OTR driver, I keep bookmark lists of caches that are friendly to those of us in larger vehicles

I have a bookmark list for unfound caches near our various company terminals

I occasionally have a bookmark list for caches on a route when I am taking a new backroad. This makes them more convenient should I find some to go back and move to my trucker friendly lists.

I have a bookmark list for the oldest active caches in Texas, I am trying to find a special one near for my 2000th.

[+Trucker Lee]

I just looked up the GSAK thing. It says it is a "Geocaching and waypoint management tool". Lol whatever that means. GSAK stands for Geocaching Swiss Army Knife and you can go to the website GSAK WEBSITE.

 

Granted, I may perfectly well be wrong about the statistics part, but I could have sworn that when I first started doing all this someone in these forums told me that it was GSAK that showed all that stuff. I hope that helps.

I use GSAK and couldn't be happier with it. I use several databases inside it, one for truck friendly caches, one for caches near home, one I upload marks I made while rolling so I can look for caches near truck friendly locations, and one that is used for odd trips into new areas.

GSAK makes sorting and searching very easy. There are too many to name, but various ways I have searched are by state, within a certain distance of a line, a polygon filter to get odd shaped groups of caches ie:trip starts in Dallas, stop at OKC, finals in Memphis.

I use a macro in GSAK to load cache info into my Garmin as points of interest.

I use a macro to compile MY STATISTICS, even a home state county map. After running the macro you simply paste results to your profile.

 

And after all this, I am only scratching the surface of the program.