Geocaching in Canada

[+topekan]

We are going to spend two months in Quebec City and Montreal next summer. We use a DeLorme PN40. What all must I do to go geocaching in those areas? I do have a 4s I phone. Would that be useful for geocaching there?

 

Thanks,

Topekan

[Andronicus]

We are going to spend two months in Quebec City and Montreal next summer. We use a DeLorme PN40. What all must I do to go geocaching in those areas? I do have a 4s I phone. Would that be useful for geocaching there?

 

Thanks,

Topekan

Be carefull with your smartphone that you don't rack up huge data roaming bills.

 

In Quebec city, make sure to find a few caches in the old city. There is a good series called SPUQ, I have found a few of those, they were all in exelent locations. Make sure to hit the virtule cache Tree Within The Old City. Also, try to find one or two by the Chute Montmorency (GC277XN or one of the others there).

 

I have never cached in Montreal, so can't help you there.

[+T.D.M.22]

You may use up a lot of data and have a large phone bill if you don't have a special plan. Other than that you geocache up here the same as anywhere else. Quick note when using a GPSr and traveling a long distance it may take a while for it to lock onto the satellites, I've heard as much as 20 minutes but don't know for sure.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

As far as, "What all must I do to go geocaching in those areas?":

 

I would suggest simply to Run PQ; download and load into GPSr; go geocaching.

 

If you are questioning the abilities of your DeLorme Earthmate PN-40..... don't. I think you'll find it little different than KS; CA; FL; TX; ID; IA, with one caveat -- a working knowledge of French just may come in handy.

 

You probably should install the corresponding mapping from your Topo 9, if that is the version you have.

[Mr.Yuck]

We are going to spend two months in Quebec City and Montreal next summer. We use a DeLorme PN40. What all must I do to go geocaching in those areas? I do have a 4s I phone. Would that be useful for geocaching there?

 

Thanks,

Topekan

 

You'll get horrific data roaming bills in Canada, don't even think of using the Iphone with a live data connection for caching. The West End of Montreal is where all the so-called Anglophones (native English speakers) live, and you'll find most of the cache pages in English there (or dual language, with English first). You'll also find a lot of dual language cache pages elsewhere in Montreal, with French being first. Quebec City, or anywhere outside of Montreal, for that matter, I doubt you'll see any English on any cache pages, period. I'd go with the Delorme. You can download caches into the Iphone and use the GPS offline, but I'm not one to give any advice there.

[Mr.Yuck]

Too late for an edit of my post, apparently. I hadn't looked at Montreal on the cache map in years. I personally haven't been there since before Geocaching existed. Back a few years ago when there were far fewer caches everywhere, there did seem to be a lot of English named, and written in English cache pages in Montreal, but now French names and cache pages seem to be quite dominant, even in the West End. However I will say the majority of cache pages in the City of Montreal are still dual language.

[+Ma & Pa]

We drive from New Brunswick to Ottawa (1300 kms) at least twice a year. As we drive through Quebec on the way there and back we stop for caches, so much so that the possible one day drive usually takes 4 days or more. We have found over 2000 caches in that province. We have cached in and around Quebec City and in outlying areas near Montreal. We usually stick to small cities and towns and the country side.

 

A few years ago, it took us nearly 3 weeks to get to Ottawa, including 2 weeks caching in the province of Quebec. It was memorable trip which included a big event in Sherbrooke celebrating 15000 caches for Opus Terra and an event the following weekend in Quebec City celebrating 10000 caches for the Sunnygirls. How did we manage to stay busy?

 

A look at a caching map will show many straight line caching series. Many of these series are on the "Route Verte" which is the bike trails that cover the entire province going from town to town. The trails were created and maintained by the dept of transport, the same dept that takes care of the highways. We have spent many hours walking and biking these trails going from village to village, through farmland and along the Saint Lawrence and other rivers. Of course there are also series of nanos and micros along rural roads and service roads, designed to get you numbers.

 

Cachers in Quebec have put a lot of effort in getting you into the outdoors and getting you to beautiful spots and historic spots. The caches have brought us to places we would never have seen otherwise, such as the older sections of Levis along the river, where the streets are narrow and the houses are built right up to the edge of the sidewalks. It brought us up a high hillside where we hiked along a ridge for a couple of hours, picking up caches and getting incredible views of the saint lawrence valley. You will find yorself wandering though old neighbourhoods, taking in the flavors of the areas.

 

Enjoy

[+NYPaddleCacher]

You may use up a lot of data and have a large phone bill if you don't have a special plan. Other than that you geocache up here the same as anywhere else. Quick note when using a GPSr and traveling a long distance it may take a while for it to lock onto the satellites, I've heard as much as 20 minutes but don't know for sure.

 

I've cache in 17 countries on four continents and It's never taken more than 5 minutes or so for my GPS (with either an Oregon 450 or a Garmin 76Cx) to get an initial satellite lock. However, I always turn on my GPS as soon as I leave the airport upon arrival in a location far from home.

 

The advise about data roaming charges is important but you can still use the iPhone for geocaching. I always turn off data roaming when I put my phone in airplane mode when I get on a plane then check the data roaming setting before turning off airplane mode upon arrival. With a little pre-planning a premium member can create a set of PQs and save them in the official geocaching before leaving and you'll have all the cache listings you might want and can use the phone to navigate to the cache without a data connection. It might be an idea to try doing that in your local area before leaving home to see how it works. Since the OP is going to be in Quebec for two months it should be easy to find a wireless point to download updated PQs periodically.

[Mr.Yuck]

We drive from New Brunswick to Ottawa (1300 kms) at least twice a year. As we drive through Quebec on the way there and back we stop for caches, so much so that the possible one day drive usually takes 4 days or more. We have found over 2000 caches in that province. We have cached in and around Quebec City and in outlying areas near Montreal. We usually stick to small cities and towns and the country side.

 

A few years ago, it took us nearly 3 weeks to get to Ottawa, including 2 weeks caching in the province of Quebec. It was memorable trip which included a big event in Sherbrooke celebrating 15000 caches for Opus Terra and an event the following weekend in Quebec City celebrating 10000 caches for the Sunnygirls. How did we manage to stay busy?

 

A look at a caching map will show many straight line caching series. Many of these series are on the "Route Verte" which is the bike trails that cover the entire province going from town to town. The trails were created and maintained by the dept of transport, the same dept that takes care of the highways. We have spent many hours walking and biking these trails going from village to village, through farmland and along the Saint Lawrence and other rivers. Of course there are also series of nanos and micros along rural roads and service roads, designed to get you numbers.

 

Cachers in Quebec have put a lot of effort in getting you into the outdoors and getting you to beautiful spots and historic spots. The caches have brought us to places we would never have seen otherwise, such as the older sections of Levis along the river, where the streets are narrow and the houses are built right up to the edge of the sidewalks. It brought us up a high hillside where we hiked along a ridge for a couple of hours, picking up caches and getting incredible views of the saint lawrence valley. You will find yorself wandering though old neighbourhoods, taking in the flavors of the areas.

 

Enjoy

 

Ya' know, I like to read cache pages. Maybe a lot of people don't, but I do. I mean a cache is a cache, and the coordinates are in the GPS or Smartphone. I would just personally find it pretty weird to find caches (and lots of them, as the OP is planning on spending several months in Quebec) that are written in a foreign language. I don't know, maybe it's just me??

[Andronicus]

For the English vs. French issue, google translate is your friend! If you manage to get a roaming deal so you have cheep data, you can use it in the field. Otherwise, you can do it via WiFi from the hotel or McDonalds/Starbucks etc.

[+popokiiti]

I have heard that once you get to your destination (eg hotel) turn your GPS on (outside) to allow it to acquire satellites from its new location. That was the advice given to transatlantic tourists anyway.