+OZ2CPU Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 How about this : if you travel alot, want to find a bit harder caches, or maybe in a bit dangerous area, you might want to seek assistance from locals, they know the area, and they might want to help with heawy equipment too, you can not bring big time equipment on your plane flights.. is there allready a way to seek people ? is there a way to put my own name in a data base of friendly helpfull geocachers ? Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 How about this : if you travel alot, want to find a bit harder caches, or maybe in a bit dangerous area, you might want to seek assistance from locals, they know the area, and they might want to help with heawy equipment too, you can not bring big time equipment on your plane flights.. is there allready a way to seek people ? is there a way to put my own name in a data base of friendly helpfull geocachers ? I've had good luck just sending a PM to the owner of a cache I might want to find. I've had some nice email exchanges with owners of caches in South Africa, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Zurich. For the Zurich trip I posted a note on the cache listing for an event wondering if I could expect anyone attending the spoke English. I got responses from several people, including the CO, and ended up doing some caching with and was accompanied to the event by a very nice couple that had lived in the U.S. for awhile. Quote Link to comment
+OZ2CPU Posted January 21, 2013 Author Share Posted January 21, 2013 VERY good point, I just find it a bit hard to figure out who is actually a local to the area I visit, you can maybe assume all caches placed in the area are by locals, but it is not always the case in some areas, and then, who of those locals are turist friendly ? active ? interested to actually show up or get visitors ? or show strangers their area and such. I mean it could be a lot of fishing before one bite :-) with an open database, it could take a sec to figure out who to ask Quote Link to comment
+The Blorenges Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 I don't do a lot of Waymarking but I do know that there's a Waymarking group called "Geocaching Tour Guides" which has 226 entries. Might be worth a look. Waymarking - Geocaching Tour Guides MrsB Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 (edited) VERY good point, I just find it a bit hard to figure out who is actually a local to the area I visit, you can maybe assume all caches placed in the area are by locals, but it is not always the case in some areas, and then, who of those locals are turist friendly ? active ? interested to actually show up or get visitors ? or show strangers their area and such. I mean it could be a lot of fishing before one bite :-) I suppose it could be but that hasn't been my experience. It usually doesn't take looking at more that a few listing to see who the active and friendly local cache owners are. On the other hand, there have been a few times when I've become disillusioned with the geocaching community. After reading a few posts in another thread, this is one of those times. with an open database, it could take a sec to figure out who to ask As a technology strategist I've often come to the conclusion that new technology is not always the answer. The Groundspeak database of caches is also essentially a database of cache owners and local caches, though the discovery mechanisms could be improved. I don't see how have an open database of self-declared friendly geocachers would halp unless there was some sort of vetting process which could validate how helpful or friendly someone in the database based on real experience (i.e. like buyer and seller ratings on e-bay). Edited January 22, 2013 by NYPaddleCacher Quote Link to comment
AZcachemeister Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 is there allready a way to seek people ? Look ahead to the area you plan to visit and see if there is a person who puts on many events. Try to figure out if there is a most popular even location. Maybe you will need to ask someone about this. Set up and host your own event at a good local place (that many locals will enjoy) on your first day in the area. You will meet many of the locals, and become their friend for giving them an event to attend. Quote Link to comment
+simpjkee Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 is there allready a way to seek people ? Look ahead to the area you plan to visit and see if there is a person who puts on many events. Try to figure out if there is a most popular even location. Maybe you will need to ask someone about this. Set up and host your own event at a good local place (that many locals will enjoy) on your first day in the area. You will meet many of the locals, and become their friend for giving them an event to attend. I would highly reccomend this. I've done it twice and made instant friends both times. The people at the event were really cool and offered to cache with me and such. They also gave or offered their phone numbers. They suggested caches that I just had to go find while in town. They gave me hints on some harder caches in the area and explained some of the common terminology of the area that I was unfamiliar with. They also suggested hikes and what to expect that I may be unprepared for. Quote Link to comment
Mr.Yuck Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I don't do a lot of Waymarking but I do know that there's a Waymarking group called "Geocaching Tour Guides" which has 226 entries. Might be worth a look. Waymarking - Geocaching Tour Guides MrsB I was going to bring this up, and I think they came up with this category way back in 2006 or so. I logged one of them, and they even have little cards for you. Of course 1/2 of them have probably long since gotten out of Waymarking by now. Quote Link to comment
+J the Goat Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 Read the logs. Sometimes the tone of a log can give you an idea about the friendliness of the people. Quote Link to comment
+OZ2CPU Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 thanks a bunch for all the good and usefull ideas, I just need to up my research in good time ahead of a trip and see what happens, on most of your trips to new locations, we just go out on our own, with the skils and knowhow we bring from home, we are offcourse not compleetly dumb beginners, but we can not know all local plants, animals, holes in the ground or whatver waiting to kill us out there.. we did try to get a bit surprised in a swamp in FL, we had to run as fast as our legs can handle, we heard a sutten wierd splash sound not far away from us, we did not wait to see what it was :-) it is not that easy to run in a swamp :-) man I was happy when we got inside the car again, we even forgot to DNF the cache.. We also saw really wierd and new colored snakes, beetles, and such, all normal insects are like 2-3 times as big there compared to our much colder climate. We plan to visit other states too in the future, what about bear infested woods, we are turists and are NOT alowed to carry firearms, all we can do is walk slowly away silently.. I dont think my kids will be silent and slow or calm, in case some wild bear approches. Quote Link to comment
+MartyBartfast Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I just need to up my research in good time ahead of a trip and see what happens, How about arranging an event early on in your trip(s), then you'll be able to meet some local cachers and get some tips and recommendations? Quote Link to comment
+maxx borchovski Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 If you were looking for helpful locals, other than contacting the cache owner, you could look to see who found the caches in the area you are looking at visiting. You will soon build up a picture of the locals and who is still active. If their profile does not show their home turf, then it's a safe guess that most of their first caches will be close to home. I like the idea of an event, you are going to attract the friendly local and active cachers in the area, you get to meet new friends who will tell you all about the best caches in their area. An event in a restaurant in the area is a safe bet and inexpensive, as people wont expect to eat for free. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 thanks a bunch for all the good and usefull ideas, I just need to up my research in good time ahead of a trip and see what happens, on most of your trips to new locations, we just go out on our own, with the skils and knowhow we bring from home, we are offcourse not compleetly dumb beginners, but we can not know all local plants, animals, holes in the ground or whatver waiting to kill us out there.. Sure you can. Searching on dangerous animals or poisonous plants and the place name will generally bring up few web sites which describe what you *could* encounter. On the other hand, I knew all about lions and tigers and bears (oh my) when I visited Tanzania but I wasn't expecting to be swatting tsetse flies about 20 minutes before I found a cache there. we did try to get a bit surprised in a swamp in FL, we had to run as fast as our legs can handle, we heard a sutten wierd splash sound not far away from us, we did not wait to see what it was :-) it is not that easy to run in a swamp :-) man I was happy when we got inside the car again, we even forgot to DNF the cache.. We also saw really wierd and new colored snakes, beetles, and such, all normal insects are like 2-3 times as big there compared to our much colder climate. We plan to visit other states too in the future, what about bear infested woods, we are turists and are NOT alowed to carry firearms, all we can do is walk slowly away silently.. I dont think my kids will be silent and slow or calm, in case some wild bear approches. There have been 63 known fatal attacks by black bears in North America between 1900 and 2009. You're far more likely to get killed by a drunk driver. Quote Link to comment
+OZ2CPU Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 (edited) >You're far more likely to get killed by a drunk driver. man I fell happy now :-) how about close encounters ? where the person involved actually live to tell ? oh you got the stats ? how about them gators ? Edited January 22, 2013 by OZ2CPU Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 >You're far more likely to get killed by a drunk driver. man I fell happy now :-) oh you got the stats ? how about them gators ? This kind of stuff is pretty easy to look up. According to one source, there have been 23 fatal alligator attacks in the U.S. since 1970. Several years ago I rented a kayak in North Carolina and was going to be led on a tour in the Alligator river national wildlife refuge. When I got to the outfitter I was told that her permit had expired but she could drop me off, give me a map which showed a good route to take, and pick me up a few hours later. I went off by myself and didn't see another person for four hours. On one stretch of the river I heard a splash and wondered what kind of fish there were in the river. Then I looked along the shore and saw about a 10 foot alligator sunning itself along the bank of the river. When I first saw it I was no more than 20 feet away and heading closer. I backpaddled a bit, gave it a wide berth (after taking a couple of pictures) and was on my way. Quote Link to comment
+OZ2CPU Posted January 22, 2013 Author Share Posted January 22, 2013 Thanks for the nice story, good you stayed calm :-) I dont know what I am most scared of, drunken drivers, bears, gators, they all give me a bad feeling. before our last trip we did read about bad plants http://landscaping.about.com/od/poisonouslandscapeplants/tp/poisonous-plants.htm I dont really know for sure, but I think poison ivy is the most common in FL of the bad ones. just to be sure, we tried to awoid touching ANYTHING at all, except poke arround with a stick, we did see alot of bees and wasps near cache locations, lucky we always did the look carefully first trick !! NEWER hand first.. I did offcourse fall and land in a huge bush with thornes, then found the cache, found my self marking the logbook with quite alot of DNA :-) I am sorry but the red page is caused by me, on the way back to wife and kids, waiting in the car ½hr hike away, I fell into a hole and twisted my foot, could barely walk back to her, super cool cache trip by the way :-) the ones where most stuff go wrong, are the ones we remember the most, and have most fun about talking about. Quote Link to comment
+Ike 13 Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 I've never had issues just reaching out to the CO or recent finder. A couple of guys were coming to my area during their quest to grab all counties and Delorme pages in my state and saw I had a lot of non-traditional hides with favorite points and reached out to me to get some more info on my hides and other hides in the area they wanted to hit. I helped them pick some good quality caches that would be quick to do and even hit a few caches with them. Quote Link to comment
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