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collecting countries


terratin

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I've cached in 19 different countries (17 if you exclude the US virgin islands and Puerto Rico) since I started geocaching in 2005. In some of the countries, I was only able to make time to find one geocache... but I made sure I found one to light up that country on my map!

 

My one and only in The Netherlands: "Under the bridge" http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC921

Only one in Sweden: "Swerail #02" http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC17GG3

Also only have one in Slovenia... a guard rail cache wedged in the little nub of country between Austria and Croatia!

 

When I was a lot younger I traveled with my family to a number of countries in the Caribbean, but I haven't otherwise missed out on nabbing countries like Andromeda321 has. I've missed out on a few states in the US, though. Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Washington namely, plus driving through Alabama once.

 

My 2013 plans (so far) will allow me to add Argentina (I hope, I'm here now but there isn't a cache with 100 miles :( ) and Brazil. Plus Washington state!

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When I'm able to actually get a job after college I would like to start collecting countries in my finds list, as well as all states in the US and all counties in PA, NY, NJ, and CT. This Summer I just want to reach 100 finds, if I can manage that then I'll be happy :D

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When I'm able to actually get a job after college I would like to start collecting countries in my finds list, as well as all states in the US and all counties in PA, NY, NJ, and CT. This Summer I just want to reach 100 finds, if I can manage that then I'll be happy :D

 

If you can land a job which includes travel as part of your job description it'll be a lot easier to start collecting countries and states. However, if you're job doesn't include some travel you might find it more difficult to add countries and states after college unless you take a break after college specifically to do some traveling.

 

 

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Finally got enough airmiles together for two award flights :)

The choice of uncaches places is Tallinn, Vilnius, Helsinki (and other places in Finland), Gdansk, Warsaw and... Svalbart! :o

 

Thanks for the reminder. Since I recently added about 15,000 miles on a partner airline I should make sure that they were applied.

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I love doing it too. We've only done a handful, and I'm pleased that the states and provinces of the US and Canada come up separately as well (although not as countries as such, but its just as fun). Plus its really interesting to see the style of caching in other countries.

 

For example in Italy we found that the caches are very similar to at home in the UK, but they are absolutely fearless when it comes to placing caches near famous monuments. A highlight has to be finding one actually on the Spanish Steps, and another in a wall about 50 feet from the Colosseum, brilliant. Plus we liked that we could claim at least for a while to have found all the caches in a country - even if was just the Vatican!

 

The hides in Wisconsin were quite different, with them being more open to the extent that I found myself not even looking in the really obvious places because people in the UK I guess are just more sneaky! :) Norway on the other hand used quite different containers which was interesting. We noticed that they used little plastic pouches covered in black tape and then magnetised. Interesting idea that I might have to try in the UK. Literally the only negative experience I have had in my travels was in Belgium (Brussels to be precise) where it just seemed that the coordinates put you in a vague area and were never where the cache or even the hint item was. We only found a single cache there.

 

My top hint for numbers of countries is that the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey both count as different countries (I've only cached on Guernsey during a business trip) and are easy enough to get a ferry between. I doubt the other islands count as anything separate as they all fall within the Balliwick of Guernsey.

 

As for the future, well we've fallen in love with cruising over the last two years which rather goes hand in hand with hitting numerous countries but not great numbers in any particular one. One cruise we're planning to do in the next two years is a baltic capitals one, where you go to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany and Latvia all in one trip. We're not going for the caching in particular, but it'll be a great bonus.

 

Of course, if only we're started caching a year earlier - we did a big driving trip up the eastern seaboard of the United States. Had we been caching we could have grabbed caches in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, DC (we spent an entire day on the Mall - the virtuals there alone!), I think we nipped Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ontario (not a state, but we still hit it - Niagara Falls - the Earthcaches!), Michigan and Indiana. So yeah. Loved that trip, and perhaps Geocaching might have ruined it (I could see the argument "But Delaware will only take an hour detour to do one cache") but I still dream of that lovely highlighted US map on the stats page. :)

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For example in Italy we found that the caches are very similar to at home in the UK, but they are absolutely fearless when it comes to placing caches near famous monuments. A highlight has to be finding one actually on the Spanish Steps, and another in a wall about 50 feet from the Colosseum, brilliant. Plus we liked that we could claim at least for a while to have found all the caches in a country - even if was just the Vatican!

 

Woohoo! We just picked those two up as well. And one in Circo Massimo, and at other very historical places :)

Mr. terratin had our whole vacation planned around caches :P We did a 12km hike from north of Vatican downtown and back towards the river island along some really marvelous sights and nice caches :lol:

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I like to do that as well.

 

So far I have 14 American states, 1 Canadian province, 4 European countries, and 2 African countries.

 

I should have 5 European countries but I was unable to find ANY of the few that I looked for in London. :/

 

I also didn't even think to try to find geocaches when I went to Panama and Costa Rica a few years ago. That could have been a few more!

Edited by ZeekLTK
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For example in Italy we found that the caches are very similar to at home in the UK, but they are absolutely fearless when it comes to placing caches near famous monuments. A highlight has to be finding one actually on the Spanish Steps, and another in a wall about 50 feet from the Colosseum, brilliant. Plus we liked that we could claim at least for a while to have found all the caches in a country - even if was just the Vatican!

 

Woohoo! We just picked those two up as well. And one in Circo Massimo, and at other very historical places :)

Mr. terratin had our whole vacation planned around caches :P We did a 12km hike from north of Vatican downtown and back towards the river island along some really marvelous sights and nice caches :lol:

 

Did you get the one on Tiber island? I DNFd it (the area was not accessible unless you swam across the river) the first time I was in Rome but met a couple of cachers from Germany that were also trying to find it. The one at the Colosseum has the highest number of favorites of any cache in Italy and is used as an example of a micro on the wikipedia page for geocaching.

 

I also did a similar hike. I took the metro to the stop north of the Vatican, walked around the Vatican, crossed over the river, down through Piazza Navona, through Campo Fiori, over to Tiber Island, then back to my hotel near Trevi Fountain. It's the best way to see Rome.

 

The number of caches in Rome increased substantially since that trip and even though I've been there four times I'd love to go back. It's probably my favorite city. Unfortunately, Italy didn't make the cut for countries for which one could obtain a souvenir.

 

 

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>I should have 5 European countries but I was unable to find ANY of the few that I looked for in London. :/

 

if anything like that was happening to me..

I would have continued to seek caches UNTIL at least one was perfectly found and signed !!

a new contry is worth alot to me :-)

Edited by OZ2CPU
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NYPaddleCacher,

 

the Tiber Island cache was disabled when we were there, but we did do the EarthCache, which happens to be from a CPH local :P We managed to find 42 in Rome in 4 days and two bits, and only two DNF. We met some cachers from Germany at the Spanish Steps. We quickly found the cache location but no cache - until they handed it to us :lol:

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NYPaddleCacher,

 

the Tiber Island cache was disabled when we were there, but we did do the EarthCache, which happens to be from a CPH local :P We managed to find 42 in Rome in 4 days and two bits, and only two DNF. We met some cachers from Germany at the Spanish Steps. We quickly found the cache location but no cache - until they handed it to us :lol:

 

Although I've been to Rome four times it's always been for work, with long days of meetings and other work related activities, then in the evenings my FAO colleagues want to meet for dinner. I've actually had a fairly limited amount of time to get out and find some caches. Next time I go I'm hoping to schedule a couple of days just for some vacation time.

 

 

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Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week B) Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there.

 

But anyway, my travel plans aside...

 

I love doing it too. We've only done a handful, and I'm pleased that the states and provinces of the US and Canada come up separately as well (although not as countries as such, but its just as fun). Plus its really interesting to see the style of caching in other countries.

 

I will definitely agree to this, often just because climates dictate various ways you can hide caches. I've found one or two in California and Argentina where it doesn't rain much and marvel at how they can survive several years, for example, and "winter friendly" guidelines start to hit in areas where you get a lot of snow...

 

The other thing I've noticed is how frankly the difficulty scale is way different in Europe vs the USA, whereby stuff in Europe that would be 3 or 4 star in the US will only be 1.5 stars or maybe 2 over here (this might also be more a Netherlands/Germany thing than a Europe in general one). I even went to an event some tourists set up here in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and some of the locals were complaining that they'd never been to an event where you just had to sign the log to get a smiley and didn't have to "do something." :huh:

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Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week B) Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there.

 

So instead you're going to fight the crowds at St. Peter's Basilica? I haven't had the urge to fight the crowds to get into the Colosseum either, especially since I could see it everyday from the terrace of the FAO building (near Cirrco Massimo). I think that the Spanish Steps/Trevi Fountain area is just about the best location in Rome for a hotel (unless you wan't the charm of Trastevere) since it's so easy to get to where you might want to go by hoping on the Metro A line. BTW, there is a *really* good gelato shop (Gelateria Antica Roma) as you walk from the bottom of Spanish Steps towards Trevi Fountain.

 

 

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Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week B) Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there.

 

So instead you're going to fight the crowds at St. Peter's Basilica? I haven't had the urge to fight the crowds to get into the Colosseum either, especially since I could see it everyday from the terrace of the FAO building (near Cirrco Massimo). I think that the Spanish Steps/Trevi Fountain area is just about the best location in Rome for a hotel (unless you wan't the charm of Trastevere) since it's so easy to get to where you might want to go by hoping on the Metro A line. BTW, there is a *really* good gelato shop (Gelateria Antica Roma) as you walk from the bottom of Spanish Steps towards Trevi Fountain.

 

Agreed :P We had a look, saw the enormous queue just to get into the Vatican, took a photo and left again. :P

Our accommodation included bikes and we managed to take them onto the Via Appia and back again. The traffic in Rome is mad but cycling there wasn't quite so bad, not even around the Colloseum. Cycling on the Via Appia is not so nice as it's quite bumpy, but there's mostly a thin dirt path right next to the road for most of it. At some places we felt like we passed some of the tombs a bit too quickly, and there was one touch hill for a heavy single speed city bike, but it was the perfect thing to do for our feet :lol: Btw, we went there on a Saturday. The via is closed for cars on Sundays, but the part where all the tombs start was completely empty. Afterwards we visited the Therme of Caracalla which also had hardly any tourists.

 

We also took the train to Ostia Antica, probably the best Roman site we've ever visited. Yea, some say that Pompeii is better (we haven't been there) but the whole site is so widespread and again not so popular that it wasn't really crowded. Unfortunately, no caches around there :P

 

I had a seriously good ice on the Tiber Island, and it was seriously cheap.

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So far this year I have collected Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

 

I hope to further collect Canada, Guatemala and Belize by the end of the year.

 

Nice. One of these days I'm going to have to take the three hour drive from there to Canada and add that to my list.

 

So far this year I've added Turkey and Ethiopia. I may be going back to Ethiopia in August and would have to try and use a different itinerary to get there to add another country. One of the options is through Cairo and/or Dubai. I thought I might go to a conference in Lisbon (and add Portugal to my list) in September but that would conflict with a vacation to Tennessee I already have planned..and have paid for. I also just started working on a grant funded project as the technical lead (with 1/4 of my time allocated to it) and there is some travel written into the grant. There is nothing specific planned but it would likely entail going back (for the third time) to South Africa and one of the following countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, or India. I've already found caches in Ethiopia and Tanzania so hopefully it will be one of the others (personally, I'm hoping for Ghana or Uganda).

I hope that those that have participated in this thread so far will continue to use it to report on new countries they've added.

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Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week B) Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there.

 

So instead you're going to fight the crowds at St. Peter's Basilica? I haven't had the urge to fight the crowds to get into the Colosseum either, especially since I could see it everyday from the terrace of the FAO building (near Cirrco Massimo). I think that the Spanish Steps/Trevi Fountain area is just about the best location in Rome for a hotel (unless you wan't the charm of Trastevere) since it's so easy to get to where you might want to go by hoping on the Metro A line. BTW, there is a *really* good gelato shop (Gelateria Antica Roma) as you walk from the bottom of Spanish Steps towards Trevi Fountain.

 

Agreed :P We had a look, saw the enormous queue just to get into the Vatican, took a photo and left again. :P

Our accommodation included bikes and we managed to take them onto the Via Appia and back again. The traffic in Rome is mad but cycling there wasn't quite so bad, not even around the Colloseum. Cycling on the Via Appia is not so nice as it's quite bumpy, but there's mostly a thin dirt path right next to the road for most of it. At some places we felt like we passed some of the tombs a bit too quickly, and there was one touch hill for a heavy single speed city bike, but it was the perfect thing to do for our feet :lol: Btw, we went there on a Saturday. The via is closed for cars on Sundays, but the part where all the tombs start was completely empty. Afterwards we visited the Therme of Caracalla which also had hardly any tourists.

 

We also took the train to Ostia Antica, probably the best Roman site we've ever visited. Yea, some say that Pompeii is better (we haven't been there) but the whole site is so widespread and again not so popular that it wasn't really crowded. Unfortunately, no caches around there :P

 

I had a seriously good ice on the Tiber Island, and it was seriously cheap.

 

I hear you guys, but my very Catholic grandmother is really not doing well right now and I know it would mean a lot to her if I lit a candle for her at St. Peter's. Not this atheist's first choice, but you know how it goes...

 

Thanks for all the tips terratin.

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For example in Italy we found that the caches are very similar to at home in the UK, but they are absolutely fearless when it comes to placing caches near famous monuments. A highlight has to be finding one actually on the Spanish Steps, and another in a wall about 50 feet from the Colosseum, brilliant. Plus we liked that we could claim at least for a while to have found all the caches in a country - even if was just the Vatican!

 

Woohoo! We just picked those two up as well. And one in Circo Massimo, and at other very historical places :)

Mr. terratin had our whole vacation planned around caches :P We did a 12km hike from north of Vatican downtown and back towards the river island along some really marvelous sights and nice caches :lol:

 

We didn't end up doing the Circo Massimo one as it was just a fraction too far away from where we were. Only of my favourites had to be the Tiber Island cache - I probably would never have gone there without that multi.

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>I should have 5 European countries but I was unable to find ANY of the few that I looked for in London. :/

 

if anything like that was happening to me..

I would have continued to seek caches UNTIL at least one was perfectly found and signed !!

a new contry is worth alot to me :-)

 

I'd hail a cab and head to the nearest virtual! :)

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>I should have 5 European countries but I was unable to find ANY of the few that I looked for in London. :/

 

if anything like that was happening to me..

I would have continued to seek caches UNTIL at least one was perfectly found and signed !!

a new contry is worth alot to me :-)

 

I'd hail a cab and head to the nearest virtual! :)

 

Quite a few virtuals in London aren't that easy and quick! I'd rather visit the next EarthCache. :P

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Y'all are making me excited for my Rome weekend next week B) Hotel is near the Spanish steps and my plan is one day St Peter's Basilica/ find the Vatican City caches and then wander around a bit in Rome, second day is to check up on some lesser-known Roman ruins down towards the Via Appia. Since I was last in Rome in 2009 for several days I don't have a gigantic urge to fight the crowds just to go into the Colosseum etc when there's so much to see there.

 

So instead you're going to fight the crowds at St. Peter's Basilica? I haven't had the urge to fight the crowds to get into the Colosseum either, especially since I could see it everyday from the terrace of the FAO building (near Cirrco Massimo). I think that the Spanish Steps/Trevi Fountain area is just about the best location in Rome for a hotel (unless you wan't the charm of Trastevere) since it's so easy to get to where you might want to go by hoping on the Metro A line. BTW, there is a *really* good gelato shop (Gelateria Antica Roma) as you walk from the bottom of Spanish Steps towards Trevi Fountain.

 

Agreed :P We had a look, saw the enormous queue just to get into the Vatican, took a photo and left again. :P

Our accommodation included bikes and we managed to take them onto the Via Appia and back again. The traffic in Rome is mad but cycling there wasn't quite so bad, not even around the Colloseum. Cycling on the Via Appia is not so nice as it's quite bumpy, but there's mostly a thin dirt path right next to the road for most of it. At some places we felt like we passed some of the tombs a bit too quickly, and there was one touch hill for a heavy single speed city bike, but it was the perfect thing to do for our feet :lol: Btw, we went there on a Saturday. The via is closed for cars on Sundays, but the part where all the tombs start was completely empty. Afterwards we visited the Therme of Caracalla which also had hardly any tourists.

 

We also took the train to Ostia Antica, probably the best Roman site we've ever visited. Yea, some say that Pompeii is better (we haven't been there) but the whole site is so widespread and again not so popular that it wasn't really crowded. Unfortunately, no caches around there :P

 

I had a seriously good ice on the Tiber Island, and it was seriously cheap.

 

I hear you guys, but my very Catholic grandmother is really not doing well right now and I know it would mean a lot to her if I lit a candle for her at St. Peter's. Not this atheist's first choice, but you know how it goes...

 

Thanks for all the tips terratin.

 

Yes, I know how it goes. When my mother-in-law found out I was going to Rome for one of my visits she insisted I buy some prayer beads from the Vatican (they can be found everywhere and most are probably made in China).

 

I'm currently checking out various options for a possible return trip to Ethiopia in August and one of them has a short layover in Rome. A couple of other options involve layovers in Cairo and Vienna, two cities in Countries in which I've not yet found a cache.

 

 

 

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Pleased to report I got the traditional at Vatican City today for country #26! I know y'all were really biting your nails over that one. B)

 

Alas the railway to Vatican cache was missing so I'm only getting one in that "country" after my St Peter's Basilica exploration (went up to the cupola- that was really cool!), though I went past the cache site... someone has done a "I was here but the cache wasn't and I won't be back so I'm counting it as a long" kind of find on it tho, but I'm not that kind of girl so guess I'm not going to "cache out" the country.

 

Tickets purchased for Croatia and Montenegro in late July/ early August, so I guess those will be my next two. :)

 

NYPaddleCacher, I think there's a very good case for going to Vienna if you have the opportunity just because country collecting aside Vienna is awesome!

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congratulations on Vatican City! and such a shame the railroad one went missing. No, I'm not a fan of photo logs either. There's one cache on the Via Appia that we could not find and still have on our watch list. Quite a few people log it as "well, I came all the way, this is the wall from the spoiler photo, hence I found it".

 

I managed to add the State of Texas to our list now. OK, not really a country, but it's something new in the stats.

 

I agree with Vienna. You could easily add a whole pile of other countries from there. At the moment I'm thinking about doing a weekend trip to Vilnius and wonder if you could easily cross the border into Belarus by taxi. That probably is the best destination for our airmiles: no endless travel, good weather (no polar bears) and a great choice of different caches :)

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Pleased to report I got the traditional at Vatican City today for country #26! I know y'all were really biting your nails over that one. B)

 

Alas the railway to Vatican cache was missing so I'm only getting one in that "country" after my St Peter's Basilica exploration (went up to the cupola- that was really cool!), though I went past the cache site... someone has done a "I was here but the cache wasn't and I won't be back so I'm counting it as a long" kind of find on it tho, but I'm not that kind of girl so guess I'm not going to "cache out" the country.

 

Tickets purchased for Croatia and Montenegro in late July/ early August, so I guess those will be my next two. :)

 

NYPaddleCacher, I think there's a very good case for going to Vienna if you have the opportunity just because country collecting aside Vienna is awesome!

 

Congrats on getting Vatican City. At the time I did it there were only two traditional caches so it was easy to clear out the the country.

 

My brother and sister-n-law and and their family are leaving tomorrow for a six week vacation in Europe and after visiting London for a few days will be flying to Croatia (my sister-n-law is Croatian) for a couple of weeks, then to Italy and France. They're not geocachers though.

 

I'll probably find out tomorrow about whether or not I'll be going back to Ethiopia in August but I'll have a hard time justifying a layover in Vienna if I do. There's about a $500 price difference with an itinerary that goes through Cairo so even though I'd rather visit Vienna I would still be able to add another country, and possibly two if I fly through Dubai on the way home.

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congratulations on Vatican City! and such a shame the railroad one went missing. No, I'm not a fan of photo logs either. There's one cache on the Via Appia that we could not find and still have on our watch list. Quite a few people log it as "well, I came all the way, this is the wall from the spoiler photo, hence I found it".

 

I managed to add the State of Texas to our list now. OK, not really a country, but it's something new in the stats.

 

I agree with Vienna. You could easily add a whole pile of other countries from there. At the moment I'm thinking about doing a weekend trip to Vilnius and wonder if you could easily cross the border into Belarus by taxi. That probably is the best destination for our airmiles: no endless travel, good weather (no polar bears) and a great choice of different caches :)

 

Problem with Belarus is you need to apply for a visa in advance and it's not the most straightforward one to get (yeah, I just happen to know this). Hope you find a solution!

 

Speaking of Croatia and Vienna, I just checked cause I know I have a layover there on the way back from Croatia... and it's 2.5 hours and would you look at that, a challenge cache I qualify for! (And many others reading this thread I guess) http://coord.info/GC4DBM5 Here's hoping that works! (On the way there there is a Frankfurt layover and I know there are caches in that airport, but the layover is more like 2 hours and I've already been to Germany so perhaps not as interesting.)

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Problem with Belarus is you need to apply for a visa in advance and it's not the most straightforward one to get (yeah, I just happen to know this). Hope you find a solution!

 

Speaking of Croatia and Vienna, I just checked cause I know I have a layover there on the way back from Croatia... and it's 2.5 hours and would you look at that, a challenge cache I qualify for! (And many others reading this thread I guess) http://coord.info/GC4DBM5 Here's hoping that works! (On the way there there is a Frankfurt layover and I know there are caches in that airport, but the layover is more like 2 hours and I've already been to Germany so perhaps not as interesting.)

 

Yea, I was afraid of that (Belarus). Lets see how this works...

 

The airport challenge is fun! Look at our stats: thanks to moving to different places every now and then we have a whole pile of finds really far away :D

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Problem with Belarus is you need to apply for a visa in advance and it's not the most straightforward one to get (yeah, I just happen to know this). Hope you find a solution!

 

Speaking of Croatia and Vienna, I just checked cause I know I have a layover there on the way back from Croatia... and it's 2.5 hours and would you look at that, a challenge cache I qualify for! (And many others reading this thread I guess) http://coord.info/GC4DBM5 Here's hoping that works! (On the way there there is a Frankfurt layover and I know there are caches in that airport, but the layover is more like 2 hours and I've already been to Germany so perhaps not as interesting.)

 

Yea, I was afraid of that (Belarus). Lets see how this works...

 

The airport challenge is fun! Look at our stats: thanks to moving to different places every now and then we have a whole pile of finds really far away :D

 

One of the first things I do when looking at possible itineraries when traveling internationally is to check on travel.state.gov to see the immigration/visa requirements for layover cities.

 

Thanks for posting the link to that challenge at the Vienna airport. I also qualify for it (easily). I've only got the virtual cache at the airport Frankfurt airport but one of the possible itineraries I could do if I go back to Ethiopia in August would have a long layover in Frankfurt (and a long one in Amsterdam on the way home!).

 

I like the Distance to Find chart but the other set of stats I find interesting is the Nearest to/Furthest from home and Find Farthest North/South/East/West list of caches. After my trip to Malaysia, that became six distinct caches, and the North/South/East/West caches are on four separate continents (sounds like a good challenge).

 

 

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How much time do you have in Amsterdam? There's a really old cache in the city center we did last time. Though we did have a car and drove into the city before heading for the airport. And thinking about it: seeing all these really old caches here in Houston and not knowing what the situation in NY is, maybe you've finished your Jasmer challenge two times already. This one: http://coord.info/GC198

 

I have something like 5 hours in Frankfurt on Sunday and put a pile of caches in the forested area northish of the airport into my gps. Lets see if I have enough energy to go out and find some.

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How much time do you have in Amsterdam? There's a really old cache in the city center we did last time. Though we did have a car and drove into the city before heading for the airport. And thinking about it: seeing all these really old caches here in Houston and not knowing what the situation in NY is, maybe you've finished your Jasmer challenge two times already. This one: http://coord.info/GC198

 

I have something like 5 hours in Frankfurt on Sunday and put a pile of caches in the forested area northish of the airport into my gps. Lets see if I have enough energy to go out and find some.

 

I'm a long way from booking tickets but if I did take that itinerary I'd have 14 hours there (arriving at 10:30PM though). My first international cache (now archived) was near an airport hotel near Shiphol. I was in Wagenigen for a couple of days and stayed overnight before a morning flight home.

 

I'm a long way from completing the Jasmer challenge and doubt that I ever will. Some of the unfilled spots would require me to travel several hundred miles. We've got "The Spot" (the 4th oldest cache, I believe) in NY (about 50 miles from me), but in general, not a lot of really old caches. As far as old caches go, the one I'd like to get is "Rift Valley", a virtual in Kenya, that is alleged to be the oldest virtual cache in the world.

 

 

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How much time do you have in Amsterdam? There's a really old cache in the city center we did last time. Though we did have a car and drove into the city before heading for the airport. And thinking about it: seeing all these really old caches here in Houston and not knowing what the situation in NY is, maybe you've finished your Jasmer challenge two times already. This one: http://coord.info/GC198

 

I have something like 5 hours in Frankfurt on Sunday and put a pile of caches in the forested area northish of the airport into my gps. Lets see if I have enough energy to go out and find some.

 

I'm a long way from booking tickets but if I did take that itinerary I'd have 14 hours there (arriving at 10:30PM though). My first international cache (now archived) was near an airport hotel near Shiphol. I was in Wagenigen for a couple of days and stayed overnight before a morning flight home.

 

I'm a long way from completing the Jasmer challenge and doubt that I ever will. Some of the unfilled spots would require me to travel several hundred miles. We've got "The Spot" (the 4th oldest cache, I believe) in NY (about 50 miles from me), but in general, not a lot of really old caches. As far as old caches go, the one I'd like to get is "Rift Valley", a virtual in Kenya, that is alleged to be the oldest virtual cache in the world.

 

Depending on the day, I think one can convince the Amsterdam area cachers to hold a very late night/ very early morning geocaching event... just a hunch! :anibad:

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How much time do you have in Amsterdam? There's a really old cache in the city center we did last time. Though we did have a car and drove into the city before heading for the airport. And thinking about it: seeing all these really old caches here in Houston and not knowing what the situation in NY is, maybe you've finished your Jasmer challenge two times already. This one: http://coord.info/GC198

 

I have something like 5 hours in Frankfurt on Sunday and put a pile of caches in the forested area northish of the airport into my gps. Lets see if I have enough energy to go out and find some.

 

I'm a long way from booking tickets but if I did take that itinerary I'd have 14 hours there (arriving at 10:30PM though). My first international cache (now archived) was near an airport hotel near Shiphol. I was in Wagenigen for a couple of days and stayed overnight before a morning flight home.

 

I'm a long way from completing the Jasmer challenge and doubt that I ever will. Some of the unfilled spots would require me to travel several hundred miles. We've got "The Spot" (the 4th oldest cache, I believe) in NY (about 50 miles from me), but in general, not a lot of really old caches. As far as old caches go, the one I'd like to get is "Rift Valley", a virtual in Kenya, that is alleged to be the oldest virtual cache in the world.

 

Depending on the day, I think one can convince the Amsterdam area cachers to hold a very late night/ very early morning geocaching event... just a hunch! :anibad:

I'll be sure to let you know if it turns out I go to Amsterdam.

 

Okay, country collectors, a few weeks ago I came across a geo related game that I posted about in another forum. It's called Geoguessr (www.geoguessr.com). Basically, It shows you an image from Google Street maps and a map. The object of the game is to "guess" the exact location of the image but "pinning" the location on the map. Each round has five locations and you get points depending on how close you get to the location. From the original location displayed you can move around until you find a sign or some identifying feature until you can figure out the location. Typically, you would bring up a separate window with the actually Google maps street view until you can match up the view with the original location you're trying to guess. It's possible to get an exact match if you spend enough time on Google street view. Some of the locations are a lot easier than others but some will take a long time if you try to get an exact match. Some of the locations are in the middle of a long stretch of remote road, in some cases not more than a dirt road, and even some where the original location is just a "dot" on the map and you can't move from that location. Once you finish a round of five locations you can share a URL and challenge others to beat your score. There is also a timed mode where you can, for example, limit the amount of time for finding each location to five minutes. It's pretty addictive and you'll find a lot of really interesting locations around the world and discover that GSM goes places that you might not expect (I had one location that started *underwater*).

 

 

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I think I got really good at geoguessr. My record is something just above 27000 points, and I managed to get a zero meter distance once. It's extremely addictive!

 

There was no caching at Frankfurt airport for me. For some reason I slept for most of the flight, and slept another three hours in Frankfurt, which isn't so bad after all. :)

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I think I got really good at geoguessr. My record is something just above 27000 points, and I managed to get a zero meter distance once. It's extremely addictive!

 

There was no caching at Frankfurt airport for me. For some reason I slept for most of the flight, and slept another three hours in Frankfurt, which isn't so bad after all. :)

 

If I would have previously found a cache in Germany I probably would have opted for sleep instead of getting the RWY 42 cache at gate A42 but my arrival gate was only about 10 away and I had a few hours to kill and was able to find the bar where I had a really good hefewiezen that first time I went through Frankfurt.

 

I've had a couple of rounds with either the maximum points or one less than the maximum on every location. I had one round there I got a zero meter on the first location, .001 for the second (still a max score), and the third location put me at the end of a pier (where a boat taxi launched) and wouldn't allow me to move anywhere. I took a wild guess at Key West, and it turned out to be in Belize. I have learned a few things while playing the game.

 

If you use Google translate and select a language (i.e. Russian) it wlll display a keyboard that allows you to enter in Russian alphabetic characters.

 

Much of Australia looks a lot like much of Brazil and South Africa.

Almost all of the roads in Svalbard and Jan Mayen are essentially snow mobile tracks.

 

 

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I am planning a trip to Indonesia this fall with a stop in Tapia for the main purpose to find a cache or two. In last April I went to Mexico to Geo cache also - was so sadden that my profile does not show any souvenirs for this country. I also did a road trip to the USA to cache.

 

Welcome to the collecting countries thread.

 

Where is Tapia? I considered going into Indonesia last year while on a trip to Malaysia but couldn't manage to fit it into my schedule and it would have been pretty expensive. I did get a few finds in Malaysia (including a FTF ~9400 miles from home), Singapore, and a couple in Japan. If you're flying to Indonesia through Singapore check to see if the Butterfly cache *in* Changi airport is active. It frequently goes missing but is often replaced quickly.

 

 

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I'm just finishing up a European trip in which I added 5 new countries -- Monaco, Greece, Turkey, Malta, and Andorra. Only one that was possible but I did not succeed was Vatican City, but there are really no caches there -- only a couple mysteries with fake coords there, which doesn't really count to me.

 

The thing I love about finding caches in new countries is the uncertainty of the whole thing: will I figure it out and find it while I am there? Can I figure out how to get to a cache? It's the most fun without good maps, making the whole thing feel a lot more like caching did in the early days.

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I'm just finishing up a European trip in which I added 5 new countries -- Monaco, Greece, Turkey, Malta, and Andorra. Only one that was possible but I did not succeed was Vatican City, but there are really no caches there -- only a couple mysteries with fake coords there, which doesn't really count to me.

 

The thing I love about finding caches in new countries is the uncertainty of the whole thing: will I figure it out and find it while I am there? Can I figure out how to get to a cache? It's the most fun without good maps, making the whole thing feel a lot more like caching did in the early days.

 

Wow, that's a wild trip you made! Congrats on the new countries. :grin:

 

We just booked a long weekend trip to Lithuania, which we don't have on our map yet. I think this is turning a bit too much of an obsession: we still have vacation days left, shall we go to Paris? Oh, but we already cached in France, lets go somewhere else :rolleyes:

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Checking into this thread to report that I'm killing time in the Vienna airport but snagged my geocache for Austria! (It was the challenge cache I posted upstream for the well-traveled.) Barring anything too crazy I should have Croatia and Montenegro by the week's end- ten more than a year ago. :)

 

(Wow, busy year reading that figure over...)

 

Should get country #30 in September as I've been approved for a conference in Greece- Canary Islands in October too, for work, but alas they don't count separately from Spain.

 

I also doubt I will be able to keep said pace up much longer, as if you look at the map of Europe I've pretty much got a lot of the "easy" nearby countries around the Netherlands, plus of course there are lots of nice things to see in the ones I've already got. I think it's going to be more a focus on the small countries that are easy to miss- I want to see the south of France so swing by Monaco kind of deal- but frankly I don't think I care that much about this that I'd go out of my way to snag Lichtenstein one weekend when I could opt to come back here to Vienna and see the city instead.

 

Well that and it'll likely slow down because I hear a PhD thesis doesn't leave you with much spare time the further you delve into it... :huh:

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Checking into this thread to report that I'm killing time in the Vienna airport but snagged my geocache for Austria! (It was the challenge cache I posted upstream for the well-traveled.) Barring anything too crazy I should have Croatia and Montenegro by the week's end- ten more than a year ago. :)

 

(Wow, busy year reading that figure over...)

 

Should get country #30 in September as I've been approved for a conference in Greece- Canary Islands in October too, for work, but alas they don't count separately from Spain.

 

Nice. I was in a meeting yesterday that involved some discussion of some future travel for me. I'll be traveling to Africa for the 6th time in the last 5 years either in November or February. However, I'll be going to South Africa and Tanzania, both countries in which I've already found a cache. There was a discussion of possibly going to Uganda or Ghana (which would be new countries for me) but it's almost certainly going to be Tanzania with a short visit to a colleague in South Africa. Coincidentally, this past week the library in which I work has been hosting an international agriculture information specialist conference. There were over 150 attendees from 28 different countries.

 

The trip that I thought I might take to Ethiopia in August has been postponed. I'll probably be going to St. Louis, Missouri instead and will also be going to Seattle in September for a meeting at a the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In between those two trips is a vacation where I'll add two more U.S. States so I should have four new states (but no new countries) by the end of the year. There is a slight possibility I might be going to Hamburg, Germany in November and I'd kind of like to find a few other caches in Germany other than the virtual at Frankfurt airport.

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With friends of ours heading to Seoul soon, we've promised to visit, so that will put us up to 37. We may take the opportunity to fly elsewhere while we're there, it'll depend on how much the new little cacher coming our way will have drained our bank account by then. :anibad:

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With friends of ours heading to Seoul soon, we've promised to visit, so that will put us up to 37. We may take the opportunity to fly elsewhere while we're there, it'll depend on how much the new little cacher coming our way will have drained our bank account by then. :anibad:

 

If you're going to Seoul you'll probably have a layover in Singapore and perhaps Tokyo or Beijing. Although there are direct flights from the U.S. to Seoul you might want to look at a flight to Singapore then use a local carrier to Seoul. By booking separate flights from the U.S. to Singapore, then a puddle jumper to Malaysia I was able to save a couple hundred dollars.

 

I don't know if you're an American citizen or not, but if you are, you wouldn't need a visa for Singapore or Japan and with a layover as short as 4 hours you could probably pick up a cache fairly easily. You would need a visa for China though.

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We are US citizens. Probably won't make it to China; in addition to visa requirements, I imagine the Army would have some additional requirements. Our friends mentioned getting over to Thailand for a couple days, which is apparently only a 4-hour flight from Seoul. A stop in Singapore would also be delightful. We'll see how it goes!

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