Jump to content

collecting countries


terratin

Recommended Posts

At the moment we're looking into a small winter vacation, and came up with... Malta :anicute:

Yup, it might rain, but it's really nearby and there's tons to see. :)

Malta was one of my favorite little getaways when we lived in Europe. We went once before we started caching, in November 2006, and I was able to use caching as an excuse to go back in January 2009. (Weather was gorgeous for us both times.)

 

Both times we stayed in the north; the first time we stayed in a slightly isolated resort hotel (Riviera Resport, on the north side of the island), second time we stayed in Mellieħa. Both times we had a wonderful time.

 

edit to add: Sorry forgot the obligatory luzzu photo.

 

malta09-37.jpg

Edited by hzoi
Link to comment

At the moment we're looking into a small winter vacation, and came up with... Malta :anicute:

Yup, it might rain, but it's really nearby and there's tons to see. :)

Malta was one of my favorite little getaways when we lived in Europe. We went once before we started caching, in November 2006, and I was able to use caching as an excuse to go back in January 2009. (Weather was gorgeous for us both times.)

 

Both times we stayed in the north; the first time we stayed in a slightly isolated resort hotel (Riviera Resport, on the north side of the island), second time we stayed in Mellieħa. Both times we had a wonderful time.

 

edit to add: Sorry forgot the obligatory luzzu photo.

 

malta09-37.jpg

 

Aww, lovely! We're still thinking about what to book: a package deal with a hotel in a resort, a luxury hotel or an apartment in Valletta.. or something else. Heated outdoort pools seem to be a rarity, judging from hotel reviews even though many hotels claim they have heated pools.

Link to comment

Who can claim the most overseas caches (total or %)? Probably someone who's lived in more than one country...? I've done 69/1162 outside the UK. 996/1162 in 3 counties.

Dr Solly, one of the UK's most prolific cachers (35000 or so?) has done all but 5 in the UK, those 5 being in Finland!

(You often hear urban myths about what a low % of Americans have passports but I bet the proportion among geocachers is much higher...)

 

We currently have 1198 in our living country, and the remaining 1026 elsewhere. Note that not all of the 1198 were found when we were living here. Once we move only 156 will be local, and the rest abroad :anitongue:

 

I currently reside in the Netherlands, and have 966 caches total but all of 226 of those are from that country. So all of 23% are from 'home'! Curiously the last place I resided before that, Ohio, had 267 cache finds (was also where I started caching), so as a general rule of thumb over half of my caches were found while traveling.

 

Currently visiting family for the holiday, not visiting anyplace new but am 5 caches shy of 500 in the US so that's nice. :) (plus in the hunt for the #1000 but that is of course a topic for another thread)

 

Mind I think a good way to tell if a person is a traveler (even in-country) is likely a correlation with how many virtual/Earthcaches they've found as a percentage of the total. As these caches are rare you usually have to travel further to find them, and they make up about 16% of my total for example.

Link to comment

Hmm.. it really depends on where you live. We only have about 8% EarthCaches, Webcams and Spookies, while those actually are amongst our favourites. I guess we cached too much here in Denmark, which doesn't have much of either. A trip to Tenerife and Lisbon for ECs, and to Hungary for Virtuals really is in order :P

Link to comment

I thought about posting a picture from every country in which I have found a cache, but that post would be quite long, even though I have far from the most countries. hmmm. Maybe just some highlight ones.

 

Well, I'm loving all the pictures posted to this thread, so I wouldn't mind! :anicute:

 

Since you mention elephants in your signature, here's a few I saw about 15 minutes before finding a cache at Mikumi National Park in Tanzania

 

8pf7.jpg

 

 

Link to comment

I thought about posting a picture from every country in which I have found a cache, but that post would be quite long, even though I have far from the most countries. hmmm. Maybe just some highlight ones.

 

Well, I'm loving all the pictures posted to this thread, so I wouldn't mind! :anicute:

 

Since you mention elephants in your signature, here's a few I saw about 15 minutes before finding a cache at Mikumi National Park in Tanzania

 

8pf7.jpg

I'd love to see elephants in the wild.

Link to comment

paint.net is quite nice. Alternatively, there's some sort of online photoshop that I use. Gimp is too complicated for me, and I think it needs a lot of work arounds and additional programmes to work with RAW for example.

 

If you're looking for something easy to use and don't require a lot of features beyond basic editing try Xnview. It has all the basic image processing you'll need and is fairly lightweight and quick to load. I have a copy of Photoshop on my laptop but use Xnview for most of the image processing (which isn't much) that I have to do. It' free, unless you're using it in a company.

 

 

Link to comment

Neuschwanstein, Germany

Neuschwanstein.jpg

 

 

I was going to go somewhere a bit like that in Germany this year but we didn't get time in the end. instead we stayed local and collected nice caches around there.

 

So I found a cache here. This is a picture close to the TB hotel in Bremen

wallpaper3_zps302a1b34.png

 

And then on the way home from the airport we stopped off at a couple of other caches. This was the view from GZ

wallpaper4_zps9e7d745d.png

 

And then lastly our detour to this one. This is supposedly a vampire grave yard, It's in the middle of nowhere and when you are walking to it you don't see it until it's right in front of you. Creepy.

null_zpscd81cd82.jpg

 

And then there was Mexico, there wasn't many caches there that we got to… so this virtual (with a picture of a TB) was my favourite one there.

IMG_0055_zps5d117bb1.jpg

Link to comment

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.

 

13581 without looking up any names on Google Maps, 19800 when I did.

 

Question I wanted to ask though is: did you find yourself wondering if there was a cache hidden behind that roadsign in the picture? No? Just me?

Link to comment

Which cache is the one in Reykjavik taken near?

 

This one. I took a bus from downtown out to the area and grabbed the cache while under attack from arctic terns. It was a hoot.

 

May have to check that one out. We will have a car, and we will be heading east to Gulfoss, Geysir and Thingvellir, but a cache along the coast would be cool as well.

 

We biked out to that one in September in a ferocious wind. That hindered the terns. Couple of guys were just starting a round of golf when we arrived, I am sure they were not using lofted clubs! The places you mention are all well worth seeing. Another coastal cache on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula worth doing is GCKA0T if the tides are right1d13394b-3c95-4e88-ad42-0283aa24a94c.jpg?rnd=0.7304302

Link to comment

Which cache is the one in Reykjavik taken near?

 

This one. I took a bus from downtown out to the area and grabbed the cache while under attack from arctic terns. It was a hoot.

 

May have to check that one out. We will have a car, and we will be heading east to Gulfoss, Geysir and Thingvellir, but a cache along the coast would be cool as well.

 

We biked out to that one in September in a ferocious wind. That hindered the terns. Couple of guys were just starting a round of golf when we arrived, I am sure they were not using lofted clubs! The places you mention are all well worth seeing. Another coastal cache on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula worth doing is GCKA0T if the tides are right.

 

Another one goes on the bookmark list.

Link to comment

2013 was a busy year for me, I got 8 new countries Turkey, Greece, The Netherlands, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay and 2 US states Nevada and Florida.

For 2014 we already have Kenya, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Taiwan and Japan in the works for some new countries, plus the US states of Maryland, Virginia and DC.

 

We are also in the first stages at looking at the feasibility and cost of going to Antarctica which would be my 7th and final continent.

 

The main reason I’m posting tonight is I was wondering if anyone has looked into or has information on this cache

We will be staying less than 20 miles from this cache whist we are in Kenya.

Link to comment

Whoa! That's quite a list FunnyNose!. Unfortunately I cannot tell anything about the cache you're linking, though the area looks quite accessible. Good luck with that.

 

Last year we added Italy, Vatican City, Faroe Islands and Lithuania (and Texas) to our list, and did a lot of nice traveling.

This year we're not quite certain yet. We might go to Malta for a few days before we move back to Qatar. Mr. Terratin would love to visit the Maldives, I'd like to seesomething of Iran. Then there's still Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that we haven't visited yet and SE Asia is suddenly not so far away anymore. Lets see...

Link to comment

2013 was a busy year for me, I got 8 new countries Turkey, Greece, The Netherlands, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay and 2 US states Nevada and Florida.

For 2014 we already have Kenya, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Taiwan and Japan in the works for some new countries, plus the US states of Maryland, Virginia and DC.

 

We are also in the first stages at looking at the feasibility and cost of going to Antarctica which would be my 7th and final continent.

 

The main reason I'm posting tonight is I was wondering if anyone has looked into or has information on this cache

We will be staying less than 20 miles from this cache whist we are in Kenya.

 

Happy New year country collectors!

 

Impressive year, Funnynose. In 2013 I added Turkey, Denmark, and Ethiopia for new countries and also got to do a bit of caching in Germany so I had some finds other than the virtual at Frankfurt airport. For U.S. states I added Tennessee, West Virginia, and Missouri.

 

2014 could be a big year for travel for me. Last year I started working on a new project funded by a well known foundation located in Seattle. The grant has at least a couple of trips for me written into the grant to go to Africa to one or more of the target countries (South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Bangladesh) specified by the foundation. Unfortunately, early plans would take me to countries in which I've already found a cache, but that's certainly not set in stone. There is some also some somewhat related consulting work I've been asked to do for a small university in Ethiopia (it would be my first visit outside of Addis Ababa) and although I've already found a cache in Ethiopia I'd like to try and get this one. There is also some potential travel for a couple of other projects that could take me back to China and to Costa RIca (both countries where I've already found a cache.) Since most of my potential travel would bring me to countries in which I've already found a cache I'm going to have to look at creative itineraries that can give me a few hours (or an overnight stay) someplace I have not yet visited. A likely candidate for that would be for the trip to Ethiopia. Some of the itineraries I've looked at include long layovers in Cairo (which I probably wouldn't do unless the political climate improves a lot), Dubai, or Bahrain (Terratin? How easy is it for a U.S. citizen to visit the country during a long layover?)

 

That grant funded project will almost certainly require a visit to Seattle so I can add Washington to my list of U.S. States and would definitely try to schedule an extra day to take the ferry over to Canada.

 

The Rift Valley cache is one that has been on my bucket list for awhile and is one that I'd want to find more than any of the notable caches in Washington/Oregon and even the Ape cache. Hope you get to find the very first virtual cache.

 

 

Link to comment

Pencilling in a February trip to Hamburg - principally to take Oxford Stone Junior to http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ the world's largest model railway. not even looked at the GC map yet but Germany will be a new country. Toying with Brazil for Christmas 2014 (Mrs OS is from there) - not the greatest place for caching but it'd be cool just to get one (Recife, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas)

Link to comment

Pencilling in a February trip to Hamburg - principally to take Oxford Stone Junior to http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ the world's largest model railway. not even looked at the GC map yet but Germany will be a new country. Toying with Brazil for Christmas 2014 (Mrs OS is from there) - not the greatest place for caching but it'd be cool just to get one (Recife, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas)

 

I really liked this one in Hamburg: Der alte Elbtunnel It was just across the road from the hotel where I was staying (Hotel Haffe Hamburg, which I'd highly recommend).

Link to comment

Just booked two trips to Mexico (february) and Turkey (april) plus already visited countries (Germany, march and UK, August). For the first half of the year those are my planned trips, altough I just read that Ryanair is opening a new route from my city, Girona, to Tallin, Estonia... I might give it a try :D So far 11 countries visited!

 

My real GC profile is http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=ba32380a-7243-487c-8d2e-5f6ea72e4e4a

Edited by Glory Hunters
Link to comment

Just booked two trips to Mexico (february) and Turkey (april) plus already visited countries (Germany, march and UK, August). For the first half of the year those are my planned trips, altough I just read that Ryanair is opening a new route from my city, Girona, to Tallin, Estonia... I might give it a try :D So far 11 countries visited!

 

My real GC profile is http://www.geocachin...2e-5f6ea72e4e4a

 

I've read a few things about Ryan air that would make me reluctant to choose them as a carrier. A few years ago I was looking at some all-inclusive vacation that included air fare that were listed by a vacation broker. When I was looking at some of the reviews I saw numerous warnings about the broker using Ryan air after finding out that the carrier had maximum luggage weight of 22 pounds (or you pay a lot extra). I've also read that their agents are paid a bonus for catching passengers with oversized carry on baggage. Although I've yet to use them I've looked at EasyJet for connections within Europe to reduce the overall cost of a trip. For example, I found that flying r/t on a major carrier from NY to Barcelona, then using EasyJet to get to Rome as much less expensive than using the major carrier for all of the flights. Do you have any experience with EasyJet?

Link to comment

It depends... we went away with Norwegian once or twice and also had to pay for the luggage. It still was cheaper and the connection better than with many other airlines. It always depends on where you want to go to from where. And quite simply: I make sure the size of my luggage fits what the airline suggests. We never need too much luggage anyway. It's at least not unusual to go on a 2 week summer vacation with just under 20kg of luggage together.

Link to comment

Just booked two trips to Mexico (february) and Turkey (april) plus already visited countries (Germany, march and UK, August). For the first half of the year those are my planned trips, altough I just read that Ryanair is opening a new route from my city, Girona, to Tallin, Estonia... I might give it a try :D So far 11 countries visited!

 

My real GC profile is http://www.geocachin...2e-5f6ea72e4e4a

 

I've read a few things about Ryan air that would make me reluctant to choose them as a carrier. A few years ago I was looking at some all-inclusive vacation that included air fare that were listed by a vacation broker. When I was looking at some of the reviews I saw numerous warnings about the broker using Ryan air after finding out that the carrier had maximum luggage weight of 22 pounds (or you pay a lot extra). I've also read that their agents are paid a bonus for catching passengers with oversized carry on baggage. Although I've yet to use them I've looked at EasyJet for connections within Europe to reduce the overall cost of a trip. For example, I found that flying r/t on a major carrier from NY to Barcelona, then using EasyJet to get to Rome as much less expensive than using the major carrier for all of the flights. Do you have any experience with EasyJet?

 

Ouch, don't you dare to tell me not to travel with Ryanair :) I've travelled more than 100 times with them! And never had any single problem. You only have to be aware that they set a maximum width&height for your luggage, and a maximum wheight. If you are within the limits, you will have no problem; if you are over, you have to pay 50 euro (which only happened to me once, and in the beggining because I was silly and unconscious :)). Besides this, it's a very good airline, very punctual, good service and really, really cheap (easyjet and others are also very good, but not as cheap). Furthermore I'm lucky to have a Ryanair airport very close to home, and thanks to this I've been able to visit half Europe and lots of countries.

 

EasyJet is very good to, totally recommended. If you have any further questions I might help. I may not be good at lots of things, but I do lots of travel and know many things about airpots&airlines of Europe :)

Link to comment

Just booked two trips to Mexico (february) and Turkey (april) plus already visited countries (Germany, march and UK, August). For the first half of the year those are my planned trips, altough I just read that Ryanair is opening a new route from my city, Girona, to Tallin, Estonia... I might give it a try :D So far 11 countries visited!

 

My real GC profile is http://www.geocachin...2e-5f6ea72e4e4a

 

I've read a few things about Ryan air that would make me reluctant to choose them as a carrier. A few years ago I was looking at some all-inclusive vacation that included air fare that were listed by a vacation broker. When I was looking at some of the reviews I saw numerous warnings about the broker using Ryan air after finding out that the carrier had maximum luggage weight of 22 pounds (or you pay a lot extra). I've also read that their agents are paid a bonus for catching passengers with oversized carry on baggage. Although I've yet to use them I've looked at EasyJet for connections within Europe to reduce the overall cost of a trip. For example, I found that flying r/t on a major carrier from NY to Barcelona, then using EasyJet to get to Rome as much less expensive than using the major carrier for all of the flights. Do you have any experience with EasyJet?

 

Ouch, don't you dare to tell me not to travel with Ryanair :) I've travelled more than 100 times with them! And never had any single problem. You only have to be aware that they set a maximum width&height for your luggage, and a maximum wheight. If you are within the limits, you will have no problem; if you are over, you have to pay 50 euro (which only happened to me once, and in the beggining because I was silly and unconscious :)). Besides this, it's a very good airline, very punctual, good service and really, really cheap (easyjet and others are also very good, but not as cheap). Furthermore I'm lucky to have a Ryanair airport very close to home, and thanks to this I've been able to visit half Europe and lots of countries.

 

EasyJet is very good to, totally recommended. If you have any further questions I might help. I may not be good at lots of things, but I do lots of travel and know many things about airpots&airlines of Europe :)

 

I wasn't telling you not to travel with RyanAir. I was saying that I would be reluctant to travel on RyanAir. When I was looking at those vacation packages most airlines had a 50 pound weight limit. Ryan had a 20-22 pound weight limit. Paying 50 Euro for a bag that would be free on another airline is really high. Most airlines would charge half that for an extra bag. Of course, today almost all airlines charge for just one checked bag (although I've never had tp pay one when flying internationally). It's good to hear that you've had good experiences with both Ryan Air and EasyJet but I'm still going to read all of the fine print before buying a ticket on a discount airline.

Link to comment

It is common with low fare airlines in Europe to charge for checked baggage and have lower weight limits.

 

I fly Easyjet a lot; never had any issues. I've flown with RyanAir too and they were fine.

 

Easyjet is strict about the size of carry-on luggage but there is no weight limit (for carry on).

 

No weight limit? Our local airport is really small and only serves smaller jets (DC-9) and prop planes. The last time I flew out of there on a prop plane they would not allow any carry on luggage other than a purse. Everything that wasn't checked at the ticket counter to be checked at the gate. Apparently the airline had recently change the policy because now that airlines charge for checked luggage everyone tries to fly only with carry on luggage, and since carry on luggage isn't weighed they can't tell how much weight is in the overhead compartments, and on a small plane underestimating the weight of the luggage can make a difference.

 

I noticed in the RyanAir baggage guidelines that if I want to carry on a football or soccer ball it has to be deflated.

 

 

Link to comment

It is common with low fare airlines in Europe to charge for checked baggage and have lower weight limits.

 

I fly Easyjet a lot; never had any issues. I've flown with RyanAir too and they were fine.

 

Easyjet is strict about the size of carry-on luggage but there is no weight limit (for carry on).

 

No weight limit? Our local airport is really small and only serves smaller jets (DC-9) and prop planes. The last time I flew out of there on a prop plane they would not allow any carry on luggage other than a purse. Everything that wasn't checked at the ticket counter to be checked at the gate. Apparently the airline had recently change the policy because now that airlines charge for checked luggage everyone tries to fly only with carry on luggage, and since carry on luggage isn't weighed they can't tell how much weight is in the overhead compartments, and on a small plane underestimating the weight of the luggage can make a difference.

 

I noticed in the RyanAir baggage guidelines that if I want to carry on a football or soccer ball it has to be deflated.

 

Yes, no weight limit on carry on on EasyJet.

 

Link

Edited by redsox_mark
Link to comment

Pencilling in a February trip to Hamburg - principally to take Oxford Stone Junior to http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ the world's largest model railway. not even looked at the GC map yet but Germany will be a new country. Toying with Brazil for Christmas 2014 (Mrs OS is from there) - not the greatest place for caching but it'd be cool just to get one (Recife, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas)

 

I really liked this one in Hamburg: Der alte Elbtunnel It was just across the road from the hotel where I was staying (Hotel Haffe Hamburg, which I'd highly recommend).

 

Many thanks for both tips, NYPC. I'll report back!

Not a new country but later in the year we also intend to go to Bologna in Italy (and visit the Lamborghini museum... luckily Mrs OS is very tolerant of these boy-related outings!) - there's an intriguing multi there, looking forward to seeing what the secret is: http://coord.info/GC2308M 73 favourites, more than 50% even counting non-premium.

Link to comment

Pencilling in a February trip to Hamburg - principally to take Oxford Stone Junior to http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ the world's largest model railway. not even looked at the GC map yet but Germany will be a new country. Toying with Brazil for Christmas 2014 (Mrs OS is from there) - not the greatest place for caching but it'd be cool just to get one (Recife, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas)

 

I really liked this one in Hamburg: Der alte Elbtunnel It was just across the road from the hotel where I was staying (Hotel Haffe Hamburg, which I'd highly recommend).

 

Many thanks for both tips, NYPC. I'll report back!

Not a new country but later in the year we also intend to go to Bologna in Italy (and visit the Lamborghini museum... luckily Mrs OS is very tolerant of these boy-related outings!) - there's an intriguing multi there, looking forward to seeing what the secret is: http://coord.info/GC2308M 73 favourites, more than 50% even counting non-premium.

 

That does look interesting. The description makes it sound like the second stage might be in a library but there must be something you'll find on site that will give some clue on how to find the final location. I've also found caches in Italy, but only in Rome. The only other city I've in there is Milan, and then it was just an overnight stay (before I started caching) while taking the train from Geneva to Rome. As much as I like Rome, I'd love to see a *lot* more of Italy and find cache in other places.

 

 

Link to comment

easyJet has no weight restriction because it really doesn't matter for their planes- one of the reasons the cheap in Europe budget airlines can be so cheap is they all operate only one type of airplane and that really cuts down on maintenance/training too, and the easyJet ones are fairly large.

 

Regarding budget travel in Europe, the reason they work well and better than their ilk in the USA (so far) is you're only flying an hour or two max usually, and if you're only going for a weekend-length trip a small bag is all you need anyway. I don't really fly with ryanair as I think everyone in Europe is in a slightly abusive relationship with them ("I really should leave, but it was my fault they hurt me the last time so I'll go back and it'll be better!"), but more importantly they don't fly into Amsterdam due to airport taxes. (And Eindhoven, the Dutch budget airline airport, is far enough away it's not good for weekend trips.) easyJet does fly to Amsterdam and I like them, there's also a Dutch budget one, Transavia, that's not as cheap but pretty solid.

 

Back on the original topic though, looks like I'm going to Bonaire in the end of March- another new country! Funny thing is the plane does a 90min stopover from Amsterdam to there, in Aruba, another country, but doesn't look like there's any airport caches there for me to get. :(

 

As the primary motive of this trip is scuba diving it also looks unlikely I'll pick up Aruba or Curacao despite their being so nearby- looks like you need to fly, and a daytrip isn't possible as one then can't go diving the day prior. Ah well!

 

Also, are y'all eyeing the "5 new countries" resolution in the latest Groundspeak newsletter? :anibad:

Link to comment

Pencilling in a February trip to Hamburg - principally to take Oxford Stone Junior to http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ the world's largest model railway. not even looked at the GC map yet but Germany will be a new country. Toying with Brazil for Christmas 2014 (Mrs OS is from there) - not the greatest place for caching but it'd be cool just to get one (Recife, Olinda, Porto de Galinhas)

 

I really liked this one in Hamburg: Der alte Elbtunnel It was just across the road from the hotel where I was staying (Hotel Haffe Hamburg, which I'd highly recommend).

 

Many thanks for both tips, NYPC. I'll report back!

Not a new country but later in the year we also intend to go to Bologna in Italy (and visit the Lamborghini museum... luckily Mrs OS is very tolerant of these boy-related outings!) - there's an intriguing multi there, looking forward to seeing what the secret is: http://coord.info/GC2308M 73 favourites, more than 50% even counting non-premium.

 

That does look interesting. The description makes it sound like the second stage might be in a library but there must be something you'll find on site that will give some clue on how to find the final location. I've also found caches in Italy, but only in Rome. The only other city I've in there is Milan, and then it was just an overnight stay (before I started caching) while taking the train from Geneva to Rome. As much as I like Rome, I'd love to see a *lot* more of Italy and find cache in other places.

Yes I've googled the arch inscription and you end up in a library.

We were in Italy, the Lakes, last August. http://coord.info/GC20519 was indeed a fantastic lake view. Did a few in Milan before getting the plane home. As I may have said earlier in this thread or another one, it was so hot that we put tourism / keeping hydrated (another way for saying sitting on café terraces...) ahead of caches, ignored some that were only 200m away. From the Lakes it's a shortish drive to Switzerland, where I was amazed to get a magnetic cache on some luggage lockers in a busy station (can't imagine that happening in more terrorism-scared countries...)

Work takes me to Paris every so often. It's a very puzzle-heavy city, have solved one while back when at home, and a few solved and found. Need to do some more (want to get and keep my trad % below 90%)

Link to comment

 

Back on the original topic though, looks like I'm going to Bonaire in the end of March- another new country! Funny thing is the plane does a 90min stopover from Amsterdam to there, in Aruba, another country, but doesn't look like there's any airport caches there for me to get. :(

 

As the primary motive of this trip is scuba diving it also looks unlikely I'll pick up Aruba or Curacao despite their being so nearby- looks like you need to fly, and a daytrip isn't possible as one then can't go diving the day prior. Ah well!

 

Also, are y'all eyeing the "5 new countries" resolution in the latest Groundspeak newsletter? :anibad:

 

If it were me, I'd see if I could book a flight such that I got to Aruba a day earlier, then rather than take the next available flight to Bonaire, take one the next day. When booking you might have use a multi-city itinerary, or book through the airline directly. The other option would be to take the flight from Bonaire to Aruba, then continue the trip the following day. It would add an extra day at one end of the trip and would require an overnight stay in a hotel, but you'd also get to have 24 hours (or so) visiting a new country. Looks like there is an upcoming event in Aruba created by someone from Ohio. It also looks like there is a bus line that goes to the airport that also goes near a couple of caches that are only a couple of km from the airport.

 

Yes, I saw the "5 new countries" resolution. As I said, 5 new countries would be a challenge even for a self-proclaimed country collector.

Link to comment

Work takes me to Paris every so often. It's a very puzzle-heavy city, have solved one while back when at home, and a few solved and found. Need to do some more (want to get and keep my trad % below 90%)

 

I had a seven hour layover in Paris a couple of years ago on the way to Africa. I solved several puzzles before I went, including a couple of 4D puzzles. I DNFd on the only one I actually tried to find, and if I would have had access to the web site (and I wasn't going to turn on data roaming to do so) I could have looked at a spoiler photo that would have shown that I was searching about 40 feet away. I think I only got 1-2 finds in Paris but I found more French caches when I was in Montpellier a year later.

 

 

Link to comment

Well kids, Bonaire is out (too difficult for my brother to fly there) so gonna base my diving trip in Curacao- and great news, it looks like I will get two countries on this trip! Why? Well it turns out up until 2010 there used to be a listing for the Netherlands Antilles which was a country consisting of all the Dutch islands in the Caribbean- this got dissolved at that time by the government, meaning new countries for us all to visit and log and such, but it does mean a few caches placed before 2010 have fallen through the cracks (example- http://coord.info/GCE189 ). Grandfathered in with inattentive COs I'm guessing- you can no longer "search by country" for them, they just pop up when you do a geographic search in an area.

 

So hey, I guess I'll get to log a country that doesn't even exist anymore! :ph34r:

Link to comment

Well kids, Bonaire is out (too difficult for my brother to fly there) so gonna base my diving trip in Curacao- and great news, it looks like I will get two countries on this trip! Why? Well it turns out up until 2010 there used to be a listing for the Netherlands Antilles which was a country consisting of all the Dutch islands in the Caribbean- this got dissolved at that time by the government, meaning new countries for us all to visit and log and such, but it does mean a few caches placed before 2010 have fallen through the cracks (example- http://coord.info/GCE189 ). Grandfathered in with inattentive COs I'm guessing- you can no longer "search by country" for them, they just pop up when you do a geographic search in an area.

 

So hey, I guess I'll get to log a country that doesn't even exist anymore! :ph34r:

 

That's an interesting discovery. Your map under STATISTICS will show two different countries. Curacao for most finds plus Netherlands-Antilles if you find one of those half dozen. Wow! Could have had 35 instead of only 34 "countries".

Link to comment

I'm contemplating a geo-trip to Hong Kong (good caching in the hills), with possible detours to Macau and nearby Shenzen (China) as well.

 

Hong Kong and Macau are officially part of China, but often treated separately. GC.com seems to treat 'em separately, haven't checked the stats programs.

 

That should forever add ambiguity to my how-many-countries-have-I-visited? count. Ah well, not a numbers thing for me.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...