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collecting countries


terratin

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15 hours ago, FunnyNose said:

It's been another average year for me with new countries. I finally found a cache in New Zealand in January of this year. Nothing else till September and I got Romania and Bulgaria under my belt. Took s short trip to Costa Rica in October and my last one will be an earthcache in Tanzania in a couple weeks. Which will be my 68th country.

A fairly slow year (but better than the previous) for me too.  I had one trip though which added two countries (Sweden, Finland) but also added two more German Bundeslander and I also added a new U.S. State (Kansas).  Although my travel plans haven't been finalized I will almost certainly be going to Kenya at the end of January and hope to add another country during a layover on the way there or back.  It's also possible that I may visit Uganda that trip.  The budget for the project which involves a visit to Kenya actually includes funding for two trips next so I could use a different itinerary for the second trip with a layover in another country though finding countries for a layover that I have not already visited is becoming more difficult.  

I've been to Costa Rica a couple of times and enjoyed geocaching there.  I've got just one find in Tanzania but it's one of my favorites.  It was at the entrance to a national park where I saw lots of giraffe, zebra, antelope, elephant, hippos, baboon and lots of birds.  The cache itself was placed in a spot with a bunch of very large millipedes (8-9" long).

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Two new countries for me this year.   Malta in January, and Taiwan in November.    Also, on the same trip as Taiwan, I had my first "proper" visit to Singapore.      I already had Singapore as a country as I found the cache inside the Airport, but now have visited and found caches outside the airport.

My favourite find in Taiwan was near where this photo was taken from, a hot hike up "Elephant Mountain".    https://coord.info/GCK7JV

 

 

TW.jpg

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I found that cache too!  I really liked Taiwan, and it's on my short list of places where I'd take a long-haul flight specifically to go caching.  (Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, maybe Europe some day.)  Almost went back to Taiwan a second time for more hike-o-caching, but something came up and I had to cancel.  (EVA Air rocks when you have an emergency.)

My favorite in Taiwan had to be xiao zi shan, a bus or toy train ride east of Taipei, for which I had to make two attempts.  (I'm getting off-topic here, sorry.  Can't help it.)  It's on top of this:

f6fd2598-f7ec-4f8e-9fd0-5c041e9ce273.jpg

As to countries as numbers, I only managed to add Vietnam this year, for a humble (for this thread) total of 15 countries.  I keep going back to places I like instead of focusing on new ones.  And shortly I'll add my 10th Mexican state.

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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3 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

As to countries as numbers, I only managed to add Vietnam this year, for a humble (for this thread) total of 15 countries.  I keep going back to places I like instead of focusing on new ones.  And shortly I'll add my 10th Mexican state.

I figure I'm never going to get as many countries as FuzzyNose so why worry about it.   10 Mexican states is pretty impressive.  I'm up to 13 different countries in Europe now, which isn't so bad since I don't live in Europe.  Although I've been to six countries in Asia I'd love to add Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.  I still haven't managed to make it to South America and surprisingly I don't yet have a find in Canada, even though I live about 3 hours from the border.

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We're hoping that our country count may start going up next year, based on potential future assignments.  Our current wish list has jobs in Germany, Belgium, Sicily, and Florida, all of which put us closer to new countries and lessen the cost of flights.

This is all of course subject to the whims and needs of Uncle Sam, so, fingers crossed.

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13 hours ago, hzoi said:

We're hoping that our country count may start going up next year, based on potential future assignments.  Our current wish list has jobs in Germany, Belgium, Sicily, and Florida, all of which put us closer to new countries and lessen the cost of flights.

This is all of course subject to the whims and needs of Uncle Sam, so, fingers crossed.

If you get stationed in Florida then by all means consider a short flight to Cuba, but leave your GPS at home.   I figured that you'd have cache in most of the Bundeslander in Germany having lived there previously, but that would give you easier access to some of the eastern European countries.  Sicily sounds like a wonderful place to live but I suspect that airfare to other countries would be a bit more expensive than the others on your list.  

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20 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

I found that cache too!  I really liked Taiwan, and it's on my short list of places where I'd take a long-haul flight specifically to go caching.  (Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, maybe Europe some day.)  Almost went back to Taiwan a second time for more hike-o-caching, but something came up and I had to cancel.  (EVA Air rocks when you have an emergency.)

My favorite in Taiwan had to be xiao zi shan, a bus or toy train ride east of Taipei, for which I had to make two attempts.  (I'm getting off-topic here, sorry.  Can't help it.)  It's on top of this:

f6fd2598-f7ec-4f8e-9fd0-5c041e9ce273.jpg

As to countries as numbers, I only managed to add Vietnam this year, for a humble (for this thread) total of 15 countries.  I keep going back to places I like instead of focusing on new ones.  And shortly I'll add my 10th Mexican state.

Wow!     Terrain 2.5!!!!

I'm a bit fearful of heights, I don't think I'd manage that.   

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4 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:
18 hours ago, hzoi said:

We're hoping that our country count may start going up next year, based on potential future assignments.  Our current wish list has jobs in Germany, Belgium, Sicily, and Florida, all of which put us closer to new countries and lessen the cost of flights.

This is all of course subject to the whims and needs of Uncle Sam, so, fingers crossed.

If you get stationed in Florida then by all means consider a short flight to Cuba, but leave your GPS at home.   I figured that you'd have cache in most of the Bundeslander in Germany having lived there previously, but that would give you easier access to some of the eastern European countries.  Sicily sounds like a wonderful place to live but I suspect that airfare to other countries would be a bit more expensive than the others on your list.  

Begs the question whether Cuba is off limits to military.  I've never looked into it.  Technically I need country clearance before I visit any foreign country, which I confess I rarely did when I was stationed in Europe.  I did make sure to disclose all my trips on my security clearance form later, though, which doubled its length.

But, yeah.  We had to fly back through MIA when we were fleeing the hurricane from the USVI back in September, and I remember doing a double take when I saw the huge American Airlines posters advertising nonstop flights to Havana.  I would definitely be interested.  Or maybe I wait until I retire from active duty so I don't have to worry about getting a pass from Uncle Sugar.

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On 12/09/2017 at 6:48 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

I came across a FB post shortly after you posted this that described what it's currently like in the British and US Virgin Islands, primarily in St. Johns and the pictures and stories are pretty sobering.  Apparently 80% of the buildings in St. Johns have suffered extensive damage.   Barbuda, St. Martin, St. Barts, and Anguilla may be even worse.  "A St. Martin official told The New York Times on Wednesday night that '95 percent of the island is destroyed.'"  I have been corresponding with a few people at a university in Cuba (UCLV).  I saw some photos earlier today and it looks like there are a lot of trees down but not much damage to buildings.  They're inland a ways though.  The north coast fared much worse.

 

I have no idea why this quote keeps on popping up. But anyway... I don't seem to be able to delete it.

 

I just came back from Warsaw, and country 41 is now on my map. Wow, what a fantastic city to visit. Most traditionals are pretty standard but just visiting the city, walking around on those endless, wide roads, and the food! The Food! A perfect trip for me!

For next year I have a trip planned to Alderney. I will also travel to Rio de Janeiro again, and this time take a bit of extra time to travel to Sao Paulo, and on to the Ape cache. A month later I'll be visiting a conference in Salt Lake City, and thus will need to stay a bit longer as well. Theoretically I could get 5 new US states, but how much is really realistic with a week of sightseeing and hiking? I don't know.

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4 hours ago, terratin said:

I have no idea why this quote keeps on popping up. But anyway... I don't seem to be able to delete it.

Once you quote text, it seems to be sticky unless you delete it, or post it.  At least, that's how it seems to work with me in Firefox.  An odd quirk of the new forums, I guess.

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4 hours ago, terratin said:

Theoretically I could get 5 new US states, but how much is really realistic with a week of sightseeing and hiking? I don't know.

I would go with quality over quantity.  There is plenty to see in Utah.  I've returned to Moab several times and never regretted it.

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4 hours ago, terratin said:

 

For next year I have a trip planned to Alderney. I will also travel to Rio de Janeiro again, and this time take a bit of extra time to travel to Sao Paulo, and on to the Ape cache. A month later I'll be visiting a conference in Salt Lake City, and thus will need to stay a bit longer as well. Theoretically I could get 5 new US states, but how much is really realistic with a week of sightseeing and hiking? I don't know.

I will occasionally check out air fares to cities in the US that would allow me to fly there, rent a car for a couple of days, and plot a route that would hit several states in which I haven't found a cache.  Salt Lake City is one of those cities. Kansas City was another one and I went there a month ago or so for a meeting but didn't stay long enough nor did I rent a car so I only found caches in Kansas (a new state for me) and Missouri.  

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17 hours ago, hzoi said:

I would go with quality over quantity.  There is plenty to see in Utah.  I've returned to Moab several times and never regretted it.

Yes that's my thought as well. And this massive amount of ECs and Virtuals there! Wow! I think this needs a very good planning. Maybe allow myself from Saturday to a week later on Saturday and then fly back to Europe. It's fairly unlikely I'll return to the US anytime soon so I better make the best of it.

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16 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I will occasionally check out air fares to cities in the US that would allow me to fly there, rent a car for a couple of days, and plot a route that would hit several states in which I haven't found a cache.  Salt Lake City is one of those cities. Kansas City was another one and I went there a month ago or so for a meeting but didn't stay long enough nor did I rent a car so I only found caches in Kansas (a new state for me) and Missouri.  

Yep, easy for you. For me, I do the same for Europe. It's fairly unlikely that I'll return anytime to the US afterwards. So either I go crazy on cachetypes that are fairly rare here and do some sightseeing, or go full on sightseeing and ignore those special caches.

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2 hours ago, terratin said:

Yep, easy for you. For me, I do the same for Europe. It's fairly unlikely that I'll return anytime to the US afterwards. So either I go crazy on cachetypes that are fairly rare here and do some sightseeing, or go full on sightseeing and ignore those special caches.

It's not that easy.  It's further from New York City to Salt Lake City than it is from Amsterdam, NL to Athens, Greece.  

Where you go might also depend on if you want to get finds in multiple states or hit the better ones in Utah.  You could easily get caches in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho in a day, beginning and ending in SLC.  If you wanted more site-seeing you could go from SLC to Jackson, Wyoming (just south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs) in a day (the fastest route would go through Idaho), spend a day in Yellowstone, then drive back to SLC. Round trip from SLC to Moab is about the same distance.  The Nevada border is about 2 hours from SLC, and Colorado is a bit less than 4 hours.  I probably wouldn't go to Nevada unless you really wanted a find in the state (or wanted to hit a casino).   

Another possibility that would combine some excellent site seeing and visiting several states would be to head down to Moab, then drive to the four corners (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado) on one day.  On the way back to SLC, instead of going through Moab you can go through Bryce Canyon.  

If you want to go crazy on cache types,  you might consider a R/T flight from SLC to Seattle.  

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16 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

It's not that easy.  It's further from New York City to Salt Lake City than it is from Amsterdam, NL to Athens, Greece.  

Where you go might also depend on if you want to get finds in multiple states or hit the better ones in Utah.  You could easily get caches in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho in a day, beginning and ending in SLC.  If you wanted more site-seeing you could go from SLC to Jackson, Wyoming (just south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton NPs) in a day (the fastest route would go through Idaho), spend a day in Yellowstone, then drive back to SLC. Round trip from SLC to Moab is about the same distance.  The Nevada border is about 2 hours from SLC, and Colorado is a bit less than 4 hours.  I probably wouldn't go to Nevada unless you really wanted a find in the state (or wanted to hit a casino).   

Another possibility that would combine some excellent site seeing and visiting several states would be to head down to Moab, then drive to the four corners (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado) on one day.  On the way back to SLC, instead of going through Moab you can go through Bryce Canyon.  

If you want to go crazy on cache types,  you might consider a R/T flight from SLC to Seattle.  

Let me have a look at the map again. Utah, Wyoming and Idaho just for the sake of it in a day. i was indeed thinking along those lines. I could do a tour anticlockwise as well through Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada. I really need to look at things to do and see. US cities don't interest me, but I would be more interested in nature, fantastic landscapes, deserts (love deserts!), and geology. And archaeology if there's any.

 

 

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2 hours ago, terratin said:

Let me have a look at the map again. Utah, Wyoming and Idaho just for the sake of it in a day. i was indeed thinking along those lines. I could do a tour anticlockwise as well through Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada. I really need to look at things to do and see. US cities don't interest me, but I would be more interested in nature, fantastic landscapes, deserts (love deserts!), and geology. And archaeology if there's any.

 

 

You're not going to find much in the way of fantastic landscapes or archaeology on a tour that goes into southern Idaho and Wyoming.  The southern part of Utah, on the other hand, would provide lots of opportunities and some of the more interesting geology in the country.  Take a look at the Archaeology sites in Utah page on wikipedia for some potential places to visit. Danger Cave looks like it might meet most of the criteria you're looking for, and it's very close to the Nevada border.  One of the things I often do when investigating areas that I might want to visit is to use Google Street View to "drive" around the area.  It'll give you a good sense of the type of terrain you'll encounter.  Of course, just east of Salt Lake City are the Wasatch mountains and are very easily accessible on interstate 80 (if you stay on I80 till the end you'll end up in New York City...go the other direction and you'll end up in San Francisco).

wasatch-mountains.jpeg

 

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 9:44 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

The Nevada border is about 2 hours from SLC, and Colorado is a bit less than 4 hours.  I probably wouldn't go to Nevada unless you really wanted a find in the state (or wanted to hit a casino).    

Well, the Bonneville Salt Flats (aka Bonneville Speedway) is just short of the NV border and is a fun/interesting place to drive (if the speed trials are happening, which would be interesting to watch).  And Wendover (at the border) has some very interesting aviation history.

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1 hour ago, The Jester said:

Well, the Bonneville Salt Flats (aka Bonneville Speedway) is just short of the NV border and is a fun/interesting place to drive (if the speed trials are happening, which would be interesting to watch).  And Wendover (at the border) has some very interesting aviation history.

Careful driving that stretch of I-80.  It has some open ranges and I've seen the results of a small truck that hit a cow (they both lost that altercation).  It looks like there are some interesting caches near the border (outside of the towns).  Renting an AWD vehicle would help.  In the mid 1970's I was working for a band from Northern California that had a few gigs in Colorado and Jackson Hole, Wy.  We drove two vehicles round trip twice so passed through Wendover a few times.  It was probably a coincidence but it seemed that every time we got near or crossed the Nevada border we had car trouble.  On the way back from Jackson Hole one of the cars started overheating.  We ended up spending an entire day in West Wendover, NV while wheel bearings were replaced.  There really wasn't anyplace to go other than the small casino, which had a band playing in the bar.  It was the Ink Spots.

 

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We just added country 24 (Ecuador). That brings us to 6 continents and a new "most westerly" cache. Caches seem to be in rather bad shape there, found two that had logs in a plastic bag. Too bad we were not organized enough when we started in 2006 to find a cache in Hawaii so we'll have to do with W91° (Galapagos). In 2018 we just need to find the time for a 2 hour drive to Luxembourg.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, on4bam said:

We just added country 24 (Ecuador). That brings us to 6 continents and a new "most westerly" cache. Caches seem to be in rather bad shape there, found two that had logs in a plastic bag. Too bad we were not organized enough when we started in 2006 to find a cache in Hawaii so we'll have to do with W91° (Galapagos). In 2018 we just need to find the time for a 2 hour drive to Luxembourg.

 

 

 

I've also been to Hawaii but it was two years before geocaching was created.  My "most westerly" cache is in California, as I've never traveled anywhere west of the west coast of the U.S. and Fiji.  It looks like a trip to Fiji and finding this cache and this cache would maximize the most easterly and most westerly stats.    

I had hoped to get my 5th continent earlier this year by attending a conference in Australia in June but I could not get funding for travel.  Next years location for the same conference is in Bozeman, Montana and even though it's not a new country it would be a wonderful place to visit.  I've had a couple of slim opportunities to go to South America but they were very slim.

I'll probably be going to Kenya the first week in February with a slim possibility of a visit to Uganda (an hour and fifteen minute plane ride).  Those locations are for two different projects I'm working on but I doubt that funding would be available for the Uganda visit.   While researching potential itineraries an overnight layover in London is very viable and I've not yet found a cache in the UK.   Considering that the flight from the US to Europe is about 7-8 hours, and the flight from Europe to Nairobi is about the same I'd rather have an overnight layover than a quick layover in between to two long flights.  

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11 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I had hoped to get my 5th continent earlier this year by attending a conference in Australia in June but I could not get funding for travel.

Ha... Funding... I can only dream about someone else funding my/our travels... OTOH, funding it ourselves gives us the freedom to make our own choices B)

Already thinking about next holiday... Choices are limited as we want a destination that's safe to travel around independently, has decent infrastructure, poses no serious health risks... My bucketlist has Burundi's silverback gorilla viewing on #1 but then there's funding problem :blink:. We've been looking at Argentina and Chile (Easter Island), we've been to Svalbard and would like to go back and go to the Northern part of the island and neighboring islands in search of icebear. Yukon and NWT in Canada is an option, second visit to Japan, there's still a lot to see there. Maybe we'll do a citytrip first, we still have a 90% prepared schedule for Lisbon, Prague is not far away, Baltic states have direct flights.... choices, choices... :)

 

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31 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Ha... Funding... I can only dream about someone else funding my/our travels... OTOH, funding it ourselves gives us the freedom to make our own choices B)

Already thinking about next holiday... Choices are limited as we want a destination that's safe to travel around independently, has decent infrastructure, poses no serious health risks... My bucketlist has Burundi's silverback gorilla viewing on #1 but then there's funding problem :blink:. We've been looking at Argentina and Chile (Easter Island), we've been to Svalbard and would like to go back and go to the Northern part of the island and neighboring islands in search of icebear. Yukon and NWT in Canada is an option, second visit to Japan, there's still a lot to see there. Maybe we'll do a citytrip first, we still have a 90% prepared schedule for Lisbon, Prague is not far away, Baltic states have direct flights.... choices, choices... :)

 

I'm strongly considering paying my own way to Cuba in March.  I've got an invitation to speak at an international conference but they don't have the money to pay for travel and I probably wouldn't be able to get any from work.  The airfare is very reasonable, accommodations are very inexpensive (less than $50 a night staying in a Casa Particular), and there's not conference fee.  That would be a lot easier to justify to my wife than a trip to Fiji.

Of course, getting funding for travel is ideal but obtaining it is limited from where I work so much of it comes from the places I visit, which I "earn" through my expertise and the connections I've made over many years.  

Safe travel is certainly a priority and there are a few places that I won't visit (even for a short layover).  A very good friend of mine spent a week in Uganda earlier this year to see gorillas and said it was the trip of a lifetime.  Entebbe is a lot more accessible (I'm pretty sure that there are direct flights from Brussels).  Of all the countries in South America that I'd like to visit, Chile is among the top.  

One of the other possible itineraries I'm looking at for the Kenya trip would involve a layover in Lisbon.  I could do that for less than $1200 airfare r/t from New York City.  When I was looking at flights for the trip to Berlin I took a few months ago I was considering one of those Baltic flights.  I decided on a layover in Helsinki instead and am glad that I did.

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On 22/12/2017 at 0:04 PM, on4bam said:

We just added country 24 (Ecuador). That brings us to 6 continents and a new "most westerly" cache. Caches seem to be in rather bad shape there, found two that had logs in a plastic bag. Too bad we were not organized enough when we started in 2006 to find a cache in Hawaii so we'll have to do with W91° (Galapagos). In 2018 we just need to find the time for a 2 hour drive to Luxembourg.

 

 

 

Congratulations! Wow, 6 continents! I'm still one continent short of that, and it's unlikely I'll get it anytime soon. I'm still somewhat annoyed that I was just a few flight hours short of Australia when I was in Indonesia. Ho hum.. can't have it all.

I'm currently looking at summer vacations but can't quite make up my mind. Last summer was Svalbard. This year I want to have some proper warmth but I just don't find the right place: low key, fairly small scale tourism but not too much travelling involved. And a new country if possible :D Bulgaria? There are still low-key places on the coast but it's just a hassle to get there.

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We're less than two weeks from heading out on a 'snowbird' trip that will include a cruise from Tampa FL thru the Southern Carribean (it was going to be Western
Carribean until they got clobbered by those two hurricanes).  It will hit Aruba, Curacoa, Bonaire (not sure how those are counted for countries), Jamacia and Grand Cayman - all new stops for us.  That will get us our most southern cache (Turks & Caicos Islands are our current).  Later in the year we planning a loop that will cover the northern US and Canada (adding Newfoundland/Labrador and Northwest Territories - leaving just Nunavut unvisited, which will probably never happen).  That should get us a new northern cache if we can get above the Artic Circle.

Next year we're thinking of going to South America - I'm not sure how many countries right now, but Angel Falls, the "other" :rolleyes: APE cache, Patagonia, possible Antartica, Easter Island and maybe home by a cruise from Chile (up the west coast of SA, thru the Panama Canal to Miami) is some of our thinking.  Pricey, but it's a once in a lifetime trip.

That would leave Austraila and Africa as our last continents ... for some time in the future.

 

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3 hours ago, on4bam said:

I didn't even think about that one; I got a new highest cache too. 2827m is now my record (Quito is at about 2800m), Previous highest was on Reunion at 2028m.

 

Wow, the volcano on Reunion is that high? Nice! I think my current highest is not even 2500m, but the Teide on Tenerife is about 3700m. Score!

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1 hour ago, terratin said:

Wow, the volcano on Reunion is that high? Nice! I think my current highest is not even 2500m, but the Teide on Tenerife is about 3700m. Score!

That's pretty high, especially for a small island.  My highest is also on a volano (Vulcan Poas in Costa Rica: 2680m).  My 3rd highest is in the heart of a city, which I believe that you've also found;  Addis #1 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 2387m.

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10 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

That's pretty high, especially for a small island.  My highest is also on a volano (Vulcan Poas in Costa Rica: 2680m).  My 3rd highest is in the heart of a city, which I believe that you've also found;  Addis #1 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 2387m.

Oh yes, the one in Addis is my current highest I think.

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2 hours ago, terratin said:

Oh yes, the one in Addis is my current highest I think.

I am tentatively planning a trip to Kenya for the first week in February.  I'm waiting for confirmation from the organization I'll be visiting that they've set up a server for me to install an application for which I'm one of the developers, and hopefully be happening the first week in January.  I've looked a several itineraries and the one that looks best now is a very inexpensive r/t flight from NYC an Oslo on Norwegian Air and a separate booking on Ethiopia Air from Oslo to Nairobi that stops in Addis both directions for about 4 hours. That'll give me enough time to buy a souvenir from one of the shops there that I should have bought on previous trips.  The return trip would include a long overnight layover in Oslo.  Total airfare would be less than $1000,  pretty good for a r/t trip to eastern Africa.  If all goes as planned I should bag Kenya as my 30th country.

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8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

I am tentatively planning a trip to Kenya for the first week in February.  I'm waiting for confirmation from the organization I'll be visiting that they've set up a server for me to install an application for which I'm one of the developers, and hopefully be happening the first week in January.  I've looked a several itineraries and the one that looks best now is a very inexpensive r/t flight from NYC an Oslo on Norwegian Air and a separate booking on Ethiopia Air from Oslo to Nairobi that stops in Addis both directions for about 4 hours. That'll give me enough time to buy a souvenir from one of the shops there that I should have bought on previous trips.  The return trip would include a long overnight layover in Oslo.  Total airfare would be less than $1000,  pretty good for a r/t trip to eastern Africa.  If all goes as planned I should bag Kenya as my 30th country.

If you are above-average height, I strongly recommend against Norwegian Air.  Their seat pitch is among the tightest in the world. I don't know anything about Ethiopia Air.

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3 hours ago, hzoi said:

At this rate I may log GC40 before you do, as we may be moving back to Europe next summer.  :laughing:

Since I'm not driven by statistics, you might B) I'm sure we'll go on "long weekends" a few times so we'll have to keep an eye on decent priced B&Bs to stay at. That's just easier in The Netherlands and  especially if we take our bikes... it's a lot flatter there to get around :lol:

Edited by on4bam
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16 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

If you are above-average height, I strongly recommend against Norwegian Air.  Their seat pitch is among the tightest in the world. I don't know anything about Ethiopia Air.

I'm not above average height but that's good to know.  In really don't want an uncomfortable seat on an 8 hour flight. SAS is another option to/from Oslo for a slightly higher price and goes form EWR instead of JFK which is a lot more convenient to me.  I've flown on Ethiopia Air a few times and was happy with it.  Oslo to Addis is a 9.5 hour flight so it better be comfortable.  

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If you want to have an idea about legroom try Seatguru and enter your flight details (# or route). One of the worst we had was Ethihad BRU-AUH. SAS is OK for BRU-OSL (B737).

BTW, Pitch doesn't say it all, KLM's B777 AMS-UIO (12hours) has pitch 31" but because of the new thinner seats there's comfortable legroom. Best we ever had was Emirates A380 AKL-DXB (17 hours), pick a seat in front of the wings/engines and it must be one of quietest flights we ever had (best entertainment system too).

 

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12 minutes ago, on4bam said:

If you want to have an idea about legroom try Seatguru and enter your flight details (# or route). One of the worst we had was Ethihad BRU-AUH. SAS is OK for BRU-OSL (B737).

BTW, Pitch doesn't say it all, KLM's B777 AMS-UIO (12hours) has pitch 31" but because of the new thinner seats there's comfortable legroom. Best we ever had was Emirates A380 AKL-DXB (17 hours), pick a seat in front of the wings/engines and it must be one of quietest flights we ever had (best entertainment system too).

 

Emirates definitely has the best entertainment system.  Since I don't sleep well on planes that's a big bonus for me.   The most uncomfortable seats I've ever had was on a flight on British Airways.  It wasn't the seat pitch but the seat just seemed to have very little paddling.  I ended up sitting on my neck pillow for most of the flight. 

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18 minutes ago, colleda said:

We'll be flying Finnair business class. Has anyone had any experience with Finnair?

We flew to Japan with them via HEL (2009). I don't remember anything special about them, just a standard (EU) airline. I must admit we sit more to the back ;).

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3 hours ago, colleda said:

In may we will finally be able to add some European countries to our list. Have just booked a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam.

We'll be flying Finnair business class. Has anyone had any experience with Finnair?

 

I flew on Finn air from JFK to HEL to CPH (in coach).  I didn't pay attention to the business class seats so I have no idea what they'd are like.   It seemed like a standard EU airline as well.  Nothing particularly special, but nothing that wouldn't stop me from booking on them again either.  The Helsinki airport was better than many and was the quietest airport (of it's size) that I've ever been to .  I had an overnight layover on my return trip.  I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express a couple of miles from the airport and took a couple of hour ~2.5 miles walk along the bike paths in the area and found 6 caches (including one by Arisoft).  The hotel had a free shuttle that stopped at a couple of other nearby hotels for an easy, no stress layover.  

The river cruise sounds wonderful.  

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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13 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

The Helsinki airport was better than many and was the quietest airport (of it's size) that I've ever been to .

 

The river cruise sounds wonderful.  

I remember HEL has free wifi all over the airport (2009) and it's a "small" airport.

Be careful on the river cruise, one of the "hotel boats" crashed into a bridge not so long ago ;)

In Budapest Kerepesi temeto/Kerepes cemetery is a nice Wherigo (cache is outside the cemetery) if you have the time. There are few old virtuals too. We found a few traditionals too but they were "run of the mill" (don't let favorite points fool you).

 

   

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13 minutes ago, on4bam said:

I remember HEL has free wifi all over the airport (2009) and it's a "small" airport.

Be careful on the river cruise, one of the "hotel boats" crashed into a bridge not so long ago ;)

In Budapest Kerepesi temeto/Kerepes cemetery is a nice Wherigo (cache is outside the cemetery) if you have the time. There are few old virtuals too. We found a few traditionals too but they were "run of the mill" (don't let favorite points fool you).

 

   

I think HEL still does (as of September 2017).  In general it seems that airports in Europe are more likely to have free wifi than airports in the U.S.  Berlin airport had free wifi as well.  In the U.S. it seems that smaller airports are more likely to have free wifi than he bigger ones.  I've got a tablet with wifi and a data plan so I use that when I travel in the U.S.  Theoretically I could tether it to my laptop but there's nothing that I could do, other than work, that I'd need to do at the airport that I couldn't do on a tablet.  Usually, while waiting for a flight, I'll just read an e-book or have a beer at the bar.  

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On 05/02/2018 at 7:16 AM, Arnàutil said:

In one month we will be flying to Amman to visit Jordan - that will be, hopefully, the 34th country where I will have found a geocache! Can't wait to discover this country! :lol:

Will you be near the Dead Sea?  The lowest cache (an EC) and the lowest traditional cache on earth are there.  They are in my sights in September.

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14 hours ago, cheech gang said:

We are planning to soon add #52 (Montenegro) and #53 (Albania)

Cool.  I haven't been able to get to any of the eastern European countries.  I am leaving on Sunday for several days in Cuba though that won't be a new country for me.  I've got two trips to Kenya planned this year,  the first most likely will be in early April and the second in September.  I haven't booked any flights yet but I have a few options that might add an additional country.  One of them would be a layover in Doha, Qatar.  I know Terratin lived there for awhile.  Any suggestions?   A couple of days ago I got a message from someone I've worked with in the past from Belgium asking if I'd be interested in attending a workshop there in August.  Again, that wouldn't be a new country but I only had an overnight layover there last time and there would also be a possibility of using a layover city in a country I haven't yet visited.  I'll see that guy that made the invite next week in Cuba so I'll know more then.  I should find out today if the proposal I submitted for a conference in June in Bozeman, Montana was accepted.  If so I'll probably fly to/from Salt Lake City and rent a car so that I can add Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana as new states.

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We've got #25 coming up. Citytrip to Lisbon... I made a selection of about 200 caches including mysteries, Wherigo's, multi's, earthcaches, virtuals and trads. We'll rent a car for a day and if time allows we could make a small detour when returning from Sintra for a July 2001 virtual, GC11BE, (still open placed month) near the airport.

Luxembourg should (finally) happen and our 2018 holiday should yield a new one (possibly two if we can "jump the border" easily).

 

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16 minutes ago, on4bam said:

We've got #25 coming up. Citytrip to Lisbon... I made a selection of about 200 caches including mysteries, Wherigo's, multi's, earthcaches, virtuals and trads. We'll rent a car for a day and if time allows we could make a small detour when returning from Sintra for a July 2001 virtual, GC11BE, (still open placed month) near the airport.

Luxembourg should (finally) happen and our 2018 holiday should yield a new one (possibly two if we can "jump the border" easily).

 

I'd like to schedule a layover in Lisbon for one of my trips this year (and TAP has a program for staying over in Lisbon or Porto).  I'll let you know once I find out more about the potential trip to Belgium to see if I'll be anywhere close to you.  

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