collecting countries

[+Gill & Tony]

There is a get-out-of-jail-free clause in the logging requirements "If you happen to only pass one of the nearby reefs I consider that a find as a guided trip may not pass the exact spot marked in the listing. Please add those coordinates to your log."

 

I'm hoping that the cruise ship passes close enough to a reef somewhere so I can take advantage of that.  I've already researched the answers.   If not, not a problem, but I live in hope.

[+terratin]

10 hours ago, HHL said:

That's wrong.

 

Hans

yikes! That went very wrong *blush*

[+colleda]

2 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

There is a get-out-of-jail-free clause in the logging requirements "If you happen to only pass one of the nearby reefs I consider that a find as a guided trip may not pass the exact spot marked in the listing. Please add those coordinates to your log."

 

I'm hoping that the cruise ship passes close enough to a reef somewhere so I can take advantage of that.  I've already researched the answers.   If not, not a problem, but I live in hope.

I'm a slow thinker and it wasn't until the day after we passed the spot that I remembered I could have had my GPS tracking the ships course. That could have given me a chance at close coordinate. I had an ocean view cabin where, in the past and since, I can sit the Garmin and have it tracking while I sleep. Wouldn't work with an inside cabin.

[+on4bam]

Two new countries planned for this year. Flights, accommodation and rental cars are booked and I 'm slowly preparing possible caches trying to select as many different cachetypes as possible. No problem for the first destination (Ljubljana) but not easy for Namibia (Traditional,  Multi,  Earthcache, Mystery only). The only virtual may be visited if we have the time but that's not likely as it adds more than 1.5 hours to our itinerary for that day.

 

 

[+funkymunkyzone]

3 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

There is a get-out-of-jail-free clause in the logging requirements "If you happen to only pass one of the nearby reefs I consider that a find as a guided trip may not pass the exact spot marked in the listing. Please add those coordinates to your log."

 

Wow, a locationless earthcache... 

 

Something tells me that clause was probably not there when the cache was reviewed.

 

But I suppose this is not a topic about earthcaches...

[+hzoi]

22 hours ago, terratin said:

I was just looking at European microstates for a long weekend trip this year, but could not get any half affordable flights.

 

Nice is the best bet for flying to Monaco, it's not a bad (45 min?) train ride from there.  We got a decent Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt. 

 

I can't remember who we flew to get to Barcelona, but we rented a car for a day trip to Andorra from there.

 

I have no advice for flights to get to Liechtenstein - we drove down from Wiesbaden to the Interlaachen area, then drove to Liechtenstein before coming back home.

 

We visited Bucharest this weekend to add Romania to our list.  It's a very spread-out city - Riga and Vilnius were much easier to navigate on foot.  We did not hesitate to use the Bucharest metro, and we still walked a bit.  Probably should have used trams and buses more, but we tend to walk.  An interesting mix of some Parisian-style architecture (and boulevards, boulevards, boulevards!), Orthodox churches, and brutalist concrete apartment blocks.

Edited February 20, 2020 by hzoi

[+NYPaddleCacher]

16 hours ago, colleda said:

My wife and I were in China during SARS. We only knew there was a problem due to one of our group phoning home for news updates otherwise it was business as usual.

 

I was in Africa during the Ebola crises.  However, I was in Ethiopia, which was a greater distance than the cases in Texas from where I live in New York.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

40 minutes ago, hzoi said:

 

Nice is the best bet for flying to Monaco, it's not a bad (45 min?) train ride from there.  We got a decent Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt. 

 

I can't remember who we flew to get to Barcelona, but we rented a car for a day trip to Andorra from there.

 

I have no advice for flights to get to Liechtenstein - we drove down from Wiesbaden to the Interlaachen area, then drove to Liechtenstein before coming back home.

 

We visited Bucharest this weekend to add Romania to our list.  It's a very spread-out city - Riga and Vilnius were much easier to navigate on foot.  We did not hesitate to use the Bucharest metro, and we still walked a bit.  Probably should have used trams and buses more, but we tend to walk.  An interesting mix of some Parisian-style architecture (and boulevards, boulevards, boulevards!), Orthodox churches, and brutalist concrete apartment blocks.

 

When I visited Barcelona I had flown to Marseille via Frankfurt, then took the train to Montpellier (where I attended a conference/meeting for three days), then took the train to Barcelona and flew home from there.   I also visited Luxembourg by train, taking an overnight trip from Hasselt, Belgium.

[+terratin]

10 hours ago, on4bam said:

Two new countries planned for this year. Flights, accommodation and rental cars are booked and I 'm slowly preparing possible caches trying to select as many different cachetypes as possible. No problem for the first destination (Ljubljana) but not easy for Namibia (Traditional,  Multi,  Earthcache, Mystery only). The only virtual may be visited if we have the time but that's not likely as it adds more than 1.5 hours to our itinerary for that day.

 

 

 

Nice! Looks like you have great plans for this year.

 

I nearly booked a 40 euro return flight to Sofia, but figured arriving at just before midnight is maybe not the best thing. I'll pass this. The next round of offers will come sooner or later. So for me this year it's Tokyo, Prague and Montenegro (with trips into Croatia, Bosnia and maybe Serbia).

[+on4bam]

2 hours ago, terratin said:

I nearly booked a 40 euro return flight to Sofia, but figured arriving at just before midnight is maybe not the best thing. I'll pass this. The next round of offers will come sooner or later. So for me this year it's Tokyo, Prague and Montenegro (with trips into Croatia, Bosnia and maybe Serbia).

 

The trip to Ljubljana was not our first choice (we were thinking about Split for a short getaway) but we wanted a destination with direct flights from BRU. We then noticed that the ticketprice was half if we left  on a Wednesday compared to a Thursday so we were still better off going for the extra day + extra hotelnight and on top of that renting a car via the airline got us a cheap rate. BTW, the flight costs only €6, the rest of the price are taxes. The original "long weekend" plan quickly became a 6 day trip

[+Vooruit!]

22 hours ago, on4bam said:

Two new countries planned for this year. Flights, accommodation and rental cars are booked and I 'm slowly preparing possible caches trying to select as many different cachetypes as possible. No problem for the first destination (Ljubljana) but not easy for Namibia (Traditional,  Multi,  Earthcache, Mystery only). The only virtual may be visited if we have the time but that's not likely as it adds more than 1.5 hours to our itinerary for that day.

 

 

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

[+on4bam]

6 minutes ago, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

LOL... I have 114 and "only" 100 needed. The problem is that at some destinations there are not many type available. Traditional and Earthcache is possible most of the time but Wherigo and even multi  can be a challenge especially in more "exotic" locations (Greenland, Falklands.... ) .

 

[+terratin]

41 minutes ago, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

wow, nice! I also always try to get as many cache types in a country as possible. Unless I don’t feel like it. I have 208 combinations 

[+Gill & Tony]

I just sneak in with 100 exactly

[+IceColdUK]

6 hours ago, terratin said:

wow, nice! I also always try to get as many cache types in a country as possible. Unless I don’t feel like it. I have 208 combinations 

Very impressive!  I’m up to 145:

 

http://www.icecoldinalex.co.uk/misc/geocaching/cachetypes.php

 

First caching trips to Hungary and Austria planned for May - flying out (from London) to Budapest and back from Vienna.  Flights £150 for the two of us, and that includes a checked bag for my wife, who’s not the biggest fan of geocaching or travelling light! ?  Train from Budapest to Vienna is an absolute bargain: less than £25 for the two of us.

 

And off to Dublin for a long-weekend with some caching buddies in June. ?

Edited February 21, 2020 by IceColdUK

[+colleda]

I only make it to 69. I guess it's mostly because on my travels, I generally restrict myself to Trads, Virtuals and the occasional Earthcache.

Yes, I like to increase my find numbers. I prefer to find, say, six traditionals during a cruise port stop than one long six stage Multi.

[+on4bam]

6 hours ago, colleda said:

Yes, I like to increase my find numbers. I prefer to find, say, six traditionals during a cruise port stop than one long six stage Multi.

 

Given the choice, I'll take the multi

I already selected a few in Ljubljana as the  WPs are at touristic highlights we'll visit anyway. It takes a lot of reading listings  and logs though. Looking at the images helps too if WPs are not given. Then there are the mysteries, I have solved many that were too far away from the posted coordinates and probably missed some were the posted coordinates were "too far" but GZ was near places we visited. We don't "go caching" on holiday so it all has to fit in, a small detour is OK but we won't spend hours just to find caches. Just one exception, when our flight out of the Falklands was cancelled (heavy winds) we had to spend the day there after re-organizing our connecting flight and accommodation. We just went out to find a few caches while trying not to get blown away. Not too many to find there anyway.

OTOH we found a few nice and very quiet spots in Venice because there was a cache there. No tourists around, real hidden gems.

 

[+terratin]

*sigh* had an idea for a trip to Heligoland. Not a new country, but at least a new federal country. But obviously there's no accommodation left for the few weeks in summer where the boat returns at mid-day, and hotels are prohibitively expensive near the port in summer as well. Not a good idea.

[+on4bam]

7 minutes ago, terratin said:

 and hotels are prohibitively expensive near the port in summer as well

 

The perks of being retired

We've always had to take our holidays in summer (3 weeks, the week of July 21st was always the 2nd week). Most expensive flights, accommodation, rentals.... We now let flight ticketprices decide our holiday dates (weekday flights instead of weekends).

[+terratin]

1 hour ago, on4bam said:

 

The perks of being retired

We've always had to take our holidays in summer (3 weeks, the week of July 21st was always the 2nd week). Most expensive flights, accommodation, rentals.... We now let flight ticketprices decide our holiday dates (weekday flights instead of weekends).

 

I don't need to be retired for that But if you want to do a trip to Germany's only offshore island then summer has the best chance of the trip not being cancelled due to stormy weather. And the two summer months are the only time you can stay on the island and travel back around noon instead of the evening.

[+colleda]

12 hours ago, on4bam said:

OTOH we found a few nice and very quiet spots in Venice because there was a cache there. No tourists around, real hidden gems.

 

This was our (and is still my) #1 reason for geocaching in foreign places.

[+funkymunkyzone]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:16 PM, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

255 for me. Thought it would be higher, definitely have some work to do to increase variety

[+Da Wards]

On 2/21/2020 at 3:16 PM, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

We are currently sitting at 101. We just picked up three types last week in Cambodia. Now in Laos but haven’t gone caching yet. I love trying for different cache types wherever we end up.

[+barefootjeff]

On 2/22/2020 at 12:12 PM, colleda said:

I only make it to 69. I guess it's mostly because on my travels, I generally restrict myself to Trads, Virtuals and the occasional Earthcache.

Yes, I like to increase my find numbers. I prefer to find, say, six traditionals during a cruise port stop than one long six stage Multi.

 

I only have 12. Is there a prize for the lowest? 9 types in Australia and 3 in New Zealand. Clearly I need to get out more.

[+on4bam]

21 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

I only have 12. Is there a prize for the lowest? 9 types in Australia and 3 in New Zealand. Clearly I need to get out more.

I have 12 in NZ and Oz too. 2 times 6 on a total of 207 finds. I need a letterbox in Oz and Wherigo in NZ

[+hzoi]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:16 AM, Vooruit! said:

I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

We have 138 so far.  I'd've thought more, but it turns out there are plenty we visited and only logged a handful of traditionals.  I bet if we went back to several of those, we'd at least have virtuals now, too.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I've only cached in two countries, but I have Locationless in 8 countries.

[+CAVinoGal]

11 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

I only have 12. Is there a prize for the lowest? 9 types in Australia and 3 in New Zealand. Clearly I need to get out more.

 

I have 11.    9 in the US, 2 in Mexico.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Although I've found caches in 30 countries, I only had 56 country/cache combos.  That may be because finding a lot, or a variety of types has never been a priority when I have geocached while traveling.  It may also be that I've primarily traveled for my job and often don't have a lot of free time for geocaching.   I almost always try to find some time but it's usually very limited unless I specifically schedule some extra time before or after my work obligations.

[+STNolan]

Just booked a small European vacation for the Mrs. and I; our honeymoon (though delayed two years) will also net me four new Geocaching Countries (though only one of those is actually a new country for me). 

 

1) UK

2) France

3) Italy

4) Vatican City. 

 

Looking forward to getting out of the US again - it's been too long!

[+Belcan]

I've never concentrated on collecting different types, I was just happy to log at least one cache in each new country. My count is now at 82.

[+on4bam]

2 minutes ago, Belcan said:

I've never concentrated on collecting different types, I was just happy to log at least one cache in each new country. My count is now at 82.

 

Neither do we but it comes naturally because we enjoy multi's, earthcaches and virtuals more than traditionals.

[+funkymunkyzone]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:16 PM, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

There's actually an error in the script.

 

It does not differentiate between the Community Celebration Events (formerly the 10 year celebration events) and the Lost and Found events (now HQ celebration event).  It reckons I have one find of the latter, but in actual fact I only have one of the former, and they are indeed two separate cache types.

 

It wouldn't change my score at the moment, but it soon will...

 

[+terratin]

15 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

Neither do we but it comes naturally because we enjoy multi's, earthcaches and virtuals more than traditionals.

for me it’s ECs, virtuals and letterboxes. I don’t want to solve mysteries before a trip (though I might) and often don’t feel like doing a massive multi unless it’s something special like visiting 14 or so ancient painted churches on Cyprus. 

[+IceColdUK]

We visited Isla Mujeres, an island off of the coast of Cancun, a few years ago - the only opportunity we had for two or three cache types in Mexico.  I sulked for a day after a DNF at the Letterbox. ?

[+on4bam]

1 hour ago, terratin said:

for me it’s ECs, virtuals and letterboxes.

 

EC's and virtuals tend to be in interesting places so they get visited anyway making it easier to get them when "touristing" (is that a word? ) OTOH sometimes finding answers for an EC can be very challenging.

 

 

[+Vooruit!]

11 hours ago, funkymunkyzone said:

 

There's actually an error in the script.

 

It does not differentiate between the Community Celebration Events (formerly the 10 year celebration events) and the Lost and Found events (now HQ celebration event).  It reckons I have one find of the latter, but in actual fact I only have one of the former, and they are indeed two separate cache types.

 

It wouldn't change my score at the moment, but it soon will...

 

 

Unfortunately, they're actually the same cache type. Look at GC2401K, the Lost & Found event you've attended. It actually says 'Community Celebration Event'.

 

But: come to think of it, I could implement some temporal logic based on the year the event was in.

[+terratin]

6 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

EC's and virtuals tend to be in interesting places so they get visited anyway making it easier to get them when "touristing" (is that a word? ) OTOH sometimes finding answers for an EC can be very challenging.

 

 

 

For me, finding answers for ECs is mostly frustrating because of professional interest. Either you find something the CO got wrong, or it's an old cache and the questions not related at all to the geology, or just a word from a bloody sign. Or there's something totally marvelous, worth of the best EC ever to be seen there, and the listing is about an erratic next to it  I still love finding them for some reason I'm hoping to do a fairly spontaneous EC tour through Luxembourg this summer, similar to what I did in Belgium last year.  There will be sandstone

 

@IceColdUK Was on Isla Holbox many years ago. No cache at all there, but then I found 2 or so in Cancun at the end of this trip. First foreign caches for me I think

[+terratin]

Btw, any of you travelers worried about the coronavirus in combination with your plans? So far there's no travel warning/cancellation, but I might eventually have to cancel my trip to Tokyo. Anyone else in the same boat?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

25 minutes ago, terratin said:

 

For me, finding answers for ECs is mostly frustrating because of professional interest. Either you find something the CO got wrong, or it's an old cache and the questions not related at all to the geology, or just a word from a bloody sign. Or there's something totally marvelous, worth of the best EC ever to be seen there, and the listing is about an erratic next to it  I still love finding them for some reason I'm hoping to do a fairly spontaneous EC tour through Luxembourg this summer, similar to what I did in Belgium last year.  There will be sandstone

 

@IceColdUK Was on Isla Holbox many years ago. No cache at all there, but then I found 2 or so in Cancun at the end of this trip. First foreign caches for me I think

 

From my research, this isn't much of anything on Isla Holbox (which is what make it so nice).  I only found one cache in Cancun (had an overnight layover on the way to Cuba) and  planned on attending an event there but the creator had his flight from France cancelled so he retracted the event the day before I left home.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

26 minutes ago, terratin said:

Btw, any of you travelers worried about the coronavirus in combination with your plans? So far there's no travel warning/cancellation, but I might eventually have to cancel my trip to Tokyo. Anyone else in the same boat?

 

Currently, there are two CDC level 3 countries (China and South Korea): Avoid all necessary travel.   Japan, Italy, and Iran are level 2: Practice Enhanced Precautions, and Hong Kong is level 1: Practice Usual Precautions.  

 

My wife is fairly paranoid about this and we're buy trip cancellation insurance for my sons trip to Costa Rica in the summer.  Not sure when you're planning on going to Japan but I'd get travel cancellation insurance and watch the CDC and WHO reports.   It looks like CDC is more concerned about travel to Italy than Japan.  

[+The Jester]

8 hours ago, IceColdUK said:

We visited Isla Mujeres, an island off of the coast of Cancun, a few years ago - the only opportunity we had for two or three cache types in Mexico.  I sulked for a day after a DNF at the Letterbox. ?

I feel your pain.  A couple of years ago our cruise stopped at Jamaica - I DNF'd both caches near the cruise dock (only options for us).  I'm still bummed about that, don't know when/if we'll be back...

[+terratin]

7 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

 

Currently, there are two CDC level 3 countries (China and South Korea): Avoid all necessary travel.   Japan, Italy, and Iran are level 2: Practice Enhanced Precautions, and Hong Kong is level 1: Practice Usual Precautions.  

 

My wife is fairly paranoid about this and we're buy trip cancellation insurance for my sons trip to Costa Rica in the summer.  Not sure when you're planning on going to Japan but I'd get travel cancellation insurance and watch the CDC and WHO reports.   It looks like CDC is more concerned about travel to Italy than Japan.  

 

You can't get insurance for a trip that you booked more than a week ago, and viral infections are generally excluded here. Yes, of course I have insurance, but this is not covered.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

9 minutes ago, terratin said:

 

You can't get insurance for a trip that you booked more than a week ago, and viral infections are generally excluded here. Yes, of course I have insurance, but this is not covered.

That's too bad.    While travel in Japan might be a risk,  just traveling on an airplane becomes more of an unknown, because other passengers could be from anywhere.

 

I traveled to eastern Africa (Ethiopia) during ebola outbreak in western Africa.   There were medical staff set up just after we got off the plane that did a quick assessment (they had a thermometer that the could just point at peoples faces).  I don't know how much of that is going on now.  

[+on4bam]

Not worried at all. Although cases are up outside China they seem to go down in China (Can we trust their data?). It's very well possible that in a few weeks time we'll all be back to normal.

 

As for insurance, if booked before this started and the official travel advice from the government is against non-essential travel we're covered. YMMV

 

 

[+NYPaddleCacher]

29 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Not worried at all. Although cases are up outside China they seem to go down in China (Can we trust their data?). It's very well possible that in a few weeks time we'll all be back to normal.

 

As for insurance, if booked before this started and the official travel advice from the government is against non-essential travel we're covered. YMMV

 

 

 

The university where I work has significantly restricted travel to CDC level 3 countries and has cancelled study abroad programs in Italy.   I work in a very internationally community.   About 18% of the undergrad students are Asian.  However, most of them don't go back home very often once they get to campus, even during the summer break.  

[+Viajero Perdido]

2 hours ago, terratin said:

I might eventually have to cancel my trip to Tokyo. Anyone else in the same boat?

 

About a month ago I was hovering over the Buy button for a trip to Japan, would've been my first.  Found ideal flights, was studying the guidebooks and (more importantly) the cache map.  Would've been there now, caching up a storm.  But watching the virus situation closely, I didn't like what I saw...  Still don't.  I'm staying close to the VPHQ bunker until things improve.

[+terratin]

10 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

 

About a month ago I was hovering over the Buy button for a trip to Japan, would've been my first.  Found ideal flights, was studying the guidebooks and (more importantly) the cache map.  Would've been there now, caching up a storm.  But watching the virus situation closely, I didn't like what I saw...  Still don't.  I'm staying close to the VPHQ bunker until things improve.

 

Yeah.. I booked last autumn. Thus could not know this. We'll see how things go. The airline has not restrict any trips other than to China and Korea. For me problematic would be a possible quarantine though.

[+Vooruit!]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:16 AM, Vooruit! said:

 

Haha, nice to see I'm not the only one wanting to find as many different cache types in every country I visit. I've got a fitting challenge cache in the pipeline, for which the checker is already online: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8JTHP/44683. It requires you to find at least 100 country/cache types combinations.

 

This challenge came online last week, along with another 'international' one, for which you have to attend events in at least 5 different countries (named 'Blending in').

 

So much for the spamming part. On-topic: I've got 2 trips planned for this year, a business conference in Lithuania to which I'm adding a couple of day to visit Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Russia (Kaliningrad) and Belarus. In the summer we'll be spending 2 weeks in Romania, with a sidetrip to Moldova - supposedly the least visited country in Europe or something. We'll see...

[+skramble]

On 2/27/2020 at 9:28 AM, terratin said:

Btw, any of you travelers worried about the coronavirus in combination with your plans? So far there's no travel warning/cancellation, but I might eventually have to cancel my trip to Tokyo. Anyone else in the same boat?

 

I'm teed up for Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard in July. Outbreaks in the first two, so far none in the last two. Have to play it by ear I suppose, it's four months yet. The flying part is actually the more concerning; being penned up for several hours with "who knows where they've been" doesn't engender confidence. I'm in the statistically high risk age zone, too. Luckily I did all the booking myself and almost everything is no penalty cancellation. I'm also planning on Seattle in August... the epicentre in the States right now, so I'm hoping that situation cools off by then, as well.

Edited March 10, 2020 by skramble
clarification