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collecting countries


terratin

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On 10/13/2020 at 1:58 PM, hzoi said:

I won't be leaving the country this year, it appears. I think we'll have one or two trips to the Caribbean next year.

 

I'm out of the country this fall... but with liberty restrictions looks like I won't be able to claim any new countries BUT if I play my cards right I should be able to create an Earthcache or two in a new foreign country. Not quite the same as logging a smiley in a new country, but rewarding nonetheless!

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Honduras, who'd have guessed?

 

Honduras is only semi-welcoming of travellers right now.  They demand a negative PCR test before arrival, and that's not good enough for me; I know something of the (shaky) reliability of those tests.  Here's the site for checking travel rules (with annoying CAPTCHA); I'll go almost anywhere with the right offer, and right now Mexico is leading the pack.  Canada also needs to improve the offer for returning home; you are not sticking anything up my nose if I have no symptoms.

 

Back to Honduras...  I spent a week in Copan Ruinas, the little town close to the archaeological site of Copan (pre-caching), learning Spanish, eating great food (a fabulous restaurant), and letting the town charm my socks off.  Returned to my hotel one day to find it swarming with police - carrying luggage.  Some sort of conference of the nation's finest.  On Saturday I walked the couple of kilometers to the ruins finally, along a nice shaded path also swarming with police.  It was their day off too.  Felt very safe.

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The Jordan souvenir is such exciting news!  Thank you for linking to the announcement.  I only cached in Jordan for one day, as part of a church group tour, but I managed to find all the caches at Petra that existed at that time.  Jordan's oldest geocache is one of my Top 10 favorite caches of all time.  I will never forget my day there, and it's nice to memorialize that day with a souvenir.  Even better, I now have souvenirs for all of the countries where I've found geocaches!

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1 hour ago, The Leprechauns said:

The Jordan souvenir is such exciting news!  Thank you for linking to the announcement.  I only cached in Jordan for one day, as part of a church group tour, but I managed to find all the caches at Petra that existed at that time.  Jordan's oldest geocache is one of my Top 10 favorite caches of all time.  I will never forget my day there, and it's nice to memorialize that day with a souvenir.  Even better, I now have souvenirs for all of the countries where I've found geocaches!

 

Congratulations, Froghamster :) Jordan is totally amazing, and I also still remember that very old cache in Petra and the effort it took to get it (I have a problem with heights in conjunction with wooden planks thrown over a deep hole :antenna:) It's certainly great that GS is continuing with releasing country souvenirs. So lets see what's next.

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5 hours ago, The Leprechauns said:

The Jordan souvenir is such exciting news!  Thank you for linking to the announcement.  I only cached in Jordan for one day, as part of a church group tour, but I managed to find all the caches at Petra that existed at that time.  Jordan's oldest geocache is one of my Top 10 favorite caches of all time.  I will never forget my day there, and it's nice to memorialize that day with a souvenir.  Even better, I now have souvenirs for all of the countries where I've found geocaches!

We only had a couple of days in country, but did get Petra (only had time to get the one) and one down by the Dead Sea (earlier got a couple on the other shore).  We toured Amman but didn't get close to any caches.  We'd planned on going back last May, but for some reason or another ;) had to cancel.  We'll try again some time.

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3 hours ago, The Jester said:

We only had a couple of days in country, but did get Petra (only had time to get the one) and one down by the Dead Sea (earlier got a couple on the other shore).  We toured Amman but didn't get close to any caches.  We'd planned on going back last May, but for some reason or another ;) had to cancel.  We'll try again some time.

Likewise, only had time to get one at Petra Oct 018, an Earthcache. Also got a Dead Sea find but that was on the Israeli side.

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On 1/22/2021 at 11:07 AM, colleda said:

 Also got a Dead Sea find but that was on the Israeli side.

I was in Jordan in 2018 and found the lowest cache on Earth - an earthcache on the edge of the Dead Sea.  I also hosted "The lowest event on Earth" where GZ was water met the shore and, since the Dead Sea is getting lower by about 1m a year, it was even lower than the earthcache.

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50 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I was in Jordan in 2018 and found the lowest cache on Earth - an earthcache on the edge of the Dead Sea.  I also hosted "The lowest event on Earth" where GZ was water met the shore and, since the Dead Sea is getting lower by about 1m a year, it was even lower than the earthcache.

I was there late 2018 - Doha - Israel - Jordan - Turkey.

 A couple of days after leaving Doha it rained there flooding part of the city. Then, after leaving the Dead Sea it rained there also. A school bus was washed away and several (20?) people drowned. Next, after leaving Jordan, it rained again and flooded Petra. I'll have to stop dancing in the places I visit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46161276

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15 minutes ago, colleda said:

I was there late 2018 - Doha - Israel - Jordan - Turkey.

 A couple of days after leaving Doha it rained there flooding part of the city. Then, after leaving the Dead Sea it rained there also. A school bus was washed away and several (20?) people drowned. Next, after leaving Jordan, it rained again and flooded Petra. I'll have to stop dancing in the places I visit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46161276

We ended our trip at the Dead Sea early November,  having beenin Petra late October.   We saw the news of the floods there when we were home.  Didn't realise it was all your fault! :D

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Came back some days ago from a trip to Finland, some 3h north from Helsinki (of course, for work matters). I had the chance to find some 2-3 caches under the snow and at a temperature of an astonishing -27 celsius. My hands were about to freeze when holding the phone towards the cache!

 

Next trips are out to France, near the basque country. Hopefully will find some time to find some caches there even though the limit for being outside is 18h, which can make it tough...

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13 hours ago, STNolan said:

I managed to get my ARUBA souvenir back in October of 19 during a port visit. Stunning island; I really enjoyed the old lighthouse at the north of the island. I also played the tourist part quite well and spent a few hours on a flamingo beach. Nice to get a souvenir for it!

 

We were there in '18 on a cruise.  We were suppose to do the Eastern Caribbean but this was just after the two big hurricanes that decimated those islands, so they sent us to Southern Caribbean.  I found it interesting that the ABC Islands are about 15 miles off of Venezuela (South America) but are not counted as part of South America.  Cool to get a new souvenir!

 

ETA:  a "not" that changes the whole meaning of the sentence. 

Edited by The Jester
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1 hour ago, The Jester said:

We were there in '18 on a cruise.  We were suppose to do the Eastern Caribbean but this was just after the two big hurricanes that decimated those islands, so they sent us to Southern Caribbean.  I found it interesting that the ABC Islands are about 15 miles off of Venezuela (South America) but are counted as part of South America.  Cool to get a new souvenir!

 

Those islands are also fairly close to the Conch Shell Horn cache,  placed in July 2001 and never been found (and still active).  

 

There are thousands of islands in the Caribbean and 26 countries.  The only one I've ever visited is Cuba.

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1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

GC8M1K7

I found a cache on diplomatic property today. What a shame I can't include that in my country collection :laughing:.

That's funny! So close, yet so far :signalviolin:

 

Nothing happening here. Basically I'm mopping up Dutch municipalities per bike or on foot. I have enough trips from 14-100km planned to cover most good weather for the rest of the year. And this way you get to see interesting things as well.

IMG_2311.jpg

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6 minutes ago, terratin said:

That's funny! So close, yet so far :signalviolin:

 

Nothing happening here. Basically I'm mopping up Dutch municipalities per bike or on foot. I have enough trips from 14-100km planned to cover most good weather for the rest of the year. And this way you get to see interesting things as well.

IMG_2311.jpg

I am restricted in my travels at present, as I am caring for my mother.

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On 4/29/2021 at 9:01 AM, Goldenwattle said:

I am restricted in my travels at present, as I am caring for my mother.

 

I might not ever find another cache in a new country for me, for several reasons;

 

  1. My job used to take me to all sorts of places but they're not doing international project as much as they used to.  I'm still working on a project occasionally for an organization in Kenya but there's no more travel involved.  
  2. I've had some health issues that have limited the amount of travel I can do.
  3. Covid.  
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On 6/2/2021 at 3:18 PM, Seadog6608 said:

British Indian Ocean Territories

 

I was just talking about Diego Garcia at work this morning. I'd love to visit there and snag some caches. 

 

I should be adding Cuba this year, finally.

Edited by hzoi
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I have two new locations planned for this year, both in Europe and both not EU. Not sure though if it will work out. All booking is flexible, and I got the shots and them registered in any way possible (not sure if someone followed the yellow vaccination book drama in the Netherlands)

The first is quickly coming closer and is cold, yet hot

The second is likely rather hot, yet also cold

:antenna:

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30 minutes ago, FrostedBroccoli said:

I was in Jamaica and Ireland/Northern Ireland before I started caching. I'm not sure if Jamaica has a souvenir, but I know Ireland and the UK have one so, I do feel kinda bad that I missed out on them. 

There's quite a few countries that I don't have geocaching souvenirs for, as I wasn't caching then.

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10 hours ago, FrostedBroccoli said:

I was in Jamaica and Ireland/Northern Ireland before I started caching. I'm not sure if Jamaica has a souvenir, but I know Ireland and the UK have one so, I do feel kinda bad that I missed out on them. 

I have found caches in 41 countries, 9 don't yet have souvenirs.

 

I also lived in or visited  well over 20 countries before caching;  that's the frustrating bit :mad:

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11 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

I have found caches in 41 countries, 9 don't yet have souvenirs.

 

I also lived in or visited  well over 20 countries before caching;  that's the frustrating bit :mad:

 

I'm with you guys. The souvenirs are cool, and I do collect them (meaning: I hide all other souvenirs), but I'm sure more will be released eventually. Not worried. There are a few countries that I visited before, and even while caching where I didn't go to search for a cache. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are two. And Andorra, Bahamas. I think I caught up with all others by now. Oh well.. one day.

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I also have 3 countries visited since caching where I didn't search

 

Hong Kong - we were never there long enough, always just passing through

Brunei - our day trip was too regulated and we never got within several Km of a cache

Bosnia and Herzegovina - we passed through it twice since it cuts Croatia into two halves, but there was no cache near the customs posts

Edited by Gill & Tony
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31 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I also have 3 countries visited since caching where I didn't search

 

Hong Kong - we were never there long enough, always just passing through

Brunei - our day trip was too regulated and we never got within several Km of a cache

Bosnia and Herzegovina - we passed through it twice since it cuts Croatia into two halves, but there was no cache near the customs posts

 Oh, China! I totally forgot that one as well. Oh well... maybe one day.

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12 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

My last country before the shut down was Papua New Guinea. One cache. I was on a cruise which arrived back in Sydney on 2nd March.

We were supposed to do a 28-day round Australia cruise out of Sydney.  We got as far as Melbourne then about 4am, on the way to Burnie, we were woken up to the news that the trip was being cancelled.  We did Burnie and Hobart and then spent 4 days getting back to Sydney as there was no berth for the ship before that.  We disembarked, with no special precautions, the day before Ruby Princess returned!

 

I still don't have SA or WA souvenirs :mad:

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16 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I still don't have SA or WA souvenirs :mad:

 

In my eight and a bit years of caching, I still only have NSW, Queensland from a short winter-escape holiday in 2019, and New Zealand from when I attended a wedding there in 2014. At the beginning of last year I was putting together plans for a driving holiday through Victoria to tour the Great Ocean Road, but not much chance of that happening for a while yet. I suppose I should at least make the effort to visit the ACT sometime and sample some Goldenwattle caches :).

Edited by barefootjeff
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36 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

I should at least make the effort to visit the ACT sometime and sample some Goldenwattle caches :).

These are the favourite caches of mine:

Narrabundah Small Library HOTELGC847R1

Do take lots of trackables back with you to release elsewhere; even ALL of them. I don't mind, as it makes room for new ones. Just log them all, as I'm sure you would :).

 

Red Hill GC4CB12 extra hint, "X marks the spot"

 

Guarded GC7AWYW You will see a certain theme between the last two.

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21 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

These are the favourite caches of mine:

Narrabundah Small Library HOTELGC847R1

Do take lots of trackables back with you to release elsewhere; even ALL of them. I don't mind, as it makes room for new ones. Just log them all, as I'm sure you would :).

 

Red Hill GC4CB12 extra hint, "X marks the spot"

 

Guarded GC7AWYW You will see a certain theme between the last two.

 

Thanks, will do, though I'll probably wait until the weather's a bit warmer.

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