+Andromeda321 Posted August 3, 2013 Share Posted August 3, 2013 IRC it was a 7 hour flight Tokyo-Bangkok so might be a little more than 4 hours from Seoul, but hey if you're already over there totally worth it! Not a real caching emphasis on this trip- on a boat too busy being lazy!- but did get 4 in Croatia and nabbed one today in Montenegro. Hooray! Alas flying home tomorrow, but Greece will be on the agenda for September as I was assigned a talk at the conference I was previously only maybe going to. Will need to do a lot of work before going to get that one. Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 Not a real caching emphasis on this trip- on a boat too busy being lazy!- but did get 4 in Croatia and nabbed one today in Montenegro. Hooray! Cool. Hope you enjoyed Dubrovnik. There are a few more caches in that area now, but I'm surprised that the area is still pretty cache-light. My favorite was Ragvsevm, which back then required a hike all the way up the hill/mountain. The trip is much easier these days now that the cable car is running again. How long did it take you to get across the border to Montenegro? When we were there in 2009, I was led to believe that the crossing would take a while, so we opted to stay in Dubrovnik rather than going for Montenegro caches. Quote Link to comment
+Andromeda321 Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 Not a real caching emphasis on this trip- on a boat too busy being lazy!- but did get 4 in Croatia and nabbed one today in Montenegro. Hooray! Cool. Hope you enjoyed Dubrovnik. There are a few more caches in that area now, but I'm surprised that the area is still pretty cache-light. My favorite was Ragvsevm, which back then required a hike all the way up the hill/mountain. The trip is much easier these days now that the cable car is running again. How long did it take you to get across the border to Montenegro? When we were there in 2009, I was led to believe that the crossing would take a while, so we opted to stay in Dubrovnik rather than going for Montenegro caches. D'oh- somehow my geo-senses never thought to check if there were caches at the top of the cable car! I think it's because I did my research online before going to Croatia and like you was last there in 2009, so was very pleasantly surprised to find the cable car working (and is super awesome). Looks like they finally opened it the summer of 2010, and they did a great job of it, which certainly beats the abandoned broken one from the war era... It turns out we really lucked out at the border to Montenegro as yes, this past Saturday it was a 2.5km wait and took one bus 1hr40min to go through but our guide and driver took the risk to take our mini-bus through a crossing point on a minor road that technically was only open to cars (ie non-commercial vehicles). Which our small tour group technically wasn't, of course, but there was no wait at all there so they just waved us all through... so if anyone is in Dubrovnik and has their own car that's definitely how I'd do it! Btw I was also super impressed by the fact that there is an amazing airport cache at the Dubrovnik airport, an Earthcache for a giant cave you can access that is right below the runway! (Gotta love old Commie planning!) Never would've known it was there otherwise and a classic example of what geocaching is about: "oh, delayed flight in a boring airport? how about you spend the time discovering a GIANT CAVE UNDER THE RUNWAY instead?!" Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 Btw I was also super impressed by the fact that there is an amazing airport cache at the Dubrovnik airport, an Earthcache for a giant cave you can access that is right below the runway! (Gotta love old Commie planning!) Never would've known it was there otherwise and a classic example of what geocaching is about: "oh, delayed flight in a boring airport? how about you spend the time discovering a GIANT CAVE UNDER THE RUNWAY instead?!" Say, perhaps I should add that to the layover list. Thanks! Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Btw I was also super impressed by the fact that there is an amazing airport cache at the Dubrovnik airport, an Earthcache for a giant cave you can access that is right below the runway! (Gotta love old Commie planning!) Never would've known it was there otherwise and a classic example of what geocaching is about: "oh, delayed flight in a boring airport? how about you spend the time discovering a GIANT CAVE UNDER THE RUNWAY instead?!" Say, perhaps I should add that to the layover list. Thanks! Definitely, although I suspect that Dubrovnik probably isn't used as layover city that often unless you're going to be getting on a small plane to some other part of Croatia. Croatia is high on my list of countries I'd like to visit for a vacation, especially if I could combine it with a business trip to Rome. The fact that my wife is Croatian would increase the likelihood of going there. On the other hand, we're probably going to be making an offer on a upper Delaware riverfront vacation home today and if we get it that might make European vacations harder to justify. On the other other hand, if we get it, there's a small island accessible by kayak, canoe, or float tube that I could walk to from the property during normal water levels where I could place a cache. Quote Link to comment
+Geo Bana Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 (edited) Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty I think we qualify for a challenge with that. Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible). Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course. Mr. Terratin solved the three mysteries in VCS, thus I'm not sure how difficult they were. They are mostly placed a bit outside the usual tourist routes. The traditional is very easy to pick up and you don't need to queue to get it as it's placed outside the State walls (still on VCS territory if I can trust google maps). On the way to it you could pick up the one about the Vatican railway. Quite funny when you realize they do actually have a railway line. Need to check what the country challenge is. It's certainly in Denmark somewhere. Mrs. Terratin I was recently in Europe for 3 weeks & collected 7 countries. However, only 6 country souvenirs show on my profile page...I did not receive one from Italy - anyone know the reason why? Edited August 6, 2013 by Geo Bana Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty I think we qualify for a challenge with that. Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible). Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course. Mr. Terratin solved the three mysteries in VCS, thus I'm not sure how difficult they were. They are mostly placed a bit outside the usual tourist routes. The traditional is very easy to pick up and you don't need to queue to get it as it's placed outside the State walls (still on VCS territory if I can trust google maps). On the way to it you could pick up the one about the Vatican railway. Quite funny when you realize they do actually have a railway line. Need to check what the country challenge is. It's certainly in Denmark somewhere. Mrs. Terratin I was recently in Europe for 3 weeks & collected 7 countries. However, only 6 country souvenirs show on my profile page...I did not receive one from Italy - anyone know the reason why? Groundspeak has only released souvenir from a few selected countries, generally those which have the highest number of caches. Italy, Belgium, and several other European countries did not make the cut. Only 2 Asian countries (Japan and South Korea) and one African country (South Africa) got souvenirs for those continents. There were no country souvenirs at all for South America, Central America, or any of the Caribbean island. There's a Continue Releasing country based souvenirs in the Feature Suggestion forum with a lot of support but so far it's fallen on deaf ears. Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 Btw I was also super impressed by the fact that there is an amazing airport cache at the Dubrovnik airport, an Earthcache for a giant cave you can access that is right below the runway! (Gotta love old Commie planning!) Never would've known it was there otherwise and a classic example of what geocaching is about: "oh, delayed flight in a boring airport? how about you spend the time discovering a GIANT CAVE UNDER THE RUNWAY instead?!" Say, perhaps I should add that to the layover list. Thanks! Definitely, although I suspect that Dubrovnik probably isn't used as layover city that often unless you're going to be getting on a small plane to some other part of Croatia. It seems I anticipated your argument, as I renamed it Layover/Airport Caches Around the World. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 Btw I was also super impressed by the fact that there is an amazing airport cache at the Dubrovnik airport, an Earthcache for a giant cave you can access that is right below the runway! (Gotta love old Commie planning!) Never would've known it was there otherwise and a classic example of what geocaching is about: "oh, delayed flight in a boring airport? how about you spend the time discovering a GIANT CAVE UNDER THE RUNWAY instead?!" Say, perhaps I should add that to the layover list. Thanks! Definitely, although I suspect that Dubrovnik probably isn't used as layover city that often unless you're going to be getting on a small plane to some other part of Croatia. It seems I anticipated your argument, as I renamed it Layover/Airport Caches Around the World. And I see you've already added the cache to your list. Thanks for maintaining that list, by the way. It's really useful. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted August 16, 2013 Author Share Posted August 16, 2013 We had our trip to the Faroe Islands over the last few days. What a caching experience! Our first caches in a maritime subarctic climate, which basically meant a variety of drizzle, rain, horizontal rain, condensating mist so thick you could not see your feet anymore, and sun all on pretty much every day at modest 12 degrees C For some caches it just meant the one with the better rain gear had to dash out of the car (that was me in case you wondered), but we also did some small hikes. At some places we still don't know what the landscape was supposed to look like, but generally it was stunning and spectacular. We also managed to get 6 FTF, 5 of which were published over a month ago. Here in Copenhagen a FTF goes within 10 minutes of publication. Quite a difference I would say I certainly don't mind visiting more very northern places. Quote Link to comment
+Oxford Stone Posted August 16, 2013 Share Posted August 16, 2013 Sounds amazing, Terratin! I was in Italy last week and Switzerland was only 12 miles away so of course popped over for a day. Couple of caches (one in a railway station - can't imagine that getting allowe din the UK, bomb scares and so on!), visit to a chocolate factory and back again. I'm one of many people who thinks "if only I was caching when I visited..." (Macedonia, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, NL, Spain, Denmark, Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, Brazil, Hungary, Austria), but the day will come. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted August 27, 2013 Author Share Posted August 27, 2013 Little update now that we're back from Vilnius/Lithuania: lovely city for two days, some really creative cache hides (we might not have understood one and had to log a not found). Food, landscape and architecture remind me of a wild mix between Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (not surprising). We also went to visit the currently official centre of Europe and a lovely national park nearby. Must say that this long weekend trip is very doable without being too stressful. We'll certainly repeat it somewhere else. mrs. terratin Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 We had our trip to the Faroe Islands over the last few days. What a caching experience! Our first caches in a maritime subarctic climate, which basically meant a variety of drizzle, rain, horizontal rain, condensating mist so thick you could not see your feet anymore, and sun all on pretty much every day at modest 12 degrees C For some caches it just meant the one with the better rain gear had to dash out of the car (that was me in case you wondered), but we also did some small hikes. At some places we still don't know what the landscape was supposed to look like, but generally it was stunning and spectacular. We also managed to get 6 FTF, 5 of which were published over a month ago. Here in Copenhagen a FTF goes within 10 minutes of publication. Quite a difference I would say I certainly don't mind visiting more very northern places. Nice! Reminds me of our trip to Iceland. Except the FTF part -- the only newer cache that had waited for us to be the first finders required a crawl in a small lava tube. Still worth it! I'm one of many people who thinks "if only I was caching when I visited..." (Macedonia, Slovenia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, NL, Spain, Denmark, Israel, Cyprus, Egypt, Brazil, Hungary, Austria), but the day will come. I have a similar list, but mine is Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, and I could live without the day coming for a return visit. We'll see how it goes. Little update now that we're back from Vilnius/Lithuania: lovely city for two days, some really creative cache hides (we might not have understood one and had to log a not found). Food, landscape and architecture remind me of a wild mix between Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (not surprising). We also went to visit the currently official centre of Europe and a lovely national park nearby. Must say that this long weekend trip is very doable without being too stressful. We'll certainly repeat it somewhere else. Excellent. We had the three former Soviet satellites on the Baltic on our list, we managed to get to Estonia before we left Europe. Pretty easy to get to Tallinn for a day trip if you take a fast catamaran from Helsinki. Quote Link to comment
+Ambrosia Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 A couple people replied to me on the first page, and I never answered back. I have enjoyed following this thread, though. We've had a lot of time this year to travel. We spent a month in India/UAE/Oman this spring, and did a big road trip this summer, that mainly focused around Texas this summer for 11 weeks. Almost our whole family was working at a summer camp in Texas. My husband was boat director, my son was a floater, and I was the camp photographer and taught photography and geocaching. Managed to add 3 countries, and 4 states. I hope to add 1 more state in the fall. Quote Link to comment
+Mirage Breton Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 I'm a "country collector" as well except I don't do it on purpose... Well, a little bit... Most of my caching is far away from home because of work and I confess to choosing holiday destinations that also have a "caching interest". I'm down to 34 countries so far (and a few US States) and still have most of Europe to visit. Actually, I've been to many EU countries but wasn't a geocacher then (like some of you already mentioned in this thread) Because I return to previous destinations, I now notice when new geocaches have sprung up near my hotel... Makes me feel like I don't spend enough time at home! LOL! Geocaching abroad is great because the listings are different, the containers are not always the same, the difficulty relates to the degree of "geocaching maturity" of the country. A "difficulty 3" in the States will be tougher than a "difficulty 3" in Argentina. Sometime I pick ideas in other countries to hide my own caches back home. Hoping to add more countries in the near future! (off to Cairo tomorrow but for some unknown reasons I'll pass out on geocaching this time) Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 I'm a "country collector" as well except I don't do it on purpose... Well, a little bit... Most of my caching is far away from home because of work and I confess to choosing holiday destinations that also have a "caching interest". I'm down to 34 countries so far (and a few US States) and still have most of Europe to visit. Actually, I've been to many EU countries but wasn't a geocacher then (like some of you already mentioned in this thread) Because I return to previous destinations, I now notice when new geocaches have sprung up near my hotel... Makes me feel like I don't spend enough time at home! LOL! Geocaching abroad is great because the listings are different, the containers are not always the same, the difficulty relates to the degree of "geocaching maturity" of the country. A "difficulty 3" in the States will be tougher than a "difficulty 3" in Argentina. Sometime I pick ideas in other countries to hide my own caches back home. Hoping to add more countries in the near future! (off to Cairo tomorrow but for some unknown reasons I'll pass out on geocaching this time) Out of curiosity, what do you do that brings you to so many different countries? I work for an agriculture library (one of the largest Ag libraries in the world) as a programmer and systems architect. I do a lot of work with international agriculture information systems with such organizations at the Food And Agricultural Organization of the UN, and various other international communities. I've been to Africa five times and have two possible trips back there over the next few months. . I've been doing some planning for one of them and a layover in Cairo is the least expensive option but I'll probably try to find another less volatile option. I've also seen changes in the local caching in some of the places I've visited. When I first went to Ethiopia there were only 4 caches in the country (two had never been, and still have not been found). I was there a couple of years later and it increased to a whopping 18 caches. I have often chosen which hotel I stay in based on proximity to local caches. Quote Link to comment
+Andromeda321 Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Well guys, this time next week I oughta be adding Greece for #30! Interesting thing is I'm attending a conference in Santorini which has all of 11 geocaches on it (then heading a few days to Ios nearby which has no caches at all), and I'm not sure yet if I'm leaving the airport in Athens as I'm not sure if one can do anything interesting in a 5 hour layover. Luckily the conference excursion is to go to the Santorini volcano so guess I'm getting two caches in Greece at least... I expect the number of countries to stay the same awhile after that, as the next few jaunts are going to be to places I already have (pity Canary Islands don't count as separate from Spain like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands do, as it'd be nice to get a new one on the Africa map). Frankly 20 of my countries are now in Europe so it takes a bit more planning to get a new one... though I've also noticed it's kind of fun to see how many caches you can get in a country you don't live in. Btw I'm hoping my next new country will be Russia as a close family friend is hoping to be an athlete. Curiously I think the most difficult thing there would be finding a cache in Sochi, as there is only an Earthcache 5mi from town and the nearest physical one is 70mi away! (I guess any geocaching Olympic participants will need to set up an event cache if they want Russia...) Quote Link to comment
+Mirage Breton Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Maybe you should try Moscow! I just saw there's a Wherigo cache at the Kremlin! 'Would love to try that one! )) Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted September 9, 2013 Share Posted September 9, 2013 Well guys, this time next week I oughta be adding Greece for #30! Interesting thing is I'm attending a conference in Santorini which has all of 11 geocaches on it (then heading a few days to Ios nearby which has no caches at all), and I'm not sure yet if I'm leaving the airport in Athens as I'm not sure if one can do anything interesting in a 5 hour layover. Luckily the conference excursion is to go to the Santorini volcano so guess I'm getting two caches in Greece at least... I expect the number of countries to stay the same awhile after that, as the next few jaunts are going to be to places I already have (pity Canary Islands don't count as separate from Spain like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands do, as it'd be nice to get a new one on the Africa map). Frankly 20 of my countries are now in Europe so it takes a bit more planning to get a new one... though I've also noticed it's kind of fun to see how many caches you can get in a country you don't live in. Btw I'm hoping my next new country will be Russia as a close family friend is hoping to be an athlete. Curiously I think the most difficult thing there would be finding a cache in Sochi, as there is only an Earthcache 5mi from town and the nearest physical one is 70mi away! (I guess any geocaching Olympic participants will need to set up an event cache if they want Russia...) My countries have been split up pretty well on different continents with 8 in Europe, 5 in Asia, 4 in Africa, and the U.S. and Costa Rica (which is not generally considered to be on one of the seven continents). I'm guessing that there might be a few more caches placed in Sochi prior to the olympics. Coincidentally, I was just looking at some possible itineraries for a conference that I'd like to attend in November in Hamburg, Germany. The second least expensive option has a layover in Moscow (with a ~20 hour layover). Of course, I'd have to pay for a visa (which would likely cost about $175 US) but it might be my only opportunity to get a cache in Russia. I much less expensive itinerary would have a 21 hours layover in Lisbon, Portugal and a slightly more expensive option would have a fairly long layover in Copenhagen. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted September 9, 2013 Author Share Posted September 9, 2013 In Copenhagen you can take the metro train downtown. Takes about 20 minutes or less. It's a lovely place and compact enough for some sightseeing. Though Moscow is really the option I personally would chose. It will look so impressive on the stat map Nothing planned here. We'll be visiting Turkey for our summer vacation soon, but I already picked up a cache in Istanbul last year - before I sat for hours at the airport in Baku without being able to get out and then flew back due to visum problems at my destination Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 In Copenhagen you can take the metro train downtown. Takes about 20 minutes or less. It's a lovely place and compact enough for some sightseeing. Though Moscow is really the option I personally would chose. It will look so impressive on the stat map Nothing planned here. We'll be visiting Turkey for our summer vacation soon, but I already picked up a cache in Istanbul last year - before I sat for hours at the airport in Baku without being able to get out and then flew back due to visum problems at my destination Coloring in a portion of the map the size of Russia would definitely look better than coloring in Singapore. I'd probably be more likely to travel through Copenhagen than Moscow on some other trip so I'd probably opt for Moscow as well. Of course, it's a bit academic as I haven't been getting much in the way of managerial support to go to the conference. The metro train at Istanbul airport was pretty easy to deal with as well and an 11 hour layover gave me plenty of time to find a few caches. I had to lookup Baku...that would be a good country to get as well. Quote Link to comment
+Andromeda321 Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 Got country #30! Pretty intense hike during lunch at the conference today to get it though- half hour from conference center, then 309 steps down/back to the geological formation where the cache is. I'm still exhausted just thinking about it cause I was an idiot who didn't take enough water. Got two more I'm getting tomorrow but that otherwise may well be it for Greece. dadgum, guess I just have to spend the rest of the conference enjoying Santorini. (Oh, and for Copehenhagen there are actually several caches at the airport- and Sweden really isn't too far. So if one had several hours and the sole interest in getting caches, it's probably doable to get two!) Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 Got country #30! Pretty intense hike during lunch at the conference today to get it though- half hour from conference center, then 309 steps down/back to the geological formation where the cache is. I'm still exhausted just thinking about it cause I was an idiot who didn't take enough water. Got two more I'm getting tomorrow but that otherwise may well be it for Greece. dadgum, guess I just have to spend the rest of the conference enjoying Santorini. (Oh, and for Copehenhagen there are actually several caches at the airport- and Sweden really isn't too far. So if one had several hours and the sole interest in getting caches, it's probably doable to get two!) Congrats on #30. That's a great milestone. My next will be #20. Finding a cache while attending a conference can be interesting. My first finds in Italy were in 2007 when there were not a lot of caches, and very few that were big enough to hold a TB. I had brought some TBs with me that I wanted to drop and saw a cache listing for a "small" that was about a mile from where I was attending a conference. I took a long lunch, and dressed in casual business attire and my laptop bag on my back I went off to find it. Now, on the cache listing there was a warning about not climbing over a small fence as there was noticeable damage to the fence from people climbing over it. So I took the lower route as many others had mentioned which involved climbing about 100 feet up a very steep, leaf covered, pricker bush full hill. I finally was able to reach the cache, did a little swag trading, dropped in the TBs (it was a larger "small" container), and signed the log book. I started to look for an easier route to go back down when I heard someone about 15 feet away ask me, in Italian, if I was okay. When I didn't answer he asked again, in English. I said I was fine and he said, "there's a place over here where the fence is knocked down where you can climb over". Rather than raise suspicions I went and, despite the warnings on the web site, climbed over the fence. I must of looked rather strange in business attire, a laptop bag on my back, and leaves in my hair because he didn't stay around long to chat. I made may way out of the park by following a paved trail and eventually back to my conference. There are several possible options if I get to go to a conference in Germany in November. One has a short layover in Copenhagen and Oslo. Another would go through Lisbon, but the most intriguing is an itinerary that goes through Moscow. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted September 18, 2013 Author Share Posted September 18, 2013 Got country #30! Pretty intense hike during lunch at the conference today to get it though- half hour from conference center, then 309 steps down/back to the geological formation where the cache is. I'm still exhausted just thinking about it cause I was an idiot who didn't take enough water. Got two more I'm getting tomorrow but that otherwise may well be it for Greece. dadgum, guess I just have to spend the rest of the conference enjoying Santorini. (Oh, and for Copehenhagen there are actually several caches at the airport- and Sweden really isn't too far. So if one had several hours and the sole interest in getting caches, it's probably doable to get two!) Congratulations! Well done. Yes, there's a commuter train going from the airport all the way to Malmoe in Sweden. I've never checked how often, but it might be possible to do on a longer layover - if you have the nerves for it Mrs. Terratin Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted September 30, 2013 Share Posted September 30, 2013 I've pretty much been given the go ahead to start planning to attend a conference in Hamburg at the end of November. I had previously identified a few possible itineraries and the least expensive I'd found had a layover in Moscow (about 20 hours on the way home). Another, slightly more expensive option would be on TAP Portugal through Lisbon and I would have scheduled an overnight layover for that. For the most new countries I could fly SAS through Copenhagen and one of the itineraries had short (but possibly long enough to grab a quick cache) layovers in Copenhagen, Oslo, and a brief stop in Stockholm). That would have given me three new countries. All of those flights were through a NYC airport which typically is much less than if I fly from my home airport. When I checked this morning the best airfare I could find actually departed from my local airport and would have either a layover in Amsterdam or Paris. I've already found caches in both countries, but because travel funds are so tight I might have to go the cheapest route rather than add Russia, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, or Sweden to my country collection. Quote Link to comment
+Oxford Stone Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 (edited) Portugal 31 Oct - 3 Nov. Lisbon looks cache-tastic but will just be happy to get one. Will be OS Junior's furthest S & W (mine are in Vegas. dam those sales conferences!) Edited October 1, 2013 by Oxford Stone Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 Portugal 31 Oct - 3 Nov. Lisbon looks cache-tastic but will just be happy to get one. Will be OS Junior's furthest S & W (mine are in Vegas. dam those sales conferences!) The guy that is organizing the conference that I'm going to attend (I previously met him in Malaysia) recently got back from a conference in Lisbon. He's not a geocacher but said that it's a wonderful city. All of the flights to Hamburg from my local airport went up about $200 last night so now there are lots of options that are less expensive if I fly out of NYC. I live about 220 miles from NYC but we're in the process of buying a vacation home (on the Delaware river) that is about half way so a departure out of NYC wouldn't be too bad. After that Malaysia trip my furthest N/S/E/W and furthest caches were all distinct caches and the N/S/E/W caches are all on different continents. Quote Link to comment
+redsox_mark Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 I like Lisbon a lot. Friendly people, great food, interesting architecture and natural features. And lots of caches. Most of the caching I've done is around the Parque das Nações, as that is where I go on business. But there are caches around the city centre too. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 I like Lisbon a lot. Friendly people, great food, interesting architecture and natural features. And lots of caches. Most of the caching I've done is around the Parque das Nações, as that is where I go on business. But there are caches around the city centre too. I went with the Copenhagen flight. It has close to a 4 hours layover in Oslo on the way there and almost a five hour layover in Copenhagen on the way home. It looks like there are *lots* of caches near the Copenhagen airport but only a few near Oslo. Hopefully I'll have time to grab at least one in Oslo on the way. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted October 8, 2013 Author Share Posted October 8, 2013 Lisbon is on our caching destination list as well, even though we already cached in Portugal (Madeira, and a cache at the airport in Lisbon). The reason is the enormous amount of EarthCaches all around Lisbon! We could do about 70 during a trip Yes, it's not about the numbers, but if most of them have some half-interesting geology to see then it's worth for me, being a geologist. Anyway, summer vacation in Turkey is over. We got 24 caches, and a new Turkish region Downside is: we liked it so much we will probably return to a different region at some time in the future if we find another beautiful place without mass tourism and lots to see, thus not getting a new country instead. Oh well... Mrs. Terratin. Quote Link to comment
+Andromeda321 Posted October 9, 2013 Share Posted October 9, 2013 Another one agreeing that Lisbon is a cool city- I was there for a weekend on a cheap fare. Though if I did that weekend again I'd base myself in Sintra instead- sooo many pretty castles! Regarding Copenhagen, 5 hours is definitely enough to get Denmark- train station is right at the airport and it's like 15min to the city center. Or maybe a half hour from Malmo, Sweden if you really just want the numbers (there's an Earthcache you can do on the train over that counts as Denmark!), but honestly I think Copenhagen is pretty enough it'd be a shame to not go and walk around a little. Also for the record I got my first Canary Islands cache today, here on an observing run and someone's hidden one right next to our observatory. Though it doesn't count as its own "country" despite being well over a thousand miles from Spain. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 9, 2013 Share Posted October 9, 2013 Another one agreeing that Lisbon is a cool city- I was there for a weekend on a cheap fare. Though if I did that weekend again I'd base myself in Sintra instead- sooo many pretty castles! Regarding Copenhagen, 5 hours is definitely enough to get Denmark- train station is right at the airport and it's like 15min to the city center. Or maybe a half hour from Malmo, Sweden if you really just want the numbers (there's an Earthcache you can do on the train over that counts as Denmark!), but honestly I think Copenhagen is pretty enough it'd be a shame to not go and walk around a little. Also for the record I got my first Canary Islands cache today, here on an observing run and someone's hidden one right next to our observatory. Though it doesn't count as its own "country" despite being well over a thousand miles from Spain. I'll Sweden is a half an hour by train you say? That would probably give me enough time to take the train to Sweden, grab a few caches, then grab a couple in Copenhagen near the airport. I;ll have to see how I feel after flying from NYC to Oslo, the to Copenhagen. I was thinking of scheduling an overnight layover in Copenhagen so I'd have more time there but my travel budget is really tight. Then I found out a couple of days ago that I got a grant that is going to cover my hotel expenses while I'm in Hamburg so I probably should have booked the itinerary with an overnight stay. I'm sure that this won't be my last trip to Europe and will keep Lisbon high on my list of layover cities. Quote Link to comment
+Oxford Stone Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundet%C3%A5rn was somewhere we enjoyed in Copenhagen. Yes, need to get those Lisbon caches stored! Will definitely go to Parque das Nacoes. Quote Link to comment
+Michaelcycle Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Not sure how I missed this thread as I love to "collect" countries. Maybe I thought I already posted to it because NYPC and I have communicated privately about the topic. Anyway we got to #20 this year as last month we bagged over 40 caches in Iceland. This spring we spent three weeks traveling and covered over 2,000 miles and added ONE country: China. We still have about 15 countries to return to that we visited pre-caching but with so many places yet to visit it is hard to justify returning to New Zealand when we haven't been to Scandinavia for example (we loved NZ, spent 12 days biking the South Island) Next month we will spend our anniversary on an tropical island country where we have never been. We'll make time for a few caches... Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted October 10, 2013 Author Share Posted October 10, 2013 Hello there, Michael. You've got an amazing spread of countries on your profile! Mrs. Terratin Quote Link to comment
+Michaelcycle Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Hello there, Michael. You've got an amazing spread of countries on your profile! Mrs. Terratin Three of them were business related, the rest were places we just wanted to visit (and with few exceptions, bicycle.) Susancycle has been to every continent but Antarctica, we have that on the "list" Maybe next year. Quote Link to comment
+Harry Dolphin Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Congrats to FunnyNose for his find today in Uruguay. His 45th country with a find! Quote Link to comment
+morrisminor72 Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 I have recently added Korea and Uzbekistan to my "countries cached in" map. It's such a thrill! I am a bit cross I didn't start GCing until 2010, because I have been to Antarctica, Germany, Argentina, Chile, UK, Outer Hebrides, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa - but all pre caching. Since caching I have managed to not cache in South Africa and Namibia - just couldn't get close to the caches due to time constraints. I very nearly didn't find a cache in Korea. I am not used to city caching and the big buildings in Seoul had me running around in circles. But I found one! My next trip is going to be based on the "Thing" series - Orkney, Shetland and Faroe Islands, UK and Scotland, maybe Denmark and Iceland if I don't run out of time. Can't wait! Quote Link to comment
+Mirage Breton Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 I'm off to try and find a cache in my 36th country... Off to the Bat Cave, um, sorry, the Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur! Will let you know if I made it... Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted October 12, 2013 Author Share Posted October 12, 2013 Also congratulations to FunnyNose! 45 is an amazing number. I have one more business trip coming up this year. Unfortunately to a country I've been to before and with dito stopovers if the booking lady really thinks the direct flights are too expensive. Quote Link to comment
Glory Hunters Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 (edited) I am a bit cross I didn't start GCing until 2010 (...) I think that happens to all of us it's such a pity, but also an excuse to come back to those countries! According to my stats, this year I have geocached in seven new countries (Serbia -in fact, Kosovo-, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, UK and Switzerland) which added to the previous ones (Spain, France, USA and Poland) adds up to 11 countries. Can't complain When Catalonia becomes and independent country I will have 12! Plans for next year include reaching 20 countries... we will see (my real Geocaching username is Arnàutil, but it won't let me post in the forums because of the "à"...) Edited October 12, 2013 by Glory Hunters Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 I'm off to try and find a cache in my 36th country... Off to the Bat Cave, um, sorry, the Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur! Will let you know if I made it... Good luck. I haven't been to KL but I spent almost a week on the island portion of Malaysia in Kuching. I found three caches, including getting a FTF that was about 9400 miles from home. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 Also congratulations to FunnyNose! 45 is an amazing number. I have one more business trip coming up this year. Unfortunately to a country I've been to before and with dito stopovers if the booking lady really thinks the direct flights are too expensive. I think FunnyNose is near the top of the list in terms of countries found. I have just one more trip this year as well at the end of November. Although my final destination will be Germany, I might be able to get up to three new countries during layovers. Next year I'll be going back to Africa for at least one, possibly two trips. Both trip would take me to countries I've already visited although adding Uganda is a possibility. I just found out yesterday that a we should be getting a formal announcement of the awarding of a fairly large grant for a project on which I am the technical lead. There was already travel for me for one trip to South Africa and Tanzania written into the grant and there might be one other trip. I'll also most likely travel to Washington state (where I have not yet found a cache) at least once next year. I actually did very little international travel before I started geocaching and ironically that was to Canada (several times) and Mexico (twice) and even though they're my neighboring countries I haven't yet found a cache in either of them. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted October 12, 2013 Author Share Posted October 12, 2013 I am a bit cross I didn't start GCing until 2010 (...) I think that happens to all of us it's such a pity, but also an excuse to come back to those countries! According to my stats, this year I have geocached in seven new countries (Serbia -in fact, Kosovo-, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, UK and Switzerland) which added to the previous ones (Spain, France, USA and Poland) adds up to 11 countries. Can't complain When Catalonia becomes and independent country I will have 12! Plans for next year include reaching 20 countries... we will see (my real Geocaching username is Arnàutil, but it won't let me post in the forums because of the "à"...) Wow, that's a lot of traveling you did this year. Will Catalonia become an independent country? If so then there's only the question of when it will be implemented here :ph34r: Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries Quote Link to comment
Glory Hunters Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 I am a bit cross I didn't start GCing until 2010 (...) I think that happens to all of us it's such a pity, but also an excuse to come back to those countries! According to my stats, this year I have geocached in seven new countries (Serbia -in fact, Kosovo-, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, UK and Switzerland) which added to the previous ones (Spain, France, USA and Poland) adds up to 11 countries. Can't complain When Catalonia becomes and independent country I will have 12! Plans for next year include reaching 20 countries... we will see (my real Geocaching username is Arnàutil, but it won't let me post in the forums because of the "à"...) Wow, that's a lot of traveling you did this year. Will Catalonia become an independent country? If so then there's only the question of when it will be implemented here :ph34r: Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries Same than Scotland :-) but looks like there is a stronger majority in favour of the secession here. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence ) anyway here is not the place to discuss that... but it would be funny to have one country added without any effort Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 13, 2013 Share Posted October 13, 2013 I am a bit cross I didn't start GCing until 2010 (...) I think that happens to all of us it's such a pity, but also an excuse to come back to those countries! According to my stats, this year I have geocached in seven new countries (Serbia -in fact, Kosovo-, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, UK and Switzerland) which added to the previous ones (Spain, France, USA and Poland) adds up to 11 countries. Can't complain When Catalonia becomes and independent country I will have 12! Plans for next year include reaching 20 countries... we will see (my real Geocaching username is Arnàutil, but it won't let me post in the forums because of the "à"...) Wow, that's a lot of traveling you did this year. Will Catalonia become an independent country? If so then there's only the question of when it will be implemented here :ph34r: Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries Same than Scotland :-) but looks like there is a stronger majority in favour of the secession here. ( https://en.wikipedia...an_independence ) anyway here is not the place to discuss that... but it would be funny to have one country added without any effort When South Sudan split off GS was pretty quick to add it to their list of countries. There are a couple of caches in South Sudan that were placed in 2006 so presumably some people had finds in Sudan that changed to South Sudan. The only caches that I've found in "Spain" were in Barcelona so if Catalonia becomes an independent country I wouldn't get a country added. I wonder if they'd take away my Spain souvenir. Quote Link to comment
+Mirage Breton Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries What mess are you talking about? I might go to Saint Marteen in December, is there something I should know? Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries What mess are you talking about? I might go to Saint Marteen in December, is there something I should know? It depends on where you go in St. Martin. The Dutch side is listed as part of the Netherlands, while the French part is listed as St. Martin. Quote Link to comment
+terratin Posted October 16, 2013 Author Share Posted October 16, 2013 Just look at the mess with the Dutch Antilles and a few other countries What mess are you talking about? I might go to Saint Marteen in December, is there something I should know? It depends on where you go in St. Martin. The Dutch side is listed as part of the Netherlands, while the French part is listed as St. Martin. Kind of. Part of the 'Dutch' caches are listed as Netherlands Antilles which is wrong as they don't exist anymore as a country, others as St. Martin where Sint Maarten would be correct to use. The 'French' part is as far as I can see only listed as St. Martin. Quote Link to comment
+Mirage Breton Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 The French part being called Saint Martin (and not France) is proper because it is neither a French region nor a French "department". I don't know about the Netherlands though but it does seem odd that this part has two names. Quote Link to comment
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