collecting countries

[+terratin]

19 hours ago, Vooruit! said:

I couldn't resist, and booked a small trip (4 nights) to Sweden and Åland for the end of July. Hope to complete my Jasmer with GC4D.

 

Now if only they would hurry up with the vaccination passports 'n' stuff...

 

Know what you mean. Some certain not quite so young minister is really making a mess of things, starting by not providing a proof of vaccination. My vaccinations are registered in the yellow book, and my travel plans so far this year accept it.

[+terratin]

A new souvenir: Belize

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2021/06/new-country-souvenir-belize-with-geocache-of-the-week-the-blue-hole-half-moon-caye/

[+Vooruit!]

^^ would love to pick that one up during a full Central America roadtrip. *insert dream smiley*

[+terratin]

Iceland, from this evening! At least if my proof of vaccination gets accepted (yellow book, it should). Thanks government for making a massive mess out of things.

Plan is to stay in Grindavik for three nights, wait for end of quarantine sometime the next day and hopefully visit the active volcano along one of the hiking paths. Next day explore area and a second volcano visit on the second path (https://safetravel.is/eruption-in-reykjanes), part of golden circle and from then on hotel in Reykjavik, Thingvellir NP and whatever's left, Reykjavik and home. Lets see how this goes. Focus of course will be on EarthCaches.

[+hzoi]

A new souvenir: Cuba.

 

It's a work trip, but I've found three so far. I'm having to make an exception to my rule against community maintenance, as without it, there'd be no caches here. Or at least, only messes. Replaced one log, replaced a second cache entirely, and CITO'd out a third cache that had been archived years back but was still sitting, lidless, in the same pillbox since its last find four years ago.

[+ecanderson]

On 6/4/2021 at 9:18 AM, hzoi said:

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

Really?  All 4 of them?

Just curious.  How did you plan to get there?  East Coast Rotator?  You won't be flying United Polaris class on Patriot Express, that's for sure.

 

Have some equipment there for which I am responsible.  REALLY don't look forward to that trip.

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104594/ground-based-electro-optical-deep-space-surveillance/

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by ecanderson

[+terratin]

I just returned from a fantastic trip to Iceland, involving active volcano watching, glorious sunshine and fantastic landscapes, and dense, superwet fog. Fab caching overall. I can't upload photos because this *kitten* system doesn't tell me how small the images have to be, or whatever else is wrong other than throwing a -200 error at me. thus here a link: https://imgur.com/a/oLuDHjS

 

 

[+The Jester]

2 hours ago, terratin said:

I just returned from a fantastic trip to Iceland, involving active volcano watching, glorious sunshine and fantastic landscapes, and dense, superwet fog. Fab caching overall. I can't upload photos because this *kitten* system doesn't tell me how small the images have to be, or whatever else is wrong other than throwing a -200 error at me. thus here a link: https://imgur.com/a/oLuDHjS

 

 

 

Which waterfall is that in the first picture?  We missed that one on our trip a few years back, and I'd like to 'catch' it on our next trip.  Thanks.

[+terratin]

8 hours ago, The Jester said:

Which waterfall is that in the first picture?  We missed that one on our trip a few years back, and I'd like to 'catch' it on our next trip.  Thanks.

 

It's one of the super touristy things, on Snaefellsness, at Kirkjufell. I was lucky that the weather was so bad that nobody else was there. Otherwise there might have been masses of people.

[+The Jester]

29 minutes ago, terratin said:

 

It's one of the super touristy things, on Snaefellsness, at Kirkjufell. I was lucky that the weather was so bad that nobody else was there. Otherwise there might have been masses of people.

Thanks.  I'll add it to our list.

 

[+terratin]

No more Montenegro this year. It just got too complicated. At least I could cancel everything at no costs. I've just booked a last minute package deal to western mainland Greece though. Covid infections look low and there's ample opportunity for hiking without getting too close to other people. No new country though. Oh well...

[+terratin]

With a lot of luck and a covid test tonight I might be able to add Albania to my map tomorrow, coming from Greece. Tours to Albania are currently not going but I found an Albanian guide with car that will pick me up at the border. Borders are open, paperwork done. I asked guide for a test and will provide the same despite being vaccinated.

[+terratin]

Yes, all worked smoothly. Apart from picking up the cache right at the border. I simply forgot it on the way back. But anyway, I saw some truly amazing Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman ruins, and got two caches in Albania.

[+Vooruit!]

Just got back from visiting Sweden and Åland. Finally finished my Jasmer and a new souvenir, what more can you wish for? Oh yeah, and the trip itself was nice too. 

[+hzoi]

On 7/4/2021 at 4:09 PM, ecanderson said:

On 6/4/2021 at 11:18 AM, hzoi said:

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

Really?  All 4 of them?

 

I remember there being more the last time I checked. But apparently there were only a total of six published.

 

I met a cacher in Germany who went through on a C-5. Because the Galaxy kept breaking down, she got some caching layovers in places like BIOT.

 

Like Kwajalien, I wouldn't mind visiting. But not staying. I'll get enough time hanging out in cache-poor areas during my trips to Guantanamo.

[+Michaelcycle]

New county souvenir: Ecuador! I'm not doing any traveling but I am racking up some souvenirs from places we have cached in the past. Pretty cool to stand on the equator:

Had to dodge traffic in a busy street to get this:

As for the souvenir artwork I think they should have included the Galapagos hawk, they were everywhere at Bartolome and fearless:

[+terratin]

I've added Latvia to my list last week. For some reason, and despite Covid I've managed to visit three new countries this year. All with souvenirs, btw

[+STNolan]

22 hours ago, Michaelcycle said:

New county souvenir: Ecuador! I'm not doing any traveling but I am racking up some souvenirs from places we have cached in the past. Pretty cool to stand on the equator:

Had to dodge traffic in a busy street to get this:

As for the souvenir artwork I think they should have included the Galapagos hawk, they were everywhere at Bartolome and fearless:

 

 

I got my equator crossing a bit differently... unfortunately there's no Cache at the "X"
 

[+JoLTeam]

Only one new country since the start of Covid: Aland Islands, country#37. We made a small ferry detour on our Sweden-North Cape trip.

In '22 we're hoping to add Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Canada.

Geographically closest "countries" which we don't yet have are Guernsey and Sark. But these are quite tedious to get to, especially out of the summer season.

Countries which we might get in the following years: Iceland, Malta, San Marino, Costa Rica. And if we ever get to make that Caribbean cruise...

 

[+terratin]

I might have bagged Moldova today.

[+Arnàutil]

Country #47 Monaco :-)

 

looking forward to Egypt being #48 in few days!

[+Smitherington]

A lot of my travels were before I started geocaching.  I remember standing on the equator in Ecuador and making a waypoint at 0 North/South.  I would love to go back but that will probably not happen.  

 

Since I started caching I did travel to Iceland and found some there.  Farthest south in Argentina, East in Japan, West in Hawaii, Highest Pikes Peak, Lowest Dead Sea, Farthest from home, Kenya.  I would love to add Australia and Antarctica.  One can always hope.

[+terratin]

YIKES!

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2022/01/2022-geocaching-hq-souvenir-moments/?newsletter=PM
 

Quote

2022 will most likely be the year with the most new souvenirs of all time, but it’s not what you think. This year, we will release up to 10(!) new country and regional souvenirs every month – that’s up to 120 souvenirs in 2022. We have simplified the art process for the new souvenirs and won’t highlight each of them specifically. This will allow us to release souvenirs for almost all relevant countries and regions in the next two years.

 

[+Max and 99]

I'm curious what the simplified art process looks like.

[+terratin]

18 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

I'm curious what the simplified art process looks like.

 

Me too. Like the original German federal state souvenir? Something even more simplified? I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'd not mind waiting longer for nice artworks, but lets see.

[+brigido84]

Bonjour,

existe t'il une liste des pays qui ont édité un souvenir ?

Je suis allé au Zimbabwe, Afrique du sud et Eswatani, en 2019.

Seul celui de l'Afrique du sud m'a été attribué.

 

[+HHL]

24 minutes ago, brigido84 said:

existe t'il une liste des pays qui ont édité un souvenir ?

Ja.

https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=29&pgid=792

[+Vooruit!]

Added Vatican City earlier this month; kind of weird, with all physical containers actually placed outside of the country.

 

Btw, am I the only one that likes to collect as many cache types in a country as possible?

 

Plans for Czechia (May), Montenegro and Albania (July). Slowly filling the European map...

[+terratin]

On 1/28/2022 at 10:27 AM, Vooruit! said:

Added Vatican City earlier this month; kind of weird, with all physical containers actually placed outside of the country.

 

Btw, am I the only one that likes to collect as many cache types in a country as possible?

 

Plans for Czechia (May), Montenegro and Albania (July). Slowly filling the European map...

No, I know what you mean. I always try to get as many types as possible as well. Republic of Ireland might hold the record for me. On a day. That was one crazy trip. 
So far I have no plans for this year. Mentenegro is still on my wishlist, but I've tried getting there the past two years already, and always failed due to Covid regulations.

[+butrflygirl]

I thought some country souvenirs were supposed to be released in January, 2022. Did I miss them or misunderstand?  Thanks!

[+terratin]

40 minutes ago, butrflygirl said:

I thought some country souvenirs were supposed to be released in January, 2022. Did I miss them or misunderstand?  Thanks!

 I got three new ones, all islands: Maldives, Faroe and Sri Lanka.

[+terratin]

Third attempt Montenegro after having to cancel such trip in the previous two years. From the end of August, thus a lot can happen until then. So lets see if it does work this time. And I'm looking for a short trip in mid March or early April as I have to use vacation days left over from last year.

[+terratin]

I've just returned from an ad-hoc trip to Bucharest. What a fascinating town, especially for people who like to see buildings and town 'design', and who like to eat good food. I totally loved it.

[+JakeDot]

Before the Mega in Ashridge, England I did a 3 day trip to the Crown Dependencies, bagging Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the little rebel seigneurie of Sark, and so didn't get it... I hope I can go there in July, the ferries from France are still very spotty though. One and only one date for going to Alderney directly in all of July? I can't help but feel they must have had more trips in earlier days.

[+Goldenwattle]

I am about to drive 15,000 to 20,000 kms here in Australia, but that won't get me any new countries. Nor even a list of how many caches I find in each state. It would be nice if we could at least have our states listed under the statistics.

[+JakeDot]

You can see it in https://project-gc.com/ProfileStats/Goldenwattle#Maps

At least you have souvenirs for your states, Germany and Ireland also have them and don't get them listed unter geocaching.com statistics either.

 

[+Goldenwattle]

3 hours ago, JakeDot said:

Germany and Ireland also have them and don't get them listed unter geocaching.com statistics either.

The difference being is the size. It can take days to drive out of some states here, while there the equivalent are tiny in those places your mention, and it's REALLY easy to visit different shires, etc. Here, it's thousands of kms to drive. It's a whole continent and only listed as one place. States get no mention in the statistics.  Other place this size either have heaps of countries, or states listed. Only this continent misses out.

 

That map must be percentage of caches found in those areas, not number, as some of the dark areas I have not found many caches in.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Goldenwattle

[+JakeDot]

1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

That map must be percentage of caches found in those areas, not number, as some of the dark areas I have not found many caches in.

Yeah, that's right, the numbers are listed underneath per state or county on the actual site (there's both).

 

Quote

The difference being is the size. It can take days to drive out of some states here, while there the equivalent are tiny in those places your mention, and it's REALLY easy to visit different shires, etc. Here, it's thousands of kms to drive. It's a whole continent and only listed as one place. States get no mention in the statistics.  Other place this size either have heaps of countries, or states listed. Only this continent misses out.

True enough

[+Smitherington]

I like that map of Australia.  Oh that I would get to travel there someday.  

 

You have contiguous entities north to south.  Now I can see a new goal of contiguous areas east to west.  

 

I have N/S in the USA and hope to complete East to West this summer.

[+ChriBli]

1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

Only this continent misses out.

I think it's more to the point that North America is the only continent that gets special treatment in the geocaching.com statistics. The U.S. is listed in a separate section with find counts for every state, so is Canada. Not sure how Mexico and the smaller nations on the continent are handled, maybe there is a separate North America section that excludes U.S.A and Canada?

 

All the other continents are divided into nations only (with some strange exceptions), including Oceania. And there are bigger nations than Australia that don't get states accounted for, Russia and China are perhaps not the most caching-active but Brazil I think is fairly so.

[+terratin]

20 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I am about to drive 15,000 to 20,000 kms here in Australia, but that won't get me any new countries. Nor even a list of how many caches I find in each state. It would be nice if we could at least have our states listed under the statistics.

 How difficult (or easy) is it from AUS to fly to any of those small or big island nations that are far too far for us Europeans? Indonesia isn't that far from the north. All those places short before the end of the world east of Australia?

[+Goldenwattle]

4 hours ago, terratin said:

 How difficult (or easy) is it from AUS to fly to any of those small or big island nations that are far too far for us Europeans? Indonesia isn't that far from the north. All those places short before the end of the world east of Australia?

Still tricky after Covid. I have some island places already, and a few Asian places. There's a lot of countries I visited pre geocaching, not on my list. There's also NZ, only recently reopened, which I have cached several times in and have 928 finds. I might consider another trip to NZ for my next holiday. I collect SideTracked caches and the north island of NZ has about twenty. I also cached in the Chatham Islands, but those finds are counted in with NZ.  I have in the Pacific and Asian region these.

Norfolk Island	56
New Caledonia	15
Singapore	11
United Arab Emirates	10
Hong Kong	9
Vanuatu	3
Papua New Guinea	1
Fiji	1

[+lee737]

Just now, Goldenwattle said:

Still tricky after Covid. I have some island places already, and a few Asian places. There's a lot of countries I visited pre geocaching, not on my list. There's also NZ, only recently reopened, which I have cached several times in and have 928 finds. I might consider another trip to NZ for my next holiday. I collect SideTracked caches and the north island of NZ has about twenty. I also cached in the Chatham Islands, but those finds are counted in with NZ.  I have in the Pacific and Asian region these.

Norfolk Island	56
New Caledonia	15
Singapore	11
United Arab Emirates	10
Hong Kong	9
Vanuatu	3
Papua New Guinea	1
Fiji	1

Cool - does Norfolk count as a separate country? We're over there after Easter....

[+Goldenwattle]

15 minutes ago, lee737 said:

Cool - does Norfolk count as a separate country? We're over there after Easter....

It seems to, which is likely historic. (But that's great .) There's been more caches published since my visit, so you should be able to outdo my finds. Including ALs about 23 more since I was there. So for a small place, a lot of caches.  Tempted to return to find the new ones. There's a challenge cache there to log, if you find all the caches on the island. I logged it, as at the time, I found all the caches. There's a couple of ALs too, which is interesting on an island without proper mobile coverage. I didn't have those to do then. I think you find the answers and go somewhere that has wifi to log them. Endeavour3 is a local cacher, and very helpful. He tends to put on meet and greets when he knows cachers are visiting. He had a CITO for my visit, and we walked along Kingston foreshore picking up rubbish, and me logging any caches I passed. There was an Earth cache (his) and after we visited it and he gave me a talk on it, he said now you can log.

There's a wide variety of caches there. Even a small power-trail. The island is 34.6 km². We have bigger farms than that in Australia.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Goldenwattle

[+lee737]

2 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

It seems to, which is likely historic. (But that's great .) There's been more caches published since my visit, so you should be able to outdo my finds. Including ALs about 23 more since I was there. So for a small place, a lot of caches.  Tempted to return to find the new ones. There's a challenge cache there to log, if you find all the caches on the island. I logged it, as at the time, I found all the caches. There's a couple of ALs too, which is interesting on an island without proper mobile coverage. I didn't have those to do then. I think you find the answers and go somewhere that has wifi to log them. Endeavour3 is a local cacher, and very helpful. He tends to put on meet and greets when he knows cachers are visiting. He had a CITO for my visit, and we walked along Kingston foreshore picking up rubbish, and me logging any caches I passed. There was an Earth cache (his) and after we visited it and he gave me a talk on it, he said now you can log.

Sounds great, its a family trip too, so I doubt we'll get *all* the caches - we'll give it a crack though!

[+terratin]

10 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

Still tricky after Covid. I have some island places already, and a few Asian places. There's a lot of countries I visited pre geocaching, not on my list. There's also NZ, only recently reopened, which I have cached several times in and have 928 finds. I might consider another trip to NZ for my next holiday. I collect SideTracked caches and the north island of NZ has about twenty. I also cached in the Chatham Islands, but those finds are counted in with NZ.  I have in the Pacific and Asian region these.

Norfolk Island	56
New Caledonia	15
Singapore	11
United Arab Emirates	10
Hong Kong	9
Vanuatu	3
Papua New Guinea	1
Fiji	1

 Cool! These are all places I'll likely never get to apart from UAE and maybe Hong Kong.

[+barefootjeff]

10 hours ago, lee737 said:

Cool - does Norfolk count as a separate country? We're over there after Easter....

 

A pity there aren't any D2/T4 caches there .

[+colleda]

10 hours ago, lee737 said:

Sounds great, its a family trip too, so I doubt we'll get *all* the caches - we'll give it a crack though!

I had a trip planned and flights paid for when Delta hit. Flights were Air NZ which were promptly cancelled by Jacinda. Still waiting to get there.

[+terratin]

I had a wee look at what's still missing in Europe for me

 

Andorra

Belarus

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Estonia

Gibraltar

Greenland

Hungary

Isle of Man

Jersey

Macedonia

Monaco

Montenegro

Russia

San Marino

Sark

Serbia

Slovenia

Switzerland

Ukraine

 

With a bit of luck Serbia and Montenegro will still happen this year. I'm a bit annoying in that respect, but I only find a cache in a country if I'm really there for the country. So based on that I need to visit Sweden again as I picked one up years ago while setting foot on land for a few minutes. Bosnia & Herzegovina might happen if I manage to spend a day in Mostar from Montenegro. Three countries are big nopes for conflicts at the moment. Sark, Jersey and Isle of Man are a nightmare to get to for non-UK residents (and UK is still plague island), Greenland super expensive. The rest should be possible one way or another with some creative traveling to keep costs and travel duration down.

Edited April 8, 2022 by terratin

[+JakeDot]

7 hours ago, terratin said:

I had a wee look at what's still missing in Europe for me

 

...

 

With a bit of luck Serbia and Montenegro will still happen this year. I'm a bit annoying in that respect, but I only find a cache in a country if I'm really there for the country. So based on that I need to visit Sweden again as I picked one up years ago while setting foot on land for a few minutes. Bosnia & Herzegovina might happen if I manage to spend a day in Mostar from Montenegro. Three countries are big nopes for conflicts at the moment. Sark, Jersey and Isle of Man are a nightmare to get to for non-UK residents (and UK is still plague island), Greenland super expensive. The rest should be possible one way or another with some creative traveling to keep costs and travel duration down.

I'm missing

• Svalbard
• Greenland
• Sark
• Moldova
• Romania
• Bulgaria
• Serbia
• Montenegro
• Albania
• Macedonia
• Turkey

if I haven't missed some obscure country like Malta or Cyprus (well, no, already got those).

So I might be able to finish them off in one tour by car and Sark, well, you said it, Svalbard and Greenland I'm considering just leaving for retirement in a few decades...

 

Edit: Drat, some people count Armenia or Kazakhstan as Europe too...

Edited April 8, 2022 by JakeDot