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collecting countries


terratin

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Enjoyable trip to Belgium + NL last week. 1st ever 3 countries in a day (GB/FR/BEL on the drive over), and on my stats a top 10 FP for a cache in Bruges and a couple of top 10 low altitude in NL (but I don't trust those particular stats too much!)

As mentioned on a recent multi thread, they do like their multis over there - proper town walking tours with a dozen waypoints. Done well, they're excellent!

Next planned holiday is flying to Porto and then on to Spain. Already done Portugal but Spain will be a new one. Then in 2015, Brazil???

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Haha yeah, multis and puzzles are hugely popular in continental Europe. Almost to the point where a quick cache is impossible- I was in Vienna this past weekend with family, so caching a long multi just wasn't an option with them, and maybe only 10% of the caches remained after I filtered those options out in the city center. At least that's what it felt like...

 

Got my big Alaska adventure booked, and besides that state I should also be getting British Columbia (starting the trip in Vancouver) and Yukon Territory this trip, as I want to hop over the border to Dawson City. B) I also have a three hour layover in Seattle on the way home so might pick up the state of Washington if the flights all go as planned. Decided against a longer layover as I'm likely to be heading to Seattle for a conference in January, so can hit up Groundspeak etc then.

 

Beyond that, nothing planned for weekend breaks because, well, I've realized I've definitely hit "city fatigue" in Europe and that's like 90% of weekend trips here I think. You can only visit so many world class historic towns before thinking about just saving money and spending time in your own! So while I still want to get Czech Republic for Prague and Krakow, Poland and a bunch of other spots I think I'm holding off for now until I find them interesting again. Tends to happen quickly to me.

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Andromeda, yes we also spent the last 9 days or so in Vienna. The traditional cache density in the city centre is really low! I wish we had more actual time to do a few of those multis. The Alt-Wiener Spaziergang caches look really cool, but the one we did already took us two hours, and we had to come back because we couldn't find it first time round. As we (I!) really wanted to find 6 types for a challenge we went to what first appeared to be a very simple letterbox, but it also almost took us an hour as we couldn't find a way into the location. And then we spent a lot of extra time (well worth it!) to do the webcam.

 

Our main vacation is still uncertain! I'd hoped for things to calm down in Thailand, but I'm not certain whether the recent coup really did calm things down. Oh well...

Edited by terratin
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Haha yeah, multis and puzzles are hugely popular in continental Europe. Almost to the point where a quick cache is impossible- I was in Vienna this past weekend with family, so caching a long multi just wasn't an option with them, and maybe only 10% of the caches remained after I filtered those options out in the city center. At least that's what it felt like...

 

Got my big Alaska adventure booked, and besides that state I should also be getting British Columbia (starting the trip in Vancouver) and Yukon Territory this trip, as I want to hop over the border to Dawson City. B) I also have a three hour layover in Seattle on the way home so might pick up the state of Washington if the flights all go as planned. Decided against a longer layover as I'm likely to be heading to Seattle for a conference in January, so can hit up Groundspeak etc then.

 

Beyond that, nothing planned for weekend breaks because, well, I've realized I've definitely hit "city fatigue" in Europe and that's like 90% of weekend trips here I think. You can only visit so many world class historic towns before thinking about just saving money and spending time in your own! So while I still want to get Czech Republic for Prague and Krakow, Poland and a bunch of other spots I think I'm holding off for now until I find them interesting again. Tends to happen quickly to me.

 

I haven't looked at Vienna (though Austria is high on my list of countries I want to visit) but when I had a long layover in Paris a couple of years ago I was surprised at how many unknown caches were in the city center. I solved a few of them before I left but DNFd on the two I tried to find. I did get a couple of traditionals but most of my finds in France are in Montpellier from a different trip.

 

I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for Seattle and schedule to stop by HQ Friday afternoon. I pretty much have all day on Friday and Saturday to do some geocaching (and add Washington to my State list) and see the sites.

 

In August I'll be going to Austin (and add Texas to my list) then on to San Jose, Costa Rica for a few days. Unless I rent a car while in Costa Rica (which I probably won't need) I probably won't do any caching there.

 

Some time in the fall I'll be going to Africa for 10-14 days. I didn't think I'd be visiting any new countries but today my bosses boss suggested that I should go to Ghana. I'm trying to figure out how to do a 10-14 day trip that will take me to Johannesburg for a couple of days, 4-5 days or so in Tanzania, then to Accra, Ghana for a couple of days without going back through Johannesburg on each leg of the trip and, at the same time, avoiding a flight through Nairobi, Kenya. I might go to Entebbe, Uganda rather than Ghana and either place could add a new country.

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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What a great post. You and I have much the same interests in collecting a cache and souvenir, if available, for every state and other countries. I have about 38 states and a few countries so far. They are all listed on my member page. You should come to our next Meet 'n Greet in July so we can chat. Watch for the posting for Blacksburg, VA

Forgot to mention we have a tour of China scheduled for October. I will definitely get my smiley!

paganmen

Edited by Paganmen
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I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for Seattle and schedule to stop by HQ Friday afternoon. I pretty much have all day on Friday and Saturday to do some geocaching (and add Washington to my State list) and see the sites.

 

If I coudl make some suggestions:

 

Kubota Gardens

Kerry Viewpoint Park

Top Pot Donuts

The Space Needle (especially if the weather is clear and sunny)

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Looks like we followed Oxford Stone to Nederlands and Belgium last week. We have been there several times but not since we started geocaching so that brings us to 24 countries cached but not any new ones visited. Our trip started in Amsterdam where we boarded our converted barge and checked out the bikes we would be using for the week (classic Dutch 7-speeds, heavy but reliable.) Most days we biked to a new city where we met our barge, nice to only unpack once. Visited a few towns we had not been to before (Antwerpen, for example, what a remarkable cathedral-more like an art museum) and some we had. After the trip we trained to Brussels (we LOVE Brussels) while the rest of our group went back to Amsterdam. We even took a train to Leuven Saturday night just to attend World Wide Flash Mob. That's another nice town that we hope to see more of in the future.

 

That's our guide up ahead:

d5717ad7-b112-44a0-9acc-a1220f2195cc.jpg?rnd=0.6270716

 

The facilities for bicycling in the Lowlands are amazing:

f0a4af74-d8f8-417e-a6aa-d9cad18cc70d.jpg?rnd=0.3390756

 

Of course all that biking works up a thirst:

df25c0e7-ea08-44b5-aadc-00bbd3a3a151.jpg?rnd=0.2805401

 

Beautiful Brugge:

8d37f6be-0483-464a-b788-18cf7cb2d88a.jpg?rnd=0.1273112

 

OK, I'll stop now.

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Still wish there was an Icon/Souvenir for Mexico...been asking for years

 

I just recently found my first cache in Mexico and was really surprised there wasn't one.

 

Being tucked away in the far corner of Canada I collecting States and counties instead of countries.

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I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for Seattle and schedule to stop by HQ Friday afternoon. I pretty much have all day on Friday and Saturday to do some geocaching (and add Washington to my State list) and see the sites.

 

If I coudl make some suggestions:

 

Kubota Gardens

Kerry Viewpoint Park

Top Pot Donuts

The Space Needle (especially if the weather is clear and sunny)

 

I am within spitting distance to the Space Needle and thought I might go up there today. I've been here a day and a half and the weather was quite nice, but was in meetings at the Gates foundation all day yesterday and now it's raining. I thought I might do a few of the caches nearby and then head up to HQ this afternoon. Tomorrow I might see if I can find the "Double Bubble Toil and Trouble" cache and some others in that area. I can pretty much see the area where the Kerry Viewpoint Park is located but I wrenched my back on the flight out here (when I got here I could barely walk) so I don't want to push it much.

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Still wish there was an Icon/Souvenir for Mexico...been asking for years

 

I just recently found my first cache in Mexico and was really surprised there wasn't one.

 

Being tucked away in the far corner of Canada I collecting States and counties instead of countries.

 

Of the countries which don't have souvenirs, I think that the ones that *should* get souvenirs are Italy, Belgium, and Mexico. I haven't found a cache in Mexico yet but I have in both Italy and Belgium. Once I get home from Seattle I need to start making plans for a trip to Austin and San Jose, Costa Rica. One of my options would have an overnight layover in Mexico City. I was there before I started geocaching and would love to go back.

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The traditional cache density in the city centre is really low! I wish we had more actual time to do a few of those multis. The Alt-Wiener Spaziergang caches look really cool, but the one we did already took us two hours, and we had to come back because we couldn't find it first time round. As we (I!) really wanted to find 6 types for a challenge we went to what first appeared to be a very simple letterbox, but it also almost took us an hour as we couldn't find a way into the location. And then we spent a lot of extra time (well worth it!) to do the webcam.

 

From my personal point of view almost all nice caches in the inner districts of Vienna are multi caches or mysteries with multiple stages.

Most urban Viennese traditionals are boring and many mysteries lead to boring locations. There is a single reasonable Earth cache.

In any case there are traditionals near many of the popular sights (St Stephen's cathedral, Burgtor, etc).

 

In my opinion, multi caches are best suited to explore a city and to go for a guided tour. In a city like Vienna there is more to notice than just a few pois which happen to be 160m apart from each other. Some of these caches also lead to nice locations that are not contained in a 0815 guide book.

 

If the focus is on number of cache types, quick finds without a walk etc, the situation changes of course.

I prefer doing 1-2 caches I really enjoy to visiting 10 none of which I really enjoy.

 

The cache type distribution for the whole of Vienna is as follows

 

1813 50.6 Traditional Cache

972 27.1 Unknown Cache

619 17.3 Multi-cache

138 3.9 Event Cache

11 0.3 Letterbox Hybrid

10 0.3 Wherigo Cache

10 0.3 Webcam Cache

8 0.2 Earthcache

Edited by cezanne
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I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for Seattle and schedule to stop by HQ Friday afternoon. I pretty much have all day on Friday and Saturday to do some geocaching (and add Washington to my State list) and see the sites.

 

If I coudl make some suggestions:

 

Kubota Gardens

Kerry Viewpoint Park

Top Pot Donuts

The Space Needle (especially if the weather is clear and sunny)

 

I am within spitting distance to the Space Needle and thought I might go up there today. I've been here a day and a half and the weather was quite nice, but was in meetings at the Gates foundation all day yesterday and now it's raining. I thought I might do a few of the caches nearby and then head up to HQ this afternoon. Tomorrow I might see if I can find the "Double Bubble Toil and Trouble" cache and some others in that area. I can pretty much see the area where the Kerry Viewpoint Park is located but I wrenched my back on the flight out here (when I got here I could barely walk) so I don't want to push it much.

I'm sorry to hear that you hurt your back, bad timing.

 

Fortunately, Kerry Park is just a narrow strip, it's all about the view. The two caches there are park and grabs. If you manage to get to it, I recommend going at sunset or after dark.

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I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for Seattle and schedule to stop by HQ Friday afternoon. I pretty much have all day on Friday and Saturday to do some geocaching (and add Washington to my State list) and see the sites.

 

If I coudl make some suggestions:

 

Kubota Gardens

Kerry Viewpoint Park

Top Pot Donuts

The Space Needle (especially if the weather is clear and sunny)

 

I am within spitting distance to the Space Needle and thought I might go up there today. I've been here a day and a half and the weather was quite nice, but was in meetings at the Gates foundation all day yesterday and now it's raining. I thought I might do a few of the caches nearby and then head up to HQ this afternoon. Tomorrow I might see if I can find the "Double Bubble Toil and Trouble" cache and some others in that area. I can pretty much see the area where the Kerry Viewpoint Park is located but I wrenched my back on the flight out here (when I got here I could barely walk) so I don't want to push it much.

I'm sorry to hear that you hurt your back, bad timing.

 

Fortunately, Kerry Park is just a narrow strip, it's all about the view. The two caches there are park and grabs. If you manage to get to it, I recommend going at sunset or after dark.

 

That's still a possibility. My flight home is just after midnight tonight so I'd still have plenty of time to get to the airport after dark. I think I got 7 caches yesterday including a visit to HQ. There was a good size crowd there. I chatted with the receptionist a bit and the other cachers when moun10bike came out. I waited until he finished talking with a group that had driven out from Ontario and then he turned around and said, "hey, you're NYPaddleCacher....you're not going to hit me, are you?" (Apparently he's been stalking my profile). We had a short chat, I bought a couple of things at the shop, then headed back to my hotel before going to a Mariners game with an old internet friend. I'll probably head down to the Pike Street market this afternoon and do a little geocaching in that area.

 

My back got better pretty quickly. I think it was the beers I had while watching the hockey game.

 

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Hmm.. I would love to log the HQ cache, but the US is not particularly high on my traveling wish list. I usually get rather grumpy when I have to travel over, and the jetlag is just killing. Next spring I hope we'll travel around Iran, and I hope we get the chance to hitch a ride through Saudi Arabia. That might diminish my chances of business trips to the US anyway :anibad:

 

Mrs. Terratin

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One of my options would have an overnight layover in Mexico City.

I pretty much wasted my time trying to find caches in Mexico City, other than it gave me some eccentric destinations for random-seeming walks. I don't like urban caching, and "el DF" is about as urban as it gets; one of the world's biggest anthills.

 

Great city to explore, if you can set aside this silly game for the duration.

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One of my options would have an overnight layover in Mexico City.

I pretty much wasted my time trying to find caches in Mexico City, other than it gave me some eccentric destinations for random-seeming walks. I don't like urban caching, and "el DF" is about as urban as it gets; one of the world's biggest anthills.

 

Great city to explore, if you can set aside this silly game for the duration.

 

I noticed that the two closest caches near the airport are disabled and appear to be missing. I was in DF quite a few years ago so am somewhat familiar with what I might expect. If I already had a find in Mexico City I would just take the quickest, cheapest flight to San Jose, but I don't know when I might get the opportunity to be in Mexico again and after all, I'm a country collector.

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bump...

 

I just booked all my travel for a two week business trip to Austin, TX for a week (a new State for me) then a week in San Jose, Costa Rica. I discovered that there are three caches real close to the hotel I'll be staying in but all three seem to be missing (but are still active). One hasn't been found since 2011 and the most recent legitimate find on any of the three was last November. I'm still considering whether or not I want to rent a car because I won't really need it during the week. It would be nice to have for the 1 day I'll have free to take a trip to Poas or Irazu volcano. I have already found a couple of caches in CR so it's not a big deal if I don't get one this time. The most interesting part of the trip may be from Austin to San Jose. Instead of flying from Austin, I'm taking a bus to San Antonio, then a flight on Areo Mexico that has a 5 hour layover in Mexico City. That should be enough to take public transportation into the central square where there are several caches.

 

I also got an email message from someone I've done some work with in China that indicated that he'd like to send me an invitation (and would pay for) to visit his institution (Sun Yat Sen University) in Guanzhou. If I go, I'd probably spend a few days there and a few days in Beijing. One of the better options to got to Guanzhou is through Seoul, South Korea and would have a long layover. Plenty of caches there to find.

 

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We booked a few days to southern Oman. We already found a cache in Oman (just 1) but this area, Salalah is supposed to be really beautiful and I had a pile of expiring airmiles which I could use for a regional flight for two. It's certainly nicer than the Emirates. Kuwait (would have been new) in summer is a bit too hot, Iran is planned for next spring, and Iraqi Kurdistan not a good idea at the moment. Great choice! B)

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Just got back from a holiday.

Two more countries cached in: Greece and Albania

:antenna:

 

Well done! For august I have planned London (5 days) + Giga in Munich (3 days), so not new countries for me. I also plan to visit Andorra (2 hours driving from home, but haven't visited since I play geocaching). Lately in the year I also plan to visit Greece or the Balkans. We will see!

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Got our tickets this weekend for South Korea, which will be our 37th country cached. (Not sure when our next will be, so getting excited!) We have friends who are stationed there and have been stationed there before, and they're looking forward to geocaching with us, so, huzzah!

 

Oh, only read this now. Did you do the EarthCache with the polished slab of seriously folded rock layers? I remember we were really impressed!

No, just one on glacial erosion in the Naerofjord. (It was our first one.)

Edited by hzoi
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I just returned from Europe, where I was able to get three countries: Netherlands, Belgium and Iceland. I wasn't able to get to Luxemburg, so it looks like I will have an uncolored country amidst a sea of color for some time.

 

I have the same hole on the maps on my profile as well. In general, the maps that GS use on the statistics page are pretty lame. If you had found a few caches in Luxembourg it would be indistinguishable on the map from surrounding countries. The map for Asia is even worse. It uses the same base map as the world map and some of the smaller countries (e.g. Singapore) don't show up. The maps on project-gc are much better and even use the unique state ids that are available for many countries to display state/provinces in which one has found a cache on separate country maps. For example, if you look at the advanced search page you'll that GS does identify states in Mexico and those that have found caches in Mexico can see the specific states filled in on the project-gc Profile Stats page.

 

I realized that I have not yet found a cache in a new country this year. Hopefully that will change when I travel next month with a layover in Mexico city, and although the details have not yet been planned, I'll be going to Africa sometime in the fall and there's a pretty good chance I'll be going to either Uganda or Ghana (as well as two other countries in which I"ve already found a cache).

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I just returned from Europe, where I was able to get three countries: Netherlands, Belgium and Iceland. I wasn't able to get to Luxemburg, so it looks like I will have an uncolored country amidst a sea of color for some time.

 

I have the same hole on the maps on my profile as well. In general, the maps that GS use on the statistics page are pretty lame. If you had found a few caches in Luxembourg it would be indistinguishable on the map from surrounding countries.

 

Iuse the GSAK stats macro for my profile page, and you can clearly see Lux. in gray. And it will drive me nuts until I can fill it in! :)

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I just returned from Europe, where I was able to get three countries: Netherlands, Belgium and Iceland. I wasn't able to get to Luxemburg, so it looks like I will have an uncolored country amidst a sea of color for some time.

 

I have the same hole on the maps on my profile as well. In general, the maps that GS use on the statistics page are pretty lame. If you had found a few caches in Luxembourg it would be indistinguishable on the map from surrounding countries.

 

Iuse the GSAK stats macro for my profile page, and you can clearly see Lux. in gray. And it will drive me nuts until I can fill it in! :)

 

So do I but I might be using a different version (I"m using FindStatGen3 V4.4.11) because instead of filling each country with the same dark red color it shades each country depending on the number of caches found. Since I only found 1-2 caches in the Netherlands and Belgium the whitespace for Luxembourg isn't quite as noticeable, but thanks so much for reminding me that I haven't found a cache there. I wish the FSG macro had maps for Asia because the GS Statistics map for Asia is pretty lame.

 

I can remember where i posted it but a 2-3 weeks ago I posted a link to a mapping site that had all of the country boundaries and could use GIS data to shade countries. It was a 2D world map with zooming and panning and supported "tool tips", such that one could hover the cursor over a country, and would highlight the boundary and display data values. It would be ideal for a world map of finds.

 

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I'm not too keen on the shading here. I found so many caches in tiny Denmark that every other country is shaded in a very pale colour anyway. Looking at the Europe map there's hardly any colour difference between Sweden (1 find) and UK (69). Based on that I would prefer one single colour. Oh well... it's not so important after all.

 

Btw, I have a gap the size of Switzerland :laughing:

We cached in a few tiny countries that don't show up on the map at all. If we ever return to Europe I'd love to add those remaining tiny nations to my map: San Marino, Gibraltar, Monaco, Aaland, Andorra, Liechtenstein are still missing :yikes:

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..

We cached in a few tiny countries that don't show up on the map at all. If we ever return to Europe I'd love to add those remaining tiny nations to my map: San Marino, Gibraltar, Monaco, Aaland, Andorra, Liechtenstein are still missing :yikes:

 

Didn't know Aaland (The Åland Islands or Åland ) existed until this post, just read up on it. It is not on the geocaching country list either, like the other countries you mentioned.

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Yes, it is in fact :) Look at a cache there: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2WJY4_kvarnen

Groundspeak just messed up the name a bit. It should probably be two AA. There's a good amount of caches there. I have a thing for Nordic countries and islands anyway (Svalbard and Jan Moyen is also on my wishlist :anicute: )

 

Thank you so much for mentioning this here!

 

We've done Liechtenstein earlier this year and Andorra, Monaco and Vatican City are on our to do list for later this year. Don't see any opportunities for the Åland Islands soon, but since I didn't know anything about them until today, they never even were considered. Now it's another country on our very long to do list. A list I was hoping to shorten a bit this year, but only seems to get longer every day [;)].

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Yes, it is in fact :) Look at a cache there: http://www.geocachin...GC2WJY4_kvarnen

Groundspeak just messed up the name a bit. It should probably be two AA. There's a good amount of caches there. I have a thing for Nordic countries and islands anyway (Svalbard and Jan Moyen is also on my wishlist :anicute: )

 

Looking at Longyearbyen, Svalbard and Jan Mayen in Google Street View is rather interesting. Zoom in on the map until you can drop the little yellow man icon onto the map on a highlighted "road". Drop it on the "road" a bit northeast of Longyearbyen for an interesting route.

 

 

 

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My problem is, if I ever make it to Europe I want to spend like 2 months there and explore a bit.

 

I think 2 months is a lot, it's better to go twice and "just" for a month. So many new impressions, things to do,to explore, which all need to sink in. If you go too long, it will be too much to remember, it will be a lot harder to relive in your mind what you saw and experienced in each country. In my opinion it's better to have some focus and really go for exploring a specific area or go with a specific theme in mind.

Two months is on the border of travelling (where you do a lot of planning during your trip) and going on a vacation.

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My problem is, if I ever make it to Europe I want to spend like 2 months there and explore a bit.

 

I think 2 months is a lot, it's better to go twice and "just" for a month. So many new impressions, things to do,to explore, which all need to sink in. If you go too long, it will be too much to remember, it will be a lot harder to relive in your mind what you saw and experienced in each country. In my opinion it's better to have some focus and really go for exploring a specific area or go with a specific theme in mind.

Two months is on the border of travelling (where you do a lot of planning during your trip) and going on a vacation.

Yeah, I'm just not sure if I'd ever get a chance to go again and want to see as much as possible, but who knows.

 

I've done a lot of travel, most of my trips top out at 1 month, although last year we went for almost 2 months. I've noticed that there's a cycle when you travel - everything's new, then everything gets overwhelming and you kind of blank out with all the new info, then you hate it and want to go home, and then again it's new - it goes around and around like that. Sometimes it's just one cycle, sometimes 2 cycles - in India we cycled like that maybe 5 times every day. :laughing: I've never been on such a long intense roller coaster like that, for a whole month.

 

But I can't pretend to know what going to Europe would be like, I tend to think it will be more info than I've ever had on a trip and hugely overwhelming.

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I know it doesn't help, but I like being from Europe :laughing: Indeed lots of easy traveling between countries, many differences across border, lots of history.

 

I think we finally made up our mind on our main vacation: it's probably going to be Indonesia; Java to be more precise. Got the right mix of antique and more recent history, and volcanoes. Probably not the nicest beaches for a few days of resting, but we'll see what to do with that.

 

edit: which reminds me.. there's certainly a theme going on here! Indonesia has a red and white flag. We've found the first caches in Bahrain, Malta and Austria this year. They all have red and white flags :laughing: Ok, we also been to Slovakia for a day, but lets ignore that, shall we? :ph34r:

Edited by terratin
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I know it doesn't help, but I like being from Europe :laughing: Indeed lots of easy traveling between countries, many differences across border, lots of history.

 

Completely agree :-) so much discovered already, yet so much to discover in the future in places really close to us.

 

Just planned trip to Andorra - that would be my 14th country :ph34r:

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Yiha, by finding two caches on the Maldives we managed to cache in our 30th country :)

I think we might still get one more new country this year, depending on where we decide to spend our main vacation. Somewhere in SE Asia most likely where we have no country collected so far.

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Yiha, by finding two caches on the Maldives we managed to cache in our 30th country :)

I think we might still get one more new country this year, depending on where we decide to spend our main vacation. Somewhere in SE Asia most likely where we have no country collected so far.

 

In a couple of weeks I"m hoping to finally get a cache in Mexico (I have a 5 hour layover in Mexico City) even though it's a country for which I share an international border. Still haven't gone over the border to Canada (about 3 hours away) for a cache.

 

I've got a meeting tomorrow with our South African partner for a project I've been working on over the last year to talk about some possible itineraries for a trip that another developer and I will take to Africa in the fall. It will most likely involve spending some time in three different countries, but only one in which I have not yet found a cache. At this point a visit it Uganda or Ghana (but not both is likely) and would also include 2-3 days in South Africa and 3-4 days in either Addis Ababa, Ethiopia or Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. However, at least one of the flight options would have a long layover in England, a country I have not yet visited.

 

There is still a possibility of a China trip before the end of the year, but that might not produce a new country for me. A stopover in Hong Kong, or Seoul, South Korea would be options but might be hard to justify spending the extra air fare.

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If you're at Hong Kong airport (HKIA) and have half a day minimum, it's possible to cross over into Shenzhen, China and grab a cache there. There's a simple visa-on-arrival procedure for Shenzhen, but unfortunately that's not available to US passport holders. (I mention it in case you might carry a second passport.) If you already have a full visa for China, caching there from HKIA is even easier; direct ferry to Shekou Port, cross street (carefully!) and up the hill to a cache.

 

Alternately, hitting Macau for a cache or two is really easy from HKIA; there's a direct ferry. And Hong Kong itself is a cacher's paradise; the game is well-developed.

 

You could probably pull off all three (Hong Kong, Macau, China) in one long day. But I'd hate to have an outbound flight to catch at the end of all that; it'd feel too much like a race.

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If you're at Hong Kong airport (HKIA) and have half a day minimum, it's possible to cross over into Shenzhen, China and grab a cache there. There's a simple visa-on-arrival procedure for Shenzhen, but unfortunately that's not available to US passport holders. (I mention it in case you might carry a second passport.) If you already have a full visa for China, caching there from HKIA is even easier; direct ferry to Shekou Port, cross street (carefully!) and up the hill to a cache.

 

Alternately, hitting Macau for a cache or two is really easy from HKIA; there's a direct ferry. And Hong Kong itself is a cacher's paradise; the game is well-developed.

 

You could probably pull off all three (Hong Kong, Macau, China) in one long day. But I'd hate to have an outbound flight to catch at the end of all that; it'd feel too much like a race.

 

If the trip happens I'd be spending 3 days in Guanzhou and 3 days in Beijing so I'd have a full visa for China. I've been to Beijing twice before so I already have a find in China. Hong Kong would only be a layover city, to/from the U.S. At this point I'll I've got is a "you might be getting an invitation from us to come to Guanzhou to do some consulting for us" and If I am going to travel that far I'd also visit an organization in Beijing that I've done some work with.

 

The Africa trip is a lot more definite and is more a matter or where, exactly, I'll go and when.

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The Africa trip is a lot more definite and is more a matter or where, exactly, I'll go and when.

 

I had a meeting today to discuss an itinerary and it looks like I won't be going to a new African country. They'd prefer that I spent some time in a more remote, less developed location rather than two "big" universities in different countries. I'll still spend a few days in South Africa and then go to Addis Ababa, for a day or two before a driver will take us about six hours to Jimma, Ethiopia where there are a few really small colleges (basically a building or two). The closest geocache to Jimma is 72 miles away, but probably a 3-4 hour drive. Jimma does have a notable feature that would be a good place for a cache though. Ethiopia is considered to be the birthplace of coffee, specifically in the Keffa region of Ethiopia. Jimma is in the center of the Keffa region, and this can be found in the center of Jimma.

 

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Please don't try to place a cache abroad! It won't get published anyway and will end up as geolitter. :) An EarthCache would be an option, but I'd read the guidelines a few times first, do a lot of research on the feature in question and then make a lot of notes and photos at the location.

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Please don't try to place a cache abroad! It won't get published anyway and will end up as geolitter. :) An EarthCache would be an option, but I'd read the guidelines a few times first, do a lot of research on the feature in question and then make a lot of notes and photos at the location.

 

I know about vacation caches, and a bit about earth caches as well. It would be hard to work environmental sciences in a location with a large coffee pot in the middle of the road. Maybe I can introduce someone that'll be meeting with in Jimma to Geocaching and he can hide a few.

 

There was a new cache (yes, one) placed in Addis since the last time I was there and there's another one that's been there a few years I'd really like to find called Fresh and Green Academy (read the logs and you'll see why) so I might be able to do some geocaching in Addis. I still might be able to add a new country though as one of the best flight options has a long layover at LHR and I haven't found any caches in the UK.

 

 

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