niftylite Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Hi all, I'm totally new to this game, but i'm really excited to get started! I met a girl while backpacking in Tallinn who told me a bit about geocaching while she was hunting a cache in the centre of Tallinn's Old town market place! I thought it was magical!! I used to be quite a frequent visitor to the toyvoyagers website, with 2 toyvoyagers still out travelling the globe, but I really love the idea of geocaching - i can't wait to get started!! Thanks for having me nifty. Quote Link to comment
+Condorito Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Hi, Welcome to Geocaching! I'm sure you'll have fun and have many great experiences... I just looked at toyvoyagers, and it look pretty similar to Travel Bugs in geocaching... You can have a look at them here... There are hundreds of thousands of trackables circling the globe, so you might find it interesting to help some out on their mission... Enjoy Geocaching! Quote Link to comment
+The Blorenges Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Welcome There is also a regional Groundspeak forum for UK geocachers: UK and Ireland forum Also a forum at the GAGB (Geocaching Association of Great Britain. However, over the last year, a lot of the day-to-day geocaching general chat has moved to various UK groups on facebook. MrsB Quote Link to comment
niftylite Posted March 12, 2013 Author Share Posted March 12, 2013 Hi, Welcome to Geocaching! I'm sure you'll have fun and have many great experiences... I just looked at toyvoyagers, and it look pretty similar to Travel Bugs in geocaching... You can have a look at them here... There are hundreds of thousands of trackables circling the globe, so you might find it interesting to help some out on their mission... Enjoy Geocaching! Thanks, yes - i'm quite excited to get into the travel bugs side of things, but I shall try my hand at finding a fair few before I try and send one out!! I'm actually getting married later this spring, and my other half and I will be going to Japan for our honeymoon, so i'm super excited to find some caches over there and hopefully release a travel bug of my own while on holiday ^___^ ...is that what you're supposed to do? Quote Link to comment
+Chief301 Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Hi, Welcome to Geocaching! I'm sure you'll have fun and have many great experiences... I just looked at toyvoyagers, and it look pretty similar to Travel Bugs in geocaching... You can have a look at them here... There are hundreds of thousands of trackables circling the globe, so you might find it interesting to help some out on their mission... Enjoy Geocaching! Thanks, yes - i'm quite excited to get into the travel bugs side of things, but I shall try my hand at finding a fair few before I try and send one out!! I'm actually getting married later this spring, and my other half and I will be going to Japan for our honeymoon, so i'm super excited to find some caches over there and hopefully release a travel bug of my own while on holiday ^___^ ...is that what you're supposed to do? Yep, that's the basic idea. It's not a good idea to hide a cache on vacation (since you wouldn't be able to properly maintain it) but you can release a TB from anywhere. TB's are usually given some sort of mission by the owner....to travel to a certain city, or visit as many stadiums or churches or police stations or whatever as possible, or just rack up as many miles as possible...whatever the theme of the trackable is. You might, for example, release it in Japan and give it a mission of returning to your home town in the UK. Cachers who think they can help it in that mission will (hopefully) move it along. At the moment I'm holding one that started in Finland and sat in a cache here in Louisiana for a year and a half before it was rescued a couple of weeks ago. Just waiting to find a decent cache to drop it in. Just be aware that a large percentage of TB's eventually go missing. They get taken by newbie cachers thinking they are just swag because they don't know what a trackable is, or get dropped in someone's caching bag who forgets to log it and eventually forget they have it, or just gets stuck in some remote, lonely cache that hardly ever gets visited. So make sure you don't attach that dog tag to anything you're not willing to lose. Quote Link to comment
niftylite Posted March 12, 2013 Author Share Posted March 12, 2013 Yep, that's the basic idea. It's not a good idea to hide a cache on vacation (since you wouldn't be able to properly maintain it) but you can release a TB from anywhere. TB's are usually given some sort of mission by the owner....to travel to a certain city, or visit as many stadiums or churches or police stations or whatever as possible, or just rack up as many miles as possible...whatever the theme of the trackable is. You might, for example, release it in Japan and give it a mission of returning to your home town in the UK. Cachers who think they can help it in that mission will (hopefully) move it along. At the moment I'm holding one that started in Finland and sat in a cache here in Louisiana for a year and a half before it was rescued a couple of weeks ago. Just waiting to find a decent cache to drop it in. Just be aware that a large percentage of TB's eventually go missing. They get taken by newbie cachers thinking they are just swag because they don't know what a trackable is, or get dropped in someone's caching bag who forgets to log it and eventually forget they have it, or just gets stuck in some remote, lonely cache that hardly ever gets visited. So make sure you don't attach that dog tag to anything you're not willing to lose. That's an amazing idea!! I was thinking of getting something like this http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IylVor9lL._SL500_AA300_.jpg (hope it's ok to post links out?) How do i set the TB a mission?? do i leave instructions with the tag itself or do i set up some kind of page that people who find it would be sent to by putting the code in on here..? just about to go on my lunch break to try and find my first cache! excited!! Quote Link to comment
+Chief301 Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 The tag will just have a tracking number on it. This tracking number shouldn't be shared with anyone, posted online, shown in pictures, etc.....it's purpose is to ensure that only someone who has actually had the trackable in their possession can log it. When someone finds your trackable in a cache, they use that tracking number to look it up on the Geocaching site. That's where you will have created a page for the trackable, and that's where you will describe the theme of the trackable, if any ("My wife and I released this trackable on our honeymoon in Japan"), and define its mission ("it wants to to find its way home to Hometown, UK"). Have some fun with the TB description...make it funny or whimsical and attach the dog tag to something that fits the theme....maybe a little bride and groom or something. When someone looks up a cache description online, it will also have an "Inventory" of trackables currently located in that cache. That will also link to your trackable's page but they will still need the tracking number (stamped on the trackable itself) to log it. In the meantime, go out and start finding some caches! Try to find some with trackables and move a few of then around to get a feel for how it works. Good Lick! Quote Link to comment
+Graculus Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Hi This is a link to the UK Geocaching Wiki which contains a wealth of information about caching in the UK. There is a section showing useful links to various forums and organisations including those on Facebook which all relate to caching in the UK. Click here. Chris Graculus Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- UK Geocaching Wiki Geocaching.com Help Center UK Geocaching Information & Resources website Quote Link to comment
niftylite Posted March 12, 2013 Author Share Posted March 12, 2013 Thanks guys! I didn't find the cache on my first try - but i will try again later!! (I guess i shouldn't log it as a DNF as i didn't really have time to have a good look - it was more just practicing navigating to the location, but then there were people around so i couldn't have a good look >_>) Thanks again for the warm welcome tho Quote Link to comment
+Chief301 Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Some people would call that a DNF. Personally, I wouldn't, if I didn't have a chance to actually aeaech. I might just post a note in that case and come back later Quote Link to comment
+hzoi Posted March 12, 2013 Share Posted March 12, 2013 Caching in Tallinn? Caching in Japan? Are you stalking me or what? Glad you're having fun with it so far. Geocaching has definitely enhanced our travels, we look at it as our way of finding things not in the guidebook. (And a great excuse to return to countries we'd already visited!) Quote Link to comment
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