Trackables

[RiverlandSearch]

I guess I am just frustrated, but I would like some advice. Last month we put out two travel bugs attached to Girl Scout patches. We were doing this a part of a badge the girls were earning called Geocaching. They had a great day learning about GPS devices and hunting for the caches. A few weeks ago I received a notice that one of the patches was not in the cache listed. Today I received a second notice that the second patch was also not in the listed cache. About 6 years ago I did this same activity with another group of girls and all the travel bugs are still in circulation somewhere. I was just shocked that this happened right here in my area. I had planned to send out 4 but the girls only found two caches that day so I have the other two to place. I will obviously not be placing them in the same caches, but I will find other caches to use. The travel bugs had a sticker explaining that this was a Girl Scout project and what we were trying to accomplish. Has anyone else had this kind of problem?

Edited September 2, 2013 by RiverlandSearch

[+Quossum]

Yes, trackables disappear all the time, sometimes from the very first cache they're placed in. Sometimes you luck out and they travel for years. Sounds like you just got hit with a burst of bad luck, having two go missing in quick succession.

 

Advice for now:

You can look back through the logs of the cache from which the patches disappeared and write *politely* to the cacher(s) you suspect might have taken the bugs, inquiring about them and asking if they need any help logging. Sometimes newbies don't quite get the ins and out of trackables.

 

Advice for the future:

Go for magnitude. Put out a LOT of trackables, and at least a couple will probably make it for a while.

Don't put out anything "valuable" or indispensable, either emotionally or mission-wise.

 

Note: Though this is rare and hopefully unlikely in your case, there are areas of the country known to be the home of notorious trackable thieves. If you have the misfortune to live in such an area, it's probably best not to put out trackables except when you travel, as the thieves will inevitably get all the properly logged trackables in their home area.

 

Hope this helps!

--Q

Edited September 2, 2013 by Quossum

[Pup Patrol]

Has anyone else had this kind of problem?

 

Yes. A LOT of people have had their trackables go missing.

 

Which leads me to suggest that you might want to mark your trackables as "missing". This action isn't a death warrant, but it removes the trackables from the cache's inventory.

 

Help Center → Trackables → Fancier Features

2.5. Mark Missing - Trackable on page but not there physically.

http://support.Groundspeak.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=152

 

Check out the Travel Bug forum, where this should have been posted, and the Geocoin forum, and you will see that trackables disappearing is the norm, not the exception.

 

Travel Bug forum:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=9

 

Geocoin Discussions:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=44

 

 

B.

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the Travel Bug forum.

[+Walts Hunting]

I don't know why you would be shocked. The issue of missing travelers comes up almost daily in the forums. There doesn't appear to be any satisfactory solution and is just something you have to accept.

[+Elvis and Co.]

I just released my FIRST TB and a piece of advice that I received that I really liked is to send out a proxy, instead of the actual coin.

 

For those who would like a quick explanation, a proxy is a copy of the original (in my case, a laminated photocopy of my geocoin, both sides including the Geocoin tracking number). It allows me to send out the TB into the world without fear that it might get snagged by someone who collects Geocoins. This also is a good idea if the item gets lost for any reason, I can just create a new proxy and send it out into the world, allowing the TB to complete its goal. A picture of the proxy is located here http://coord.info/TB5TZ12.

 

As a relative newbie myself, another piece of advice I found helpful was to check out the caches before you start caching to see if there are any TB's logged into it. You can view their stories before you get to the cache and see if there are any there that you can help out with, or you might decide to leave some alone because you CAN'T progress their story.

 

And something that happened recently to me which I managed to help out other cachers was to log which TB's were actually in the caches they said they were in, and which TB's were missing. I e-mailed the owners of missing TB"s so that they were aware their TB's were not logged. On some occasions it was as easy as waiting for the Monday so that the cacher could log that they took the TB, on other occasions the owner of the TB actually thanked me to telling him his TB was missing.

 

This might all sound like newbie info, and if it is I apologize. But these are tricks of the trade that I wish I knew before starting my TB craze. There might even be some more tricks out there that I don't know and would be grateful for any info for the future.