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New Country Souvenirs coming

NYPaddleCacher

By NYPaddleCacher
in General geocaching topics

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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The next souvenir is:

Brazil

:) That's one more for me!...sorry, that's so appish.

 

I'm only going to get two out the five (Italy, Belgium) so far. I was looking at the page for the new Mexico souvenir and I've been to the spot for one of the feature caches: The Pyramid of the Sun virtual, but that was before I started caching. I was in Mexico CIty again a few months ago but it was a relatively short layover and I didn't feel comfortable taking a taxi into the central city and getting back in time for my next flight. I'll get Mexico (and Canada) one of these days.

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Cool B) So far I'm 5 for 5

 

The next souvenir is:

Brazil

 

Congratulations!

I'm on 3 so far, but I'm glad we're getting some non-European souvenirs this time. Brasil is on my wish list only for the Ape cache to be honest, so it's unlikely we'll go there anytime soon.

 

If I had the opportunity to go to Brazil I'd certainly consider trying to get to the Ape cache but if I had a choice I'd rather find one of the other feature caches on the new souvenir for Brazil page. That would be the GC3FMPF_frederico-engel at Iguacu Falls. I've been to Victoria Falls (in Zimbabwe) and have wanted to see Iguacu as well. Plus, it's right on the Brasil/Argentina border so I could find some caches in Argentina as well.

 

Since we've got lots of souvenirs in Europe, North America, a few in Asia, one in Africa, and one in South America I think one in Central America or Middle East should be next. Either Costa Rica or United Arab Emerites would be fine.

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Ridler & Cmokica

Ridler & Cmokica

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Strange though, unless if my sources are wrong, Slovakia still don't have a souvenir.

 

Slovakia does have one: http://www.geocaching.com/souvenir/?guid=9fc13a9e-dc65-4695-aae4-8fa1e5a0bc8a

 

Slovenia is the one who doesn't have it. Altough we have more caches per capita than Italy and more caches overall than Croatia, it looks like we're gonna be left as the island in the middle of the European countries that do have them. Shame on Groundspeak for that decision... :mad:

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Nice! Then I got 4 of 6 :) Need to travel more :laughing:

 

And now here the lobbying for a Middle Eastern and an Asian souvenir starts! :yikes:

 

Only 2 of 6 for me. I hadn't thought about Greece but it does make some some sense.

 

We've already got Japan and South Korea in Asia. China probably doesn't have enough caches to justify a souvenir but I'd still like to see one. Thailand or Malaysia or Turkey would be good candidates but Hong Kong actually has more caches than any of those other countries.

 

There have already been a couple of suggestions for UAE.

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cezanne

cezanne

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Slovenia is the one who doesn't have it. Altough we have more caches per capita than Italy and more caches overall than Croatia, it looks like we're gonna be left as the island in the middle of the European countries that do have them. Shame on Groundspeak for that decision... :mad:

 

I think tourists might have played a much larger role in the decision and Croatia gets much more tourists.

By the way Slovenia meanwhile has many caches, but unfortunately many powertrails and mass caches. I live not far from Slovenia but the area easily reachable for me is completely unattractive for me when it comes to geocaching. Mass geocaching has ruined it.

 

There are very beautiful areas in Slovenia, but there the number of caches is much smaller and many are hidden by cachers from abroad.

 

Cezanne

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Viajero Perdido

+Viajero Perdido

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Posted (edited)
There are very beautiful areas in Slovenia, but there the number of caches is much smaller and many are hidden by cachers from abroad.

That's Mexico's problem too. The coasts are cursed by vacation caches with dubious maintenance.

 

Heck, take a look at the featured caches in the blog post announcing the Mexico souvenir. Couldn't they find a few locally hidden examples?

 

IMHO, Hong Kong rocks as a quality* caching destination, and from the looks of it, so do Taiwan and South Korea. They're on my to-do list, souvenir or not.

 

(* - quality, not quantity)

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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There are very beautiful areas in Slovenia, but there the number of caches is much smaller and many are hidden by cachers from abroad.

That's Mexico's problem too. The coasts are cursed by vacation caches with dubious maintenance.

 

Heck, take a look at the featured caches in the blog post announcing the Mexico souvenir. Couldn't they find a few locally hidden examples?

 

IMHO, Hong Kong rocks as a quality* caching destination, and from the looks of it, so do Taiwan and South Korea. They're on my to-do list, souvenir or not.

 

(* - quality, not quantity)

 

I've heard good things about Hong Kong as well, perhaps from you but I know others have mentioned it as well. I looked at the South Korea scene awhile back when there was a possibility of a layover in Seoul on a trip to south China and didn't come away with the impression that the quality was high. I just did a search by country for South Korea and majority of cache listings in the first several pages include a "#" in the title (e.g. Seoul Trail #nnn) and area obviously part of a series. Taiwan didn't look much better.

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hzoi

+hzoi

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I looked at the South Korea scene awhile back when there was a possibility of a layover in Seoul on a trip to south China and didn't come away with the impression that the quality was high. I just did a search by country for South Korea and majority of cache listings in the first several pages include a "#" in the title (e.g. Seoul Trail #nnn) and area obviously part of a series.

 

Almost all of the caches in SK are micros. We went for a few during our week there, but caching was definitely not a priority as a result.

 

Many of the caching trails are actually on trails, so that's neat, but there were only so many micros I wanted to hunt.

 

Which may be why I screwed up the airport shuttle schedule and almost missed my flight home, I was so excited to have a regular size TB hotel to hunt at the airport. :anibad:

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terratin

+terratin

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I know what you mean hzoi! I was so excited to cache in Bangkok, and then found out pretty much all caches there are micros behind tourist info signs. :( It's nice to have many caches to chose from, but after one day of walking through town we did not do detours for a cache some 150m away anymore. :ph34r:

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icabrian

+icabrian

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I think tourists might have played a much larger role in the decision and Croatia gets much more tourists.

By the way Slovenia meanwhile has many caches, but unfortunately many powertrails and mass caches. I live not far from Slovenia but the area easily reachable for me is completely unattractive for me when it comes to geocaching. Mass geocaching has ruined it.

 

I wonder when was the last time that you visited Slovenia for geocaching? While it is true that there are a couple of power trails (and far too many for my taste, I haven't done a single one), especially in the east part of the country, they are easily recognisable and avoidable. Still, the number of power trails is far less than for example in Austria or Hungary. Mass geocaching has not ruined it as much as in some other European countries (and we recognise the problem and are actively promoting the concept of geocaching for quality not numbers).

 

 

There are very beautiful areas in Slovenia, but there the number of caches is much smaller and many are hidden by cachers from abroad.

 

 

First part is true, but the second part is largely wrong. Yes, once you get out of urban areas, the caches are (luckily, remember what you said about mass geocaching) not as numerous anymore, but most are well worth a visit and many are of exceptional quality both in terms of location and geocaching experience. There is only a handful of surviving geocaches by foreign owners and most caches that you will find in "very beautiful areas" are locally owned and fairly well maintained. Drop me a note next time you plan to visit the country, I'd be glad to provide you with some geocaches to spend your favourites on...

 

As for the tourists: yes, Croatia, Italy and Greece do get much larger number of tourists than Slovenia, so I quite agree that it was probably what was driving the selection for souvenirs. However, if you weigh the finds data with international tourist arrivals, you get a different picture: considerably larger proportion of foreign tourists decides to do geocaching while visiting Slovenia than for example while visiting Croatia. It's a curse of a small country, we simply don't provide enough in absolute numbers of whatever (caches, finds, visits, revenue) to be noticed easily from Pacific Northwest. Even though we are lively caching community and just below Top 10 of EU countries on every measure that you take. I think Estonia was overlooked in much the same way.

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cheech gang

+cheech gang

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I have found 5 caches in Slovenia and from that very small sample can attest to the existence of quality hides, all were. Unfortunately Slovenia has not made the cut for souvenirs.

 

There has been MUCH speculation as to why certain areas have been selected and others have not. But so far there is only speculation. If there is a formula for determining selection criteria it so far has not been revealed by TPTB.

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cezanne

cezanne

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I wonder when was the last time that you visited Slovenia for geocaching? While it is true that there are a couple of power trails (and far too many for my taste, I haven't done a single one), especially in the east part of the country, they are easily recognisable and avoidable. Still, the number of power trails is far less than for example in Austria or Hungary.

 

The caches in Slovenia that are close to my home region simply do not attract me. Most of the Styrian cachers who go for geocaching in Slovenia go there to visit powertrails and large series (have a look at the caches along the Mur river, in the Maribor region etc). They return with many finds, but that's not what attracts me into geocaching. My feelings about geo maribor are very ambivalent. The situation appears however to be better in the Western part of Slovenia where I have never really watched the development closely.

 

 

 

Mass geocaching has not ruined it as much as in some other European countries (and we recognise the problem and are actively promoting the concept of geocaching for quality not numbers).

 

In my region there are powertrails and series as well, but it appears to me that are more hiking multi caches and lonesome traditionals that require a decent hike than in those areas of Slovenia that are within my focus for everyday caching (not vacation caching). The number of multi caches (my favourite cache type) in Slovenia seems to be pretty low (206 in the whole country, including urban ones while there are 3707 active caches overall).

 

It appears to me that at least in this region

https://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=46.3787&lng=14.58878#?ll=46.53194,15.7132&z=10

powertrails and series are what make the most essential contribution to the overall number of caches available.

 

First part is true, but the second part is largely wrong. Yes, once you get out of urban areas, the caches are (luckily, remember what you said about mass geocaching) not as numerous anymore, but most are well worth a visit and many are of exceptional quality both in terms of location and geocaching experience. There is only a handful of surviving geocaches by foreign owners and most caches that you will find in "very beautiful areas" are locally owned and fairly well maintained. Drop me a note next time you plan to visit the country, I'd be glad to provide you with some geocaches to spend your favourites on...

 

You made me curious. Do you have any recommendations for the part of Slovenia I talked about above?

For some nice 15km+ hiking (multi) caches I'd be willing to drive up to 80-90km (one direction) in the warmer season.

 

As for the tourists: yes, Croatia, Italy and Greece do get much larger number of tourists than Slovenia, so I quite agree that it was probably what was driving the selection for souvenirs. However, if you weigh the finds data with international tourist arrivals, you get a different picture: considerably larger proportion of foreign tourists decides to do geocaching while visiting Slovenia than for example while visiting Croatia.

 

I'm not fully convinced as many Austrians and cachers from other countries are attracted to the powertrails and increase the number of finds without counting as tourists.

Edited by cezanne
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Any idea when the next souvenirs will be released? When was the last series released before those 6?

 

Groundspeak didn't indicate when or if more country based souvenirs would be released but the fact that they did release 6 new ones after stating that hey wouldn't be releasing any more after the previous batch is encouraging. The previous batch of souvenirs were released in celebration of the 2,000,000th cache hidden in February 2013 (http://www.geocaching.com/blog/2013/02/two-million-geocaches/).

 

So, if GS does intend to release more country/region souvenirs which ones should they do? Here are my top 5 picks:

 

Turkey

Costa RIca

United Arab Emirates

Romania

China

 

 

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MartyBartfast

+MartyBartfast

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Groundspeak didn't indicate when or if more country based souvenirs would be released

On the blog discussion for the release of the Croatia souvenir, Janelle (Geocaching community manager) said "We hope to have Souvenirs for every country at some point in the future!" so while there's no timescale it does suggest a commitment to having a full set.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/blog/2014/12/croatia-souvenir/#comment-1722737420

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hzoi

+hzoi

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Great, finally a souvenir of my own country and guess what happened .. listed at the wrong date <_<

Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Anybody an idea on how to solve this ?

 

No. It may fix itself. Or it may not. It's a date on a souvenir, I doubt most would notice.

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The A-Team

+The A-Team

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Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Also, if you back-date a log, it will show the date you submitted the log, not the date you made the find. This looks even goofier when it happens for a souvenir that's only available on a specific day. You end up with something along the lines of "Leap Day, only available on February 29th, acquired on March 5th"... <_<

 

I don't even bother looking at the dates, since many of them are wrong anyway. It's a cobbled-together system built on top of legacy, cobbled-together systems. Set your expectations accordingly. :laughing:

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Great, finally a souvenir of my own country and guess what happened .. listed at the wrong date dry.gif

Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Anybody an idea on how to solve this ?

 

No. It may fix itself. Or it may not. It's a date on a souvenir, I doubt most would notice.

 

It's probably not worth worrying too much about it but since the souvenirs pages is sorted by "date acquired" and the souvenirs can't be sorted any other way, an accurate date is useful.

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CanadianRockies

+CanadianRockies

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Great, finally a souvenir of my own country and guess what happened .. listed at the wrong date dry.gif

Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Anybody an idea on how to solve this ?

No. It may fix itself. Or it may not. It's a date on a souvenir, I doubt most would notice.

It's probably not worth worrying too much about it but since the souvenirs pages is sorted by "date acquired" and the souvenirs can't be sorted any other way, an accurate date is useful.

My souvenirs are sorted alphabetically.

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hzoi

+hzoi

Posted
Posted

Great, finally a souvenir of my own country and guess what happened .. listed at the wrong date dry.gif

Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Anybody an idea on how to solve this ?

No. It may fix itself. Or it may not. It's a date on a souvenir, I doubt most would notice.

It's probably not worth worrying too much about it but since the souvenirs pages is sorted by "date acquired" and the souvenirs can't be sorted any other way, an accurate date is useful.

My souvenirs are sorted alphabetically.

As are mine.

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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Great, finally a souvenir of my own country and guess what happened .. listed at the wrong date dry.gif

Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Anybody an idea on how to solve this ?

No. It may fix itself. Or it may not. It's a date on a souvenir, I doubt most would notice.

It's probably not worth worrying too much about it but since the souvenirs pages is sorted by "date acquired" and the souvenirs can't be sorted any other way, an accurate date is useful.

My souvenirs are sorted alphabetically.

 

I could swear that they were sorted by date acquired in the official app. Perhaps it's only in the official app. Personally, I'd like to see them grouped by type, then sorted alphabetically.

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nessie3d & Ynka

+nessie3d & Ynka

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Logged a Earthcache at the same day of the appearance of the new souvenir and it just took that day as my first found for that country .. guess that's pretty wrong :laughing:

Also, if you back-date a log, it will show the date you submitted the log, not the date you made the find. This looks even goofier when it happens for a souvenir that's only available on a specific day. You end up with something along the lines of "Leap Day, only available on February 29th, acquired on March 5th"... <_<

 

I don't even bother looking at the dates, since many of them are wrong anyway. It's a cobbled-together system built on top of legacy, cobbled-together systems. Set your expectations accordingly. :laughing:

:lol:

I'll cobble-together my expectations next time an issue arises :rolleyes:

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Pup Patrol

Pup Patrol

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Posted (edited)

From the Groundspeak newsletter:

 

Geocachers are well known for venturing around the world in search of tupperware. And thanks to awesome geocache hiders everywhere, players can discover new places feeling like locals.

 

Well good news, intrepid geocaching travelers. Beginning November 16, we’ll announce a new country souvenir each week for five weeks. We’ve also created geocaching guides for each country, so you’ll have everything you need to plan your next geocaching vacation.

 

If you’ve already found a geocache in any of these countries, you’ll automatically receive the souvenir on your profile after all of the new souvenirs have been announced. Souvenirs that are currently available can be found here. You can view which ones you’ve already earned by checking out your Souvenirs on Geocaching.com.

 

Watch out for the first new country souvenir announcement in next week’s Geocaching newsletter.

 

B.

Edited by Pup Patrol
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NYPaddleCacher

+NYPaddleCacher

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Well good news, intrepid geocaching travelers. Beginning November 16, we’ll announce a new country souvenir each week for five weeks.

 

My vote is for Swaziland.

 

How about Ethiopia? They created artwork for an Ethiopia souvenir several years ago but never used it. And since I'm currently in China, I'd like to see one for China as well. I found caches during a previous visit but DNF'd a cache on the Huanghuacheng section of the great wall today.

 

 

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