Jump to content

Where are my TB's


TemptressofDown

Recommended Posts

We started out geocaching in a small way then after a while we decided it would be fun to set a few caches of our own. As we then lived in the Middle East it was great to drive to some almost inaccessible part and commemorate our achievement with a geocache or an earth cache. And knowing many of our fellow geocachers in the region were expats and traveled a lot for work we thought it would be interesting to see where a bunch of TBs might end up so we let a few loose into the world. Some three or four years later of the 8 we released two plus a geocoin have almost certainly been muggled, three are in the hands of geocachers who've had them for one or more years leaving just three out of eight still traveling.

 

Is this about the usual rate of attrition or should I be upset about their lose? I tried messaging the TB hoarders but have not had any response from them. Anyway it was an interesting experiment and watching their journeys was fascinating.

Link to comment

You're doing way better than me. My "success" rate is 0%. I put one out that disappeared several states away and was confirmed as missing by a cache owner after someone posted it wasn't in the cache. It reappeared several months later in the same cache but disappeared again from a cache fairly close to me. My second one is in the hands of the second person to pick it up who logged he would move it on along with another one he picked up (which happened to be one I had also handled earlier). He was a new cacher by a day or two and hasn't logged in since after two weeks or so in the game nor has he responded to my inquiry.

 

I'm looking at doing some proxy's but don't think I'll continue with trackables at this point. The loss of the relatively inexpensive trinkets isn't causing me distress like it seems to for many people. I did it for the fun of seeing it move to the destination I set for it. Trouble is that they don't seem to follow my instructions. They had tags specifying where they were to go and mostly they didn't go there. Lots of "visits" and several drops in the wrong direction but basically local moves. Someone did move it from New York to Michigan which got it a good step on the way to Arizona. It moved around there and then someone took it to Texas which thrilled me until the cacher that picked it up in Texas took it back to Michigan. It made it's way back to Kentucky and then got lost due to some maintenance work by the rest area.

 

Two years to simply end up more or less back home and never getting close to the destination wasn't all that interesting especially with the several pages of "visit" logs. If your voluntary pastime isn't interesting why do it?

Link to comment

I took a TB heading for Utah from Ohio to Denver, then someone picked it up and brought it back to Kentucky. I took a stuffed animal that had traveled through Europe for a couple years to within 100 miles of it's home in Texas (I just couldn't take it all the way)--someone picked it up and never logged it again. Even participating by helping people--not putting anything out yourself--is discouraging.

Link to comment

This is what I posted the other day.

 

This means basically only 7.5% of what I released is still able to be called active. Most of those are recent as well & only two that were released along time ago are still making their rounds.

 

One from 2009 - http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=1517584

 

One from 2005 - http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=220077

 

 

Of the 53 TBs I have released since 2006 only 7 can be still considered in circulation. Has Groundspeak ever release the stats on how many TBs are marked missing?

Link to comment

I have sent 150+ TB's and coins out to travel.

Half of them are missing.

They either went missing with the cache or from the cache and events or they are still held (hostage) by cachers who do not respond.

At first I set specific goals, but only one of those coins ever reached such a goal.

 

So now I just let them travel around the world, asking only, not to bring my trackables to events, not to discover from lists and not to use the "visited" logs.

 

I find myself a lot happier considering my trackables are lost the minute I release them to travel, so every drop in the next cache is a nice experience.

I'm also fully aware that most geocachers never read the message on the trackables page.

This way I'm never disappointed and I really enjoy the very few logs from geocachers who take the trouble to find a save cache in a lovely area and post pictures.

 

 

Link to comment

I have two out right now, and one is traveling the world (it's been to Korea, most of Europe and about seven states) and the other one has gone about 70 miles in three months.

 

I didn't put specific goals on them, other than I wanted my zombie trackable to see places zombies might hang out, but I just really wanted to see where they'd wind up.

 

My sister and I took a trackable that was racing to Baja and dropped it in Los Angeles, but I see now that the owner wants it to come back home because whoever it was racing has gone missing. That was the closest I've ever come to helping a trackable meet its goal.

 

Oh, and I helped one that wanted to visit all 50 states and I was able to knock two off its list. :)

Link to comment

I took my first [and will be the only one ever now] 4,200 miles on it's journey. A Canadian experienced cacher then took it 3,800 miles in the wrong direction and kept it for six months. When I prompted him he said he would move it along only to take it with a 50 miles of where I left it on an island. He never read the mission I guess this basically means most cachers are not that nice really. The next guy picked it up and has kept it for 2 years and does not reply to emails. I've only been to one cache since then as the joy is somewhat dampened by lack of faithfulness to the game. If all you do is come across the same crappy people in geocaching that you do elsewhere then there is little point. Perhaps I could have more fun trashing caches; now there's an idea... the fun of annoying those who annoy you

<_<

Link to comment
A Canadian experienced cacher then took it 3,800 miles in the wrong direction and kept it for six months. When I prompted him he said he would move it along only to take it with a 50 miles of where I left it on an island.

This could of been telling, as many believe it's only the new folks and that free app who mess trackables up.

Most of us know better...

- But these days of "took it to" logs, holding a trackable for 6 or 7 months is nada anymore. :)

He never read the mission I guess this basically means most cachers are not that nice really.

"Most" cachers, I believe, are nice. We aren't apples...

If all you do is come across the same crappy people in geocaching that you do elsewhere then there is little point. Perhaps I could have more fun trashing caches; now there's an idea... the fun of annoying those who annoy you

Nice.

You just talked about "most" cachers not being nice, then you speak of becoming a cache maggot.

Real nice...

Link to comment

I took my first [and will be the only one ever now] 4,200 miles on it's journey. A Canadian experienced cacher then took it 3,800 miles in the wrong direction and kept it for six months. When I prompted him he said he would move it along only to take it with a 50 miles of where I left it on an island. He never read the mission I guess this basically means most cachers are not that nice really. The next guy picked it up and has kept it for 2 years and does not reply to emails. I've only been to one cache since then as the joy is somewhat dampened by lack of faithfulness to the game. If all you do is come across the same crappy people in geocaching that you do elsewhere then there is little point. Perhaps I could have more fun trashing caches; now there's an idea... the fun of annoying those who annoy you

<_<

 

I understand your frustration, so we should all take your post as a vent or rant that I think it is, and NOT (hopefully) as a legitimate threat. I think most cachers are nice. But I also think many (note I said many, not all) cachers are, how should I say this..... self absorbed? Which I guess makes geocachers pretty representative of general populations of humans in general. Yes, I get frustrated that people don't read the TB page. Yes, I get frustrated that people don't log. Yes, I get frustrated with some peoples casual indifference to other peoples property (both caches and TBs). But I'm also reminded by so many cachers in my neck of the desert of how wonderful they are, how well they play the game and set an example for all to follow (writing great personal logs, always logging TBs and KNOWING if they can or can't help a tb). I certainly pay attention, and try my best to model my geocaching behavior from these individuals.

Link to comment

I took my first [and will be the only one ever now] 4,200 miles on it's journey. A Canadian experienced cacher then took it 3,800 miles in the wrong direction and kept it for six months. When I prompted him he said he would move it along only to take it with a 50 miles of where I left it on an island. He never read the mission I guess this basically means most cachers are not that nice really. The next guy picked it up and has kept it for 2 years and does not reply to emails. I've only been to one cache since then as the joy is somewhat dampened by lack of faithfulness to the game. If all you do is come across the same crappy people in geocaching that you do elsewhere then there is little point. Perhaps I could have more fun trashing caches; now there's an idea... the fun of annoying those who annoy you

<_<

 

I just found out about geocaching 2 weeks ago and my kids and myself have been having the most fun with it, even when we find some soaking wet, kind of "lame" trackables inside the cache we've tried so hard to find. I came here looking up info about trackables because we found one and didn't know what to do with it but we could tell it was much more "special" than anything we'd found so far so wanted to see what to do with it. We found it's goal and mission and even took a picture of it in that new setting and then set it on it's way at another cache. As much fun as we've been having your post saddens me. I truly hope most "cachers" look at this as a GAME and not real life millions of dollars of treasure buried because if people decide to just trash others caches that just seems so petty. And for us, being excited after just setting out our first cache, we really hope people just out having fun outdoors will be kind to our new "treasure". I would think maybe it's just time to be done with the game in my opinion if I got that upset.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...