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I want more caches in my neighborhood!


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"Neighborhood" is a loose term... I'm talking a 30 mile radius or so...

 

I live in the boonies, near a tourist town. Leavenworth, WA (aka fake Bavaria, Der Town) We have 2 lakes, a National Park, National Forest, a few rivers, and many many trails, dirt roads, picnic and camping areas. A major ski area is less than an hour away. There is a ridiculous amount of locations to put caches of all sizes.

 

Leavenworth, the town, has a few, but I'm talking about the outlying areas... Tumwater Canyon, Coles Corner, Lake Wenatchee, Fish Lake, Chiwawa River, Beaver Valley, Chumstick, multiple canyon roads, Peshastin (next town East of Leavenworth) I'm working on a series of 26, but I'd love to see more caches in my area...

 

There's lots of tourists coming through who geocache, year round, but summer and winter are the busy seasons. Thoughts on how to attract more cache hiders?

 

(and yes, I love where I live!)

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A quick check reveals that there are 96 active caches within a ten-mile radius of Leavenworth, Washington. If you've found most of them, or a significant number of them are yours (13 today) then do something about it. Your post describes an area rich with potential sites worthy of excellent geocaches.

 

Start by getting your currently-muggle friends into the hobby. Get them to find all of YOURS, then encourage them to start hiding THEIR OWN.

 

Then, they work on THEIR friends, and so on, and so on.....

 

When you have more than a handful of people, host an Event, with contests and raffles.

 

Host a "Geocaching Nite" at the local library. Advertise it directly to groups that might be interested. What these groups are would change, based on local stereotypes.

 

As you build this community, encourage fun, exciting hides and containers. Try to discourage (maybe even 'disparage') LPC's and every-tenth-mile guardrail caches.

 

REALLY sell the "Take Me To Someplace Great" concept.

 

REALLY really sell CITO.

 

In other words, if you want a local geocaching community, go make one.

 

Come back and post more in this thread and let us know how it goes!

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I feel your pain as I live in a rural area too. While there are many caches near me the only one less then a mile away is mine, so can't get a find for under a mile. I have found most of the ones near me so now I have to travel about 40 miles to find one. :sad:

 

On the other hand I get to travel to find caches, just the way you look at it. :laughing:

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Hey, dicentra, I did just place one in Leavenworth a month ago. ;)

 

I know that it's been a complaint here for a while. We're getting a ton more new cachers this year (seems to be the highest amount of new cachers that I've ever seen), but nobody's been placing caches. I was even given a container by a semi-local cacher to place somewhere. :D

 

I'm currently working on four new caches in Wenatchee right now. I'm also looking at placing at least one more in Leavenworth soon.

 

I'd love to see you at one of our events in the future, it would be great to meet you! :)

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A quick check reveals that there are 96 active caches within a ten-mile radius of Leavenworth, Washington. If you've found most of them, or a significant number of them are yours (13 today) then do something about it. Your post describes an area rich with potential sites worthy of excellent geocaches.

 

Start by getting your currently-muggle friends into the hobby. Get them to find all of YOURS, then encourage them to start hiding THEIR OWN.

 

Then, they work on THEIR friends, and so on, and so on.....

 

When you have more than a handful of people, host an Event, with contests and raffles.

 

Host a "Geocaching Nite" at the local library. Advertise it directly to groups that might be interested. What these groups are would change, based on local stereotypes.

 

As you build this community, encourage fun, exciting hides and containers. Try to discourage (maybe even 'disparage') LPC's and every-tenth-mile guardrail caches.

 

REALLY sell the "Take Me To Someplace Great" concept.

 

REALLY really sell CITO.

 

In other words, if you want a local geocaching community, go make one.

 

Come back and post more in this thread and let us know how it goes!

 

BRAVO-one of the best posts I have ever read during my 15 years playing in this sandbox!

I completely agree with the Rabbits. Explore social media and the blogosphere to learn more about cool caches. Then share this enthusiasm with your friends and share your new hobby with them.

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I was FTF today on a couple of your new hides, thanks! I DNF'd one due to mosquitos, too. Can you organize a CITO (after the summer heat!). Maybe a campout/CITO event? Join us with a local business to sponsor it? Good Mood Food, Blewett Brewing? We camped at Nason Creek which was overrun with mosquitos. I live over the mountains in Mount Vernon, but if it works with my schedule, I'd be there!

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You know, if you live in a place with little caches then you need to build your own community. There are countries around with literally no caches and people moving there either give up or start up a community right there. Sometimes one has to invest time and creativity into this hobby in order to play. On the plus side you can make your area into a great geocaching experience for other people, make great hides, bring people to interesting areas.

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Thanks for all the responses (keep them coming!). I'd love to eventually get to a point where I'm able to be involved more. I'm pretty new to the game, so I don't think I'm qualified yet to be any kind of geocaching ambassador. Also, I work weekends, so events are tricky for me. They seem to happen mostly on Saturdays. There was a picnic nearby recently that I really wanted to go to, but I got out of work too late to attend. The Ape event is coming, I'm going to try and go if work will let me, but summers are really busy (yay tourist season!)

 

I've already got my friends who might be interested involved... everyone else thinks I'm nuts.

 

Just to clarify, the area I'm describing is 15+ miles from the town of Leavenworth. I've been working on Wenatchee caches in my days off, but that's a 30+ mile drive each way.

 

Maybe I need to be more involved in the forums too. Seems like there's some really good people here. :)

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Also, I work weekends, so events are tricky for me. They seem to happen mostly on Saturdays.
FWIW, around here there are a number of lunch-hour events during the week. If that's convenient for you, then go ahead and organize an event and see who shows up.

 

I've also attended evening events during the week, and morning events before work. Pick a time that works for you, and that might work for others.

 

It doesn't take much to organize an event. Many of the events I attend are simple meet and greets where the organizer grabs a table or three at a local coffee/pastry/donut/sandwich shop and people visit while eating/drinking. If you want to have a log sheet, just grab a placemat or some other piece of paper. (A couple CITO events I attended used a trash bag that everyone signed.) If you do it often, then you might get a spiral notebook, and use a page or two for each event's log. Leave the pages in the notebook, and you have a souvenir of the events you've organized after a while.

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Thanks for all the responses (keep them coming!). I'd love to eventually get to a point where I'm able to be involved more. I'm pretty new to the game, so I don't think I'm qualified yet to be any kind of geocaching ambassador. Also, I work weekends, so events are tricky for me. They seem to happen mostly on Saturdays. There was a picnic nearby recently that I really wanted to go to, but I got out of work too late to attend. The Ape event is coming, I'm going to try and go if work will let me, but summers are really busy (yay tourist season!)

 

I've already got my friends who might be interested involved... everyone else thinks I'm nuts.

 

Just to clarify, the area I'm describing is 15+ miles from the town of Leavenworth. I've been working on Wenatchee caches in my days off, but that's a 30+ mile drive each way.

 

Maybe I need to be more involved in the forums too. Seems like there's some really good people here. :)

 

Something to consider. Do you want your area to be recognized for having a lot of caches (In which case, it's not going to compete with heavily saturated areas) or an area that has some really good caches?

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Part of the 'problem' is that the wilderness areas require explicit permission to place caches, and there are several wilderness areas around you that are unlikely to have new caches placed. Yes, there are some active caches in wilderness areas, but their placement pre-dates the restrictions.

 

The advice others have given is great, building the community around your area and setting an example of 'good' caches so new cachers will follow your example. Good luck!

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