Newish

[+DeeGee26]

Hi folks,

I've been doing a bit of geocaching with my son as a bit of fun to get us outdoors. We've found a few so far, mostly in our local area, but also a couple on holiday. Now I'm getting a bit better at finding things, I might have a go at some of the more interesting looking caches.

The boy has started to ask about making our own caches to hide, and we've found a couple of likely locations close to places we go regularly.

A lot of the stuff around here is quite (sub)urban, with metal fences and stuff to hide things on. Therefore there are lots of magnetic nanos. I'm happy spending 20 minutes looking all over for one of those, but it's not so good for a boy of seven. We have enjoyed a couple of caches we've done with hidden bison tubes, and I might get a couple of those in. Ideally I'd like to get a couple of travel bugs too, to drop into some of the caches.

While I'm thinking about designing my cache, are there any decent alternatives to the nano that can be stuck to metal? What do I need to think about if I want to make my cache "family friendly", but not likely to be muggled in a hurry, particularly, as I suggested, in a suburban area. Sadly all the countryside stuff seems well saturated (even if I couldn't find it) so I'm going to use the local streets for the first instance.

[+dartymoor]

Any cache can be magnetic with a magnet glued to it. I've got various 'Small' size caches with magnets out, and plenty I've found have been very cleverly concealed with magnets. (Think fake branches stuck onto a tree)

But why do you think they must all be magnetic? Even in urban areas (which are probably the least good places to hide caches due to muggles and often rubbish/undesirables) - here are options. Perhaps find a few more caches in a wider area to get more ideas rather than rushing to get your own out?

Don't get me wrong - hiding is great and the positive feedback from finders is enjoyable, but please follow the guidelines on the main pages and find a place you want to bring people to, then they'll enjoy it more and write nicer stuff!

[bradbox]

There are a few good videos on YouTube about designing cunning (understatement) caches.

Personally, I like to reuse stuff from home - old watertight bottles for example. It may be a good example to your son of reusing stuff rather than chucking it out.

[+cerberus1]

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 6:51 AM, DeeGee26 said:

 ... A lot of the stuff around here is quite (sub)urban, with metal fences and stuff to hide things on. Therefore there are lots of magnetic nanos. I'm happy spending 20 minutes looking all over for one of those, but it's not so good for a boy of seven. We have enjoyed a couple of caches we've done with hidden bison tubes, and I might get a couple of those in. Ideally I'd like to get a couple of travel bugs too, to drop into some of the caches.

While I'm thinking about designing my cache, are there any decent alternatives to the nano that can be stuck to metal? What do I need to think about if I want to make my cache "family friendly", but not likely to be muggled in a hurry, particularly, as I suggested, in a suburban area. Sadly all the countryside stuff seems well saturated (even if I couldn't find it) so I'm going to use the local streets for the first instance.

I pretty-much agree with dartymore,  there's so many more options than you're currently finding, you're bound to find something that has a bit more emphasis on quality for a placement/container than what you're seeing now.   

Your ideas seem to be based on micros (alternatives to a nano, bisons...),  and if you're really looking forward to trackables, curious how you'd place a trackable into one.  If you'd like to see trackables dropped/retrieved in your own caches, size of the container is a consideration.