No private caches?

[+HadMatter]

So I've been thinking of creating a series of elaborate puzzle caches for my family for Christmas ,a treasure hunt to find their presents, and am now discovering that you can't make private caches. Now, I'm sure coming up with other options won't be too difficult, but I was really wanting to tie Geocaching into this - especially as a means to introduce it to my niece and nephew. I'm kinda curious what the reasoning might be for not allowing for this. It seems like such a no brainer to me; a way for people to cultivate personalized geocaching experiences. 

[+on4bam]

There's no reason you can't create private caches without posting them online. Just print "homemade" listings or you can even create your own GPX files (I do this to have points of interest handy when we go on holiday, all done offline but included in the file with caches I load on my GPS).

 

[+lee737]

Seems a no-brainer to not allow it.

Looking at one of my unpublished listings, the 'Download GPX' file option is there - so make your listing, download your own GPXs and go searching.

[+HadMatter]

13 minutes ago, lee737 said:

Seems a no-brainer to not allow it.

 

Enlighten me.

[+lee737]

Geocaching has always been a community activity.... I suspect adding this feature to the website code-base would be a hassle for the site programmers, who have a lot on their plates with a lot of other improvements over the past few years, for what I imagine would be a pretty low uptake. I'd prefer they continue to improve the experience for everyone as a whole.

As advised above - you can make and place your own listings on your GPS.

[+arisoft]

56 minutes ago, HadMatter said:

So I've been thinking of creating a series of elaborate puzzle caches for my family for Christmas ,a treasure hunt to find their presents, and am now discovering that you can't make private caches.

 

Caches are private as long as you don't publish them. You can create the description normally and if you don't want to use the web site to present your caches to your family, you can also print paper version of cache descriptions.

 

[+The A-Team]

1 hour ago, HadMatter said:

...I was really wanting to tie Geocaching into this

As you've discovered, you can't do it with Geocaching. However, you can still involve geocaching.

 

See what I did there?

 

Geocaching - with an uppercase G - is the commercial company that runs this site.

geocaching - with a lowercase g - is the general game of geocaching irrespective of any specific website.

 

There's nothing stopping you from hiding your own caches and sharing the information with whoever you want. It's when you want to list those caches on geocaching.com or another listing site that there are rules (guidelines) that need to be followed and you're limited by the functionality and policies of the site. In the case of this site, they've made a decision not to allow private caches. I'm not sure if I've ever heard their reasoning for this, but I suspect it's largely based on simplicity (private cache functionality needs extra development work) and preventing disputes ("this guy won't let me see his caches!").

Edited March 27, 2019 by The A-Team

[+on4bam]

Why would GS allow using their servers for someone's caches if they are not for the community to find? What's next? Allowing people to backup their data privately on GS servers?

[+IceColdUK]

Would your private caches still have to comply with the guidelines of public caches?  If not, why not?  And if they do, why would we want to overload the reviewers even further for a family party?

[+hal-an-tow]

3 hours ago, HadMatter said:

So I've been thinking of creating a series of elaborate puzzle caches for my family for Christmas ,a treasure hunt to find their presents, and am now discovering that you can't make private caches. Now, I'm sure coming up with other options won't be too difficult, but I was really wanting to tie Geocaching into this - especially as a means to introduce it to my niece and nephew. I'm kinda curious what the reasoning might be for not allowing for this. It seems like such a no brainer to me; a way for people to cultivate personalized geocaching experiences. 

A reasonable inquiry, obviously those of us answering here are only Groundspeak database users, not employees (but who knows, an actual authoritative voice could chip in at any moment ... ) so what we say is opinions and speculation. I'd suggest that it is simply a matter of the system not being set up for the sort of thing you are imagining,  as from the start of the game the whole idea has been to make cache listings available to signed up cachers. Except of course, some caches are not entirelypublic, i.e. for paying customers only .

 

However, saying that private caches are not allowed is not true : those shiny new  'Adventure Lab Caches ' have precisely that facility, as somone said on a thread about them. Their creators have three options:  Off, Private (shareable by link, but not visible on the app) and Public . So apparently the open to all cachers , community principles are actually easily discarded. The things are only being tested by a few folk at the moment, but who is to say what the future holds ? Maybe one day an in-app payment will get you your very own ALC to set , perhaps with a private ALC costing a little extra as it will not increase the opportunities for many other app users to play, and therefore will not earn Groundspeak as much from advert views.

 

Meanwhile, as the A Team said, don't confuse Geocaching.com with geocaching: you can set your private caches without having them listed here, just create a webpage, share it via a website of your own, convert a text based document to a PDF and e-mail it to the recipient, or just print the thing out. Heck, go old school and draw a puzzle treasure map with paint pens and pencil if you want. Then once your family have solved their puzzles there are plenty of free apps which will simply navigate to a set of co-ordinates, you don't even need a caching specific app. 

[+Goldenwattle]

Print out coordinates and have the family use those. Add a hint if you think that's necessary.

[+HadMatter]

@hal-an-tow Oh cool. I hadn't heard about Adventure Lab Caches. Sounds like they might still be in development, but interesting nonetheless. I'll have to read up on those. Thanks for the heads up. As for 'little g' geocaching, that's essentially what I've been looking into this evening. I get that all I really need to "mark a cache" is a set of gps coordinates, but I'm still searching for an app for my fam to use to "hunt" the cache.

• C:geo - it could have been so easy, since you can enter coordinates manually into this app and follow them like it's a cache - map, compass, and all. Unfortunately my family's all Apple drones (Apple slam!) and apparently it's android only. Finding a cross platform solution is added agitation.
• Goggle Maps - perfect for getting them to the general area, but I feel like it lacks accuracy on the finish
• Cachly - just saw this app named as the best geocaching app for Apple, so about to look into that now.

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by HadMatter

[+HadMatter]

Struggled a bit finding the kind of apps I needed: lots of "find my phone's gps" or "find my friends", or just plain compass. But apparently "waypoints" was the magic search term I'd been missing - finding plenty o options now.

Edited March 28, 2019 by HadMatter

[+Touchstone]

Wherigo might fit your needs:

 

http://www.Wherigo.com/

 

You could essentially set up a private hunt with very little effort, and as long as it's not associated with a Listing page on the main website, it would for all intensive purposes be private.   It has the advantage over ALC's, in that it's ready to go now, rather than in development.

 

The one draw back would be the lack of seeing it on your stats page on this site, but as an introductory tool, it might be fun to play with.

[+HadMatter]

@Touchstone That name sounds familiar - has some form of integration with Geocache or used to or something. Anywho, I'll look into it, thanks.

[+Touchstone]

7 minutes ago, HadMatter said:

@Touchstone That name sounds familiar - has some form of integration with Geocache or used to or something. Anywho, I'll look into it, thanks.

That is correct.  There is a "Wherigo" cache type that can be Listed on geocaching.com, which is basically a Listing with a special icon, that has a Wherigo Cartridge (that's the name they give the bit of code that runs the cache hunt) as a requirement.

 

I have several Wherigo Cartridges associated with a Waymarking Category I manage, which never get played.  It's basically a "security by obscurity" arrangement.  They are publicly visible on the Wherigo website, but it's unlikely that anyone would even bother looking for it without a Listing page.

 

There's a sub forum here that talks about all aspects of writing up a Cartridge, as well as, various Players that are developed for numerous platforms.  If I remember correctly, Apple is supported via the community (not a Groundspeak Player).

[+Isonzo Karst]

Miscellaneous responses

You can  have your family use the Geocaching.com app for apple - it's possible to load and navigate to a waypoint in it.

You need to be navigating to some published cache, but once you're doing that, you can add a waypoint. See Help Center article

This is used for staged caches.

 

You can create a cache page here, and print it. You will NOT be able to download the gpx.  Yes, the download gpx link is there, but the download is empty.

 

Wherigo.  You can create and upload a cartridge to Wherigo.com  and leave it in a disabled state on the  site.  The cartridge download then can only be found IF you give someone the URL of the page. Disabled, it won't show up on any search.  This is generally used to let people beta test carts before they're publicly released.

Or, you can enable it, and it will not be found anyway,  as Touchstone has mentioned, if there's no Geocaching.com listing associated with it, to draw people to the download. 

[+hal-an-tow]

8 hours ago, Touchstone said:

Wherigo might fit your needs:

 

http://www.Wherigo.com/

 

You could essentially set up a private hunt with very little effort, and as long as it's not associated with a Listing page on the main website, it would for all intensive purposes be private.   It has the advantage over ALC's, in that it's ready to go now, rather than in development.

 Yes !  I'd forgotten a similar question about cache type listing for a private audience  had been asked and answered with a Wherigo flavoured response a short time ago :  this thread is one to look at if you've not already found it.

 

An extra flourish you might like  to incorporate in your puzzle would be QR codes, they are cross platform so no problem with i thing vs android,  and there are loads of free creator sites. You could embed short messages in them to be found and scanned along the way .

 

Just an aside, but you are going to be learning a lot of interesting new skills doing this : if you enjoy the process, how about employing your new found knowledge and tricks to set a really good public cache after your private ones have served their purpose ? It would be a nice gesture of thanks to the caching community for helping you out a bit with this. Shame I'm on the wrong continent to go  look for it though !

[+NYPaddleCacher]

8 hours ago, HadMatter said:

Goggle Maps - perfect for getting them to the general area, but I feel like it lacks accuracy on the finish

 

Not necessarily. 

 

Google maps uses lat/long coordinates similar to how a geocaching app might use them but encapsulates waypoint information using KML rather than GPX.   There are some places where the map synchronization may not be accurate (and is in some cases intentional, as is the case in China) or what you see on the map may not match what one will see when they're at a specific location.  However,  waypoints marked on a map will include lat/long coordinates that can be used  for navigation..   On google maps you can right click anywhere on a map, then select "What's Here?" and it will (usually) display a place name an a set of lat/long coordinates in Decimal Degrees format.  You can add a collection of those captured waypoints to a map and use the coordinates for navigation.  Using a tool like GPSBabel you can convert a collection of waypoints in KML format to GPX format (or many other formats).  

[+niraD]

14 hours ago, HadMatter said:

Goggle Maps - perfect for getting them to the general area, but I feel like it lacks accuracy on the finish

The problem I've seen with regular people using GPS coordinates with Google Maps (for puzzle hunts, a few years ago) is that Google Maps would navigate them to the nearest street address, rather than to the actual coordinates. Out in the woods, that can be a significant difference. That experience put me off trying to use GPS coordinates for my puzzle hunts, and I've limited myself to other ways of describing locations.

[+TeamRabbitRun]

On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 6:14 PM, lee737 said:

Seems a no-brainer to not allow it.

Looking at one of my unpublished listings, the 'Download GPX' file option is there - so make your listing, download your own GPXs and go searching.

 

Of course, if someone wants to put a PUBLISHED cache nearby, this could create more work for the reviewers.

[+NanCycle]

Sure, you can make private caches; you just can't list them on a public site. Geocaching.com is a public listing site.