Can i put my cache in a business?

[Quinn_B_Me]

I was thinking of putting a geocache inside of a business, that has pre-approved, and I know you can't advertise with a geocache. I was wondering if putting it inside of the building wo;uld count as advertising. The cache container, and website don't advertise the business. Could I do this?

[Keystone]

The answer is a clear no, unless you receive special permission from Geocaching HQ. (Volunteer Reviewers aren’t authorized to make exceptions.)

 

Under the commercialism section of the Hiding Guidelines, a cache cannot suggest or require the geocacher to enter a business, to interact with an employee, OR to purchase a product or service. Some geocachers overlook the “or” in that statement.  Any of the three disqualify the cache from being published. 

[+Wet_Ground]

how about library caches?

[+niraD]

6 minutes ago, Wet_Ground said:

how about library caches?

At least around here, libraries are generally not businesses. They're government services, like public parks.

 

I've found several indoor caches, but they've all been in libraries or other government/nonprofit facilities.

[BlueRajah]

40 minutes ago, niraD said:

At least around here, libraries are generally not businesses. They're government services, like public parks.

 

I've found several indoor caches, but they've all been in libraries or other government/nonprofit facilities.

 

Current rules for indoor caches like libraries. https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=128&pgid=781

 

 

Quote

 

All geocaches must involve GPS use. Inside buildings, GPS signal is either unreliable or not present. To follow the GPS rule, indoor caches must have an additional stage outdoors. Coordinates at the entrance to the building are not enough.

The outdoor stage can be before or after the indoor stage. Because they must have more than one stage, indoor caches can never be traditional caches.

 

 

[+Jayeffel]

I know of two indoor caches, one in the visitors center of a National Park. You need to talk to the ranger to obtain the cache. The other (GC4RHPA) is in a convenience store (not in the office as stated earlier,) , kept beneath the counter, also need to see the worker to obtain it. Maybe the second one is not allowed.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Jayeffel

[+Touchstone]

3 hours ago, Jayeffel said:

The other (GC4RHPA) is in a convenience store office,...

 

I'm guessing that one doesn't get found too often...

 

 

Likewise, we found a cache in the Visitors Center at Fort McHenry, which is part of the Star Spangled Banner Geotrail (kind of a precursor of Geotours):

 

https://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=447c304b-d771-4788-8d6b-7c976531e3f6

 

That one and others in the series were placed with permission of the NPS and coordination with HQ.

[+kunarion]

49 minutes ago, Touchstone said:

I'm guessing that one doesn't get found too often...

 

The "commercial business" guideline is a sticking point.  But another of the problems of a “business” is that they change owners, and the new owner doesn't know what “Geocaching” is, or at least they know it's weird.  And the new owner certainly doesn't want families to be drawn there from all over.  This is a convenience store!

 

A bunch of local cool old grandfathered caches have gone away when a new owner bought the property.  Unless it's a mom & pop store from way back, you may not even find an “owner” to talk about it.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Hmm...  I found a cache last year (it was published in 2017) that is inside a business.  The cache page includes the hours the store is open.  The clerk who asked if she could help me did not know what geocaching is.  The owner pointed out where she had moved it.  Lots of logs said that the finders had bough stuff.

[+niraD]

13 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

Hmm...  I found a cache last year (it was published in 2017) that is inside a business.  The cache page includes the hours the store is open.  The clerk who asked if she could help me did not know what geocaching is.  The owner pointed out where she had moved it.  Lots of logs said that the finders had bough stuff.

I know there are a few grandfathered caches that were placed inside businesses in the early days, but given the 2017 publication date, that example sounds to me like a cache that was changed after publication. Groundspeak addresses that issue in the Help Center article Edit a cache page after publication.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 7/6/2019 at 7:06 PM, niraD said:

At least around here, libraries are generally not businesses. They're government services, like public parks.

 

I've found several indoor caches, but they've all been in libraries or other government/nonprofit facilities.

 

I have found two in welcome centers.  In neither case was any interaction with empoyees required, but I had a nice conversation with an employee in one of them.