Personal trackables: are they allowed?

[+geotracters]

I have a few unregistered trackables. One of them, a trackable that looks like my cat, is one really want to keep but don't want it to just sit on a shelf forever, so I was thinking of having it travel plans with me and only me, no placing it in caches or anything like that. I would like to know, is this allowed or is it against the rules to do this?

[+Goldenwattle]

It's allowed. I have one, which I received at my first MEGA, which I have never released. It travels with me. I would never keep another person's trackable though.

[+GeoCharmer81]

That is fine to do. Many people activate a 'special-to-them' trackable to keep track of the caches they've done and to see how many miles they've traveled. Not putting it in caches ensures that it won't go missing, too--- unless you accidentally misplace it. You may also take it to Events and allow people to Discover it.

[+Goldenwattle]

11 hours ago, GeoCharmer81 said:

That is fine to do. Many people activate a 'special-to-them' trackable to keep track of the caches they've done and to see how many miles they've traveled. Not putting it in caches ensures that it won't go missing, too--- unless you accidentally misplace it. You may also take it to Events and allow people to Discover it.

I stopped recording all caches though, as loading has become slow; especially with the map. In fact I have deleted some caches visits. I wish there was a quick way to do this.

[+cerberus1]

13 hours ago, geotracters said:

I have a few unregistered trackables. One of them, a trackable that looks like my cat, is one really want to keep but don't want it to just sit on a shelf forever, so I was thinking of having it travel plans with me and only me, no placing it in caches or anything like that.

I would like to know, is this allowed or is it against the rules to do this?

 

That's fine.     Many of our friends use trackables to keep track of caches their kids found with them.

 - When older, maybe wanting to open an account of their own, they have a record of all caches they found.

Others, once they've activated their trackable, use it as a personal mileage tracker.

Personally, I'd much rather see people using their own trackables to "Visit" all caches found in a day, than hold onto someone else's property for months on end...  

[+GeoCharmer81]

1 hour ago, cerberus1 said:

 

That's fine.     Many of our friends use trackables to keep track of caches their kids found with them.

 - When older, maybe wanting to open an account of their own, they have a record of all caches they found.

Others, once they've activated their trackable, use it as a personal mileage tracker.

Personally, I'd much rather see people using their own trackables to "Visit" all caches found in a day, than hold onto someone else's property for months on end...  

 

I should have specified... I did mean their own trackables. Goldenwattle was asking about using their own trackables in that manner. That's why I didn't specify when I responded.

[+thebruce0]

Absolutely doable. Most people I know own a Tb they use for mileage, or visiting events for others to discover.  Cars are super-popular, essentially putting the tracking code on your vehicle. Great way to randomly "meet" other geocachers out in the wild, spotting the telltale travelbug symbol

I actually have quite a few, each with different goals and visitation records. My 'phone' TB visits every geocache I find (much better for mileage tracking than cache-to-cache, if you do a lot of challenge caches). My car TB visits every geocache I drive to (eg, not including powertrail cache beyond one at parking).  My kayak TB visits any geocache I find while paddling, of course. I even have a bike TB that (if I remember) visits caches I find by bike   Obsessive? Maybe, haha!

[+Hügh]

20 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Great way to randomly "meet" other geocachers out in the wild, spotting the telltale travelbug symbol

 

A friend once found a vehicle parked in a no-parking zone. They were going to have it towed, but it had a trackable attached to the back window, so they were able to figure out who it belonged to and tell them to move their car...

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, GeoCharmer81 said:

I should have specified... I did mean their own trackables. Goldenwattle was asking about using their own trackables in that manner. That's why I didn't specify when I responded.

 

That's fine...  I wasn't responding to you anyway.   

[+GeoElmo6000]

On 5/31/2022 at 8:15 PM, geotracters said:

I have a few unregistered trackables. One of them, a trackable that looks like my cat, is one really want to keep but don't want it to just sit on a shelf forever, so I was thinking of having it travel plans with me and only me, no placing it in caches or anything like that. I would like to know, is this allowed or is it against the rules to do this?

 

I was first to find on a cache in which the CO left a FTF mini trackable coin for the first finder, so I registered it, stuck it in my wallet, and logged it as Visited every time I went to a cache.  It was fun to look at the map of where I've been, I associated the coin with me, I was logging where I'd been more than the actual coin.

 

One day somewhat recently I looked in my wallet and the coin was gone.  I have no idea what happened to it.  But I still log it as having visited different caches, just because, like I said, I viewed it as my personal trackable showing where I was visiting.  I've logged almost 80k miles with it in my time geocaching.

[hotrod1983]

geo elmo my question is if they did that how would you need to set it up maybe a yt vid would help how u would log it to a cach etc btw love ur videos

[hotrod1983]

I want to buy trackables to put out the wild but being disable and having them stolen and not moved on is not good idea. But how would i activate and use to loc other caches tho  thought about buying bulk trackable codes and making my own trackable that way if stolen not going to be mad and upset it cost me money

[+thebruce0]

When you buy a trackable item, you own the trackable code, so you can use that code however you wish. It doesn't need to be on the dogtag or the object it may be etched on. You can reuse it however you like, and however many times you like. The only thing to keep in mind is that tied with the code is the the little icon on its TB profile page, and a 'series' title created by the one that initially 'created' the code(s) (in most cases, that's HQ, like with TB dog tags, but may a store for example if they created a series of travelbugs to sell or give away).

 

In any case, you can put out a TB, and if it gets lost you can simply put out another one with the same code whenever you like. (keeping in mind the old on may pop up again, and now you've got two TBs with the same code out in the wild).

[+GeoElmo6000]

On 8/22/2022 at 5:24 PM, hotrod1983 said:

geo elmo my question is if they did that how would you need to set it up maybe a yt vid would help how u would log it to a cach etc btw love ur videos

 

First, thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my videos!  I need to get moving on creating some more, I have one in the works but I've been distracted with video games and life and learning a foreign language 

 

I'm not sure what you're asking, so if I don't answer you correctly, please let me know.  When you purchase or receive a trackable, you go to the trackable page from the main geocaching site and activate it.  You'll need the unique 6 character code on the trackable plus an activation code that comes with it in the package.  Then when you visit caches you can mark the trackable as "visited" the cache if you want to keep it, otherwise you can drop it in the cache and mark it as such as part of the log (there's an option on how to handle each trackable in your possession).  For the one I mentioned above, I just mark it as "Visited".

 

I have a geocaching YT channel business card that has a trackable code on it, and since there are hundreds floating around out there, I made the code "discover only", since it doesn't make sense that lots of people can pick it up and move it around.  That has to do with moving it to your collection.  I have four of those, one is my business card, and three that are trackable videos (where you watch the video to find the code hidden in the video, then log it as discovered online).

 

On 8/22/2022 at 5:27 PM, hotrod1983 said:

I want to buy trackables to put out the wild but being disable and having them stolen and not moved on is not good idea. But how would i activate and use to loc other caches tho  thought about buying bulk trackable codes and making my own trackable that way if stolen not going to be mad and upset it cost me money

 

When you buy bulk codes you need to buy 50 minimum and they're $1.50 each, so that's $75 min.  I suggest purchasing one trackable dog tag set and starting with that before you buy a lot.  All my trackables in the wild have gone missing so I don't send them out anymore.  

 

[Darwin473]

On 6/1/2022 at 9:45 AM, geotracters said:

One of them, a trackable that looks like my cat, is one really want to keep but don't want it to just sit on a shelf forever,

 

On 8/23/2022 at 6:57 AM, hotrod1983 said:

I want to buy trackables to put out the wild but being disable and having them stolen and not moved on is not good idea.

 

Different problems, same solution.

 

Any thing that gets sent out into the wild where random members of the public can interact with it will eventually meet a person who isn't nice. Or even just meets a misadventure like being accidentally dropped down a drain or falls out of someone's pocket. Some people like to buy the really fancy GeoCoins which wouldn't last very long out travelling. 

 

If a TB goes missing, or you have a nice one you'd rather keep at home but still want to use the code - create a proxy! As thebruce0 wrote, you can put the code on anything - it can be as simple as a laminated bit of paper, or an engraved bit of metal, or an epoxy keychain or anything you can think of which you can make. The goals are to make something that is tough enough to last out travelling without falling apart, but cheaper than just buying a new TB. And if the proxy goes missing, you can create a new proxy.