Is geocaching decreasing in popularity?

[+cerberus1]

3 hours ago, frrobert said:

  For me Geocaching for me is not a stand alone activity but a fun add on activity when I am already at the park.  So as a hunter, I am going to search for caches at parks and places where I participate in other activities rather than just stand alone places (like a cache in a empty parking lot). 

I would think interest may increase if people were aware how it could be paired with other activities.

 

Yep, we were outdoors long-before we learned of this hobby, and still continue to hunt, hike, n fish while geocaching.

We've met a few who do the same. A couple (2000/2001 members) we were thrilled to meet hunting while doing the same. 

We picked up hybrids for road and trail and bumped into them a year later on mountain bikes.  That's what (I feel) makes it a fun hobby.

Through this hobby I've been shown the best places for game and fish, best climbing opportunities, awesome views, and unique areas.

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, frrobert said:

I also do POTA, which is a ham radio activity at State and National Parks.  I also geocache when I do that activity.  For me Geocaching for me is not a stand alone activity but a fun add on activity when I am already at the park.  So as a hunter, I am going to search for caches at parks and places where I participate in other activities rather than just stand alone places (like a cache in a empty parking lot). 

 

When I retired from work in 2016, one of the first things I did was start on a long-held ambition to hike the complete 250km Great North Walk from Sydney to Newcastle as a series of day walks. While doing that, I was able to find quite a few caches along the way, which added to the enjoyment, and afterwards I created a public Bookmark List (BM56Z5Q) of them. I've also placed a few caches close to the GNW, particularly on the Central Coast sections, and occasionally see logs saying the cacher found them while doing a through-hike.

 

But those caches generally get few finds (one was last found over two years ago). What cachers these days mostly want are quick roadside smileys in empty parking lots.

[De5er7F0x]

Sadly, I lost interest in Geocaching years ago. It was more fun to me with the old school Garmin GPS. The world has actually changed quite a bit in the short amount of time since then... I used to live in a big city, but it was a nice area at the time and a lot of fun. When smart phones became something everyone had all of the sudden, it attracted the wrong crowd. It went from mostly respectful people, really into the hobby to random people with just no respect at all. I'd post a cache and come back to see the cool little spot I was sharing with everyone suddenly covered with graffiti & trash. It seems that people have just gotten really awful in the 15 years since I found my first geocache.

 

I've posted caches and waited for them to be approved by the mod... only to have them found before they were ever posted. Of course the moderators had some of the highest "first to find" counts in the entire hobby. Seriously? What kind of person takes pride in "winning" like THAT? I've had caches just a few feet away from my house stolen or vandalized so many times per month, I had to archive them because it just became too much. Finding used gum, crumpled up trash and other stuff like that in my caches at the nice spot I set up for everyone, became regrettable fast. Luckily, I quit before the homeless epidemic of today. Most all of the best hidden & tucked away spots I used to find or hide caches in, now have tents in them or are being used for "bathrooms"... or worse.

 

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 3 times of being confronted by noisy neighbors or bored security guards shoving cameras in my face and trying to intimidate me because they had no idea what I was doing... so it must be something bad. Then there's the lazy, entitled people who can't bring a simple piece of paper, a container or DO ANYTHING to contribute at all to the hobby. "TFTC"... really? How creative. Don't even bother. Just type an "F" so you don't have to work so hard. So bring all the kids, trash the place, leave your tags everywhere, contribute nothing and wonder why nobody wants to entertain you anymore.

 

So there's your many reasons for the decline. Believe it or not, I'm not here to trash Geocaching at all; I really miss it. There's just a lot of elephants in the room dragging it down. It seems to me, it's moving more towards rural areas only. Something for hikers and locations that are FAR away from the riff raff that have messed it up in urban and even suburban areas. People who have to travel and put in effort to find something are a lot more likely to be thoughtful, respectful and not trash what they find. It's also moving more towards a "pay to play" experience. People who invest money into a hobby have something invested and care about it more.

 

I feel that everything just needs a serious update. A few strategic additions could really make the entire thing popular again. Here's a few ideas:

 

Advertisement... a lot of it - Few people even know what Geocaching is. It needs to start attracting the right types of people. The right "influencer" can make something blow up overnight.

 

Retail exposure - Seeing a few GEOCACHING items in Wal-Mart & Target would clearly bring in new blood.

 

Sponsorship - I've seen people literally get into fights over a free T-shirt they'll never even wear. It's amazing how free stuff or things that are "exclusive" attract people like flies. Corporate sponsors have piles of free stuff to give away. You just have to tell people about it... and make it part of events.

 

Highlight the best caches a LOT more - Make people compete and have better rewards for the best of the best caches. Weed out the LPCs and low rated ones to bring up quality.

 

Keep people interested - NEW SPINS on things like "Scavenger Hunts", "Mazes", "Night Caches", "Races", "Capture the Flag" and other features that come AND GO may keep people from losing interest. Don't get me started on "things human beings will do for a physical medal, trophy or plaque".

 

Updated trackables - Things like Air Tags or new electronic gizmos need to be introduced more. Something with a time limit that needs to stay moving has to become a thing.

 

And yes "we're already doing that!" ... of course. If so, then I'm just talking about finding new spins or different approaches to keep thing exciting.

 

So there's my TL;DR rant. Hopefully I was able to contribute something positive. Maybe some day when I return, it will be as good or better than how I left it.

Edited September 15 by De5er7F0x
typo

[geoawareUSA9]

5 hours ago, De5er7F0x said:

I've posted caches and waited for them to be approved by the mod... only to have them found before they were ever posted. Of course the moderators had some of the highest "first to find" counts in the entire hobby. Seriously? What kind of person takes pride in "winning" like THAT?

 

This is a pretty serious allegation. Fortunately, it appears to have no basis in fact.

 

For the record, it does not appear that any of the cachers who were FTF on the five caches you hid (or the four you adopted) were or are volunteers in any capacity.

 

Of your five hides, three were published within two days, well within the seven day standard. The two that were not were initially delayed because of an additional logging requirement that you were asked to review and a proximity issue to a previously submitted cache.

Edited September 15 by geoawareUSA9

[+Sottiwotti]

7 hours ago, De5er7F0x said:

Advertisement... a lot of it - Few people even know what Geocaching is. It needs to start attracting the right types of people. The right "influencer" can make something blow up overnight.

But how do you know this will attract the "right" types of people? You might even attract way more bored kids that like to destroy geocaches.

[+x7Kevin]

11 hours ago, De5er7F0x said:

Advertisement... a lot of it - Few people even know what Geocaching is. It needs to start attracting the right types of people. The right "influencer" can make something blow up overnight.

 

There is a YouTuber who only posts Geocaching videos and went from 0 to 1.2 million subscribers in the last two years. I'm not sure I've ever seen a channel dedicated to one hobby do that before. I think Geocaching spreads very organically as well since it's an activity that happens in public, I have introduced it to many people. The majority of people thinks it's cool but very few are interested enough to get into it themselves. 

 

You can't just promote something to the 'right type of people', the more it's promoted the more every type of person will find out about it.

 

11 hours ago, De5er7F0x said:

Updated trackables - Things like Air Tags or new electronic gizmos need to be introduced more. Something with a time limit that needs to stay moving has to become a thing.

 

An interesting idea. An air tag is $40, so any technology used would need to be much more inexpensive for widespread use and so that it would not be targeted by someone wanting to steal it. There is some potential for sure with trackables. Other games use QR codes which is neat. I remember with Nintendo DS there was a feature called Streetpass, where your device would automatically connect with others you got close too. Maybe one day simply being near a trackable with a smartphone could allow you to automatically discover it. I don't think technology is there right now for this to be viable but there's a lot of possibilities.

 

11 hours ago, De5er7F0x said:

I've had caches just a few feet away from my house stolen or vandalized so many times per month, I had to archive them because it just became too much.

 

It's normal of course for that to happen to caches, but never have I experienced my urban hides being stolen or vandalized many times per month. Unless this is a targeted attack against you I think maybe the actual hides are not very well camouflaged and this could be solved by re-thinking the type of hides you're putting out. In most cases an urban hide will need to look a lot different than one in the middle of a forest. 

[+CAVinoGal]

On 9/15/2024 at 1:59 AM, De5er7F0x said:

It seems to me, it's moving more towards rural areas only. Something for hikers and locations that are FAR away from the riff raff that have messed it up in urban and even suburban areas. People who have to travel and put in effort to find something are a lot more likely to be thoughtful, respectful and not trash what they find.

Geocaching began in rural areas, and hides were ammo cans and buckets in the woods - urban caching is a whole different animal than rural caching, simply because the hides have to be much more subtle in order to not get "muggled".  Moving more towards rural areas and away from the "riff raff" - well, that's not a bad thing, is it?

[+bflentje]

On 9/15/2024 at 9:19 AM, geoawareUSA9 said:

 

This is a pretty serious allegation. Fortunately, it appears to have no basis in fact.

 

For the record, it does not appear that any of the cachers who were FTF on the five caches you hid (or the four you adopted) were or are volunteers in any capacity.

 

Of your five hides, three were published within two days, well within the seven day standard. The two that were not were initially delayed because of an additional logging requirement that you were asked to review and a proximity issue to a previously submitted cache.

 

I thought De5er7F0x's entire post was comical and total bunk. But what I find more alarming is your reply to call him out the way that you did.

[Keystone]

2 hours ago, bflentje said:

But what I find more alarming is your reply to call him out the way that you did.

The truth will always set a forum thread free.

 

Adding to that, if @De5er7F0x were to hide a cache in Nevada today, they'd be secure in the knowledge that it's going to be reviewed and published by a Reviewer who lives hundreds of miles away, in a different state.

[+hukilaulau]

On 9/16/2024 at 11:29 AM, CAVinoGal said:

Geocaching began in rural areas, and hides were ammo cans and buckets in the woods - urban caching is a whole different animal than rural caching, simply because the hides have to be much more subtle in order to not get "muggled".  Moving more towards rural areas and away from the "riff raff" - well, that's not a bad thing, is it?

Reminds me of my favorite dnf log, "I couldn't find the cache, all I saw was a bucket hanging in a tree." Those wre the days!