Plan a Geocaching Road Trip

[+Vicious Cycle]

I have a work trip coming up soon and I opted to drive instead of fly. The plan is to grab caches along the route. I'm working on a few challenges (DeLorme, Counties, Jasmer, and the 7431 challenge). I'm comfortable with the choices I've made for the caches to find, but I'm just concerned about the amount of time I'll spend finding these caches. For the most part, I've chosen pretty easy finds that don't have any recent DNFs. All the caches are along the highways or just off the road very short distance. 

 

Here's my question...

 

When you plan a Geocaching road trip, do you allow a certain amount of time per cache if you're on a schedule? If this were just a geocaching trip, I wouldn't worry about it. But since I need to attend a conference, it's kind of important I show up on time. I know...I know...all this work really gets in the way of Geocaching. What a pain in the neck! But I can't retire just yet. Trust me...I'm working on it. If any of you have planned a trip similar to this, please share your experience and let me know what you did and what you would do differently. Thanks! 

[+niraD]

35 minutes ago, Vicious Cycle said:

When you plan a Geocaching road trip, do you allow a certain amount of time per cache if you're on a schedule?

When I plan a road trip, I don't usually have a hard deadline for when we have to arrive at our destination. If there's an event that starts at a particular time (e.g., a family reunion), then I try to arrive the day before that event, or even earlier. And I always leave time for rest stops, meal breaks, any geocaching that I might do, etc. Expecting to spend the whole time driving is unrealistic, and time spent geocaching is just a small part of that.

[+Gill & Tony]

I set my in-car GPS to my destination and include arrival time as part of the display.  Then I cache as I go along and stop caching when the arrival time approaches the deadline (with a safety factor).  If I then make up some time I can cache close to the end.

 

I have a built-in GPS for the destination and a drivesmart for navigating to caches, 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Gill & Tony

[+Joe_L]

When I’ve geocached while on business trips, it’s always been at the destination. Maybe a short drive from the hotel.  
 

I’ve had occasional long drives, and I’ve considered stopping along the way for geocaches, like in a park or some other interesting location.   The issue was never how long it would take, but rather, what might go wrong: injury, car doesn’t start, minor accident.  Then I would be faced with the question from a boss: “What were you doing there? That’s not on the way to the job.” 

[+Smitherington]

I almost always post my finds while I’m still at the cache. I don’t like to write ‘TFTC’ so it takes a few minutes plus I have travel bugs to visit and photos to post. 
 

But when time is short I keep notes with times and do my write-ups later. 
 

That is one way to speed up the process. 

[+cerberus1]

The other 2/3rds did the planning of routes, sticking with simple, low D/t "just off the road" hides if we're adding state souvenirs on the way.

Most larger cities where conventions are held often have a lot of virtuals or low D/T caches to play with while there.

Similar to Joe-L, we'll save the higher D/T hides for on the way back.  Worker's comp isn't paying us falling outta a tree.      

 - But our employer (who knows we're outdoors a lot) would cut us some slack to play afterwards on our own time.

[+JL_HSTRE]

My experience is:

 

Google drive time

+

5 minutes per cache

+

15 minutes per quarter mile walking (easy/moderate terrain)

+

10 minutes contingency per hour (restrooms, gas, etc)

+

Lunch break time 

[+NanCycle]

On 5/6/2023 at 10:45 AM, Vicious Cycle said:

I have a work trip coming up soon and I opted to drive instead of fly. The plan is to grab caches along the route. I'm working on a few challenges (DeLorme, Counties, Jasmer, and the 7431 challenge). I'm comfortable with the choices I've made for the caches to find, but I'm just concerned about the amount of time I'll spend finding these caches. For the most part, I've chosen pretty easy finds that don't have any recent DNFs. All the caches are along the highways or just off the road very short distance. 

 

Here's my question...

 

When you plan a Geocaching road trip, do you allow a certain amount of time per cache if you're on a schedule? If this were just a geocaching trip, I wouldn't worry about it. But since I need to attend a conference, it's kind of important I show up on time. I know...I know...all this work really gets in the way of Geocaching. What a pain in the neck! But I can't retire just yet. Trust me...I'm working on it. If any of you have planned a trip similar to this, please share your experience and let me know what you did and what you would do differently. Thanks! 

For the type of cache you describe, I allow 15 minutes per cache for planning purposes.  This usually covers stopping, walking a short distance, spotting the cache, opening, signing, replacing.  Then a simple log. (I just log “Found it”. Then I write better logs later.). Getting back into the car and back on the road.    
Edited to add:  If you have to get off the highway and take a side road, double the estimated time.

Edited May 10, 2023 by NanCycle

[+SoonerCardsFan]

I just look for caches on my list until I reach a point where I have to go in order to be at my destination on time. Then continue looking on the return trip.

[+Vicious Cycle]

So...here's a recap of my roadtrip, which was the reason I started this thread.

 

Background

I made the trip in May of 2023, which is when GeoHQ was running a challenge to find caches with 10 or more favorite points. I'm also working on the counties for my state, the DeLorme challenge, Jasmer, Fizzy Grid, and 366 day challenges. As a self-described Geocaching adict, I'm prone to want to take on most any Geocaching challenge...including FTF hunts (more on that later).

 

Planning

First I found the route that Google Maps suggested, then I adjusted it to go through a couple of close-by states that I would have otherwise missed if I was only interested in driving the shortest distance possible.

I used challenge checkers on Project-GC to look up caches in the counties and DeLorme squares I needed and made sure they were along the highways I would be traveling on. This posed some difficulty as I wanted to find high favorited caches, but sometimes, in order to get a county or DeLorme square on my route, I had to take what I could get. I also planned a different route for the return trip mainly so I could go through Mingo, KS and get GC30. Another thing I did was I planned "backup" caches to find in the same counties and DeLorme squares as the primary caches, just in case of a DNF. This came in handy on 3 separate occasions, as I DNF'd a few of my first choices, and the backup caches ended up saving my bacon.

 

Lastly, I made sure the caches were loaded into my GPS. I knew cell phone covereage would be non-existant through most of eastern Montana, so I had to use the old-fashioned GPS (I say that tongue-in-cheek) to find most of the rural caches. I created a list with the planned caches, exported that list to a .GPX file, then imported that file to my Garmin. I double checked that I could access those caches from the GPS and I ensured I had extra batteries. And last but not least...I reverted a form of Geocaching I haven't done in over 15 years. I printed out hard copies of each Geocache and brought them with me. The paper copies were there in case something went wrong and I couldn't access the cache from my Garmin. What they ended up being was my log entries until I could get to the hotel for the evening where there was Wi-Fi and log my finds online.

 

On day 1, I had a goal of completing GC4QHK4 CCS 7431 Challenge Cache which involes finding 7 types of caches, 4 different sizes, in 3 different states, all in 1 day. Over the course of choosing which Geocaches to find, I stumbled upon GC9P5DY Fort Dilts, a virtual cache in North Dakota (a state I needed and one of the seven types I needed for the 7431 challenge). The Fort Dilts cache was placed 7 months prior to my trip but had no finds at the time. The cache was 4 miles off the highway down a dirt road. I knew it was a long shot, but I put the cache on my list in case I could pull off an FTF (which I did).

 

The trip

I had a conference to attend for work in Kansas City, MO. I live in Montana, so driving would take me to several states that I needed to fill in my map. It also allowed me to get several counties and Delorme squares needed for those challenges. The route I planned was not the shorest distance between point A and B. Instead, I planned to just dip my toe in a couple of states just long enough to grab a find and then continue on down the road (North Dakota and Minnesota). I planned a different route for the return trip. Doing this allowed me to get Mingo and that hard-to-fill May 2000 spot on my Jasmer challenge.

 

Lessons learned

I brought my snuggle-muggle with me on this trip. We drove her car as it gets much better mileage than my truck (that will be important later). As I mentioned, day 1 involved me working on the 7431 challenge. The problem I ran into was I did not communicate my plans for trying to complete the challenge. I had talked about the counties and DeLorme challenge as well as the states and that was all understood, but when I went 5 miles off the highway to get an FTF on a virtual in North Dakota down a very muddy gravel road, I got an earful from the owner of the car who did not appreciate the mud stuck to the undercarriage. (Of course, I paid for the car wash). Up to that point, the caches were all along the highway and only involed pulling off to the side of the road. The problem being that I had set the expectation early on in the trip that they would all be like that, but when one wasn't it became an issue. Again...my lack of communication to my co-pilot was the root cause of the difficulty.

 

Flexibility was another virtue that I had to learn the hard way. While finding 7 Geocaches in a day for the 7431 Challenge didn't seem like a lot to me, my snuggle-muggle felt differently. So on the rest of the trip, I cut back on my planned finds, and limited myself to only new states that I needed to fill in my map, and a couple to fill in my 366 day calendar also. I got a lot more cooperation from my non-Geocaching partner and she even convinced me to after a Virtual at the Battle of Little Big Horn site, which I was going to pass on.

 

If you're planning a trip with other Geocachers, you'll approach your planning from a different perspective. I just wanted to share my experience in case it was helpful for anyone in similar circumstances.

 

 

[+thebruce0]

On 5/7/2023 at 2:05 PM, JL_HSTRE said:

My experience is:

 

Google drive time

+

5 minutes per cache

+

15 minutes per quarter mile walking (easy/moderate terrain)

+

10 minutes contingency per hour (restrooms, gas, etc)

+

Lunch break time 

 

Same concept I used when planning my road trip in Iceland.

Between parking locations I noted the estimated drive time (usually rounding up)

Add estimated walk time, whether it's a P&G or hike

Add estimated search time allowance

Add buffer for just enjoying the location (some sites are just fantastic!)

Add a bit of extra buffer time

 

I made a sheet that programmatically had all that info, and showed date/time into and out of each stop as well, which I could update while on the road.  I had stop prioritized, so if I was behind, I could skip low priority, while ensuring the high priority wouldn't be behind schedule.

 

Even then, one day a mountain climb for a cache took much longer than anticipated (underestimated effort required! lol) and it flipped the switch on the rest of the trip; timing was off for time-sensitive stops the next two days and it would be way too rushed to get around the island in time. Decided to double back. But it allowed me to visit sites I'd decided to skip or hadn't added. The 2nd half was actually a little more adventurous, I'd say

 

 

Anyway, these days there's cachetur.no which effectively does much of all of that automatically. And there are loads of tutorials on how to use that website available to absorb.

[+JL_HSTRE]

13 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Anyway, these days there's cachetur.no which effectively does much of all of that automatically. And there are loads of tutorials on how to use that website available to absorb.

 

I had no idea that site existed and will have to check it out.

[+SigsPig]

On 5/25/2023 at 7:32 AM, JL_HSTRE said:

 

I had no idea that site existed and will have to check it out.

Cachetur has a bit of a learning curve. Save yourself some time & check out Youtube for videos from Cache Canada (specifically DougyB) & for a presentation from Hiking Seal (which includes a workbook). I've used Cachetur for both a Jasmer & Ont Jasmer trip. I can't recommend it enough. Enjoy