First Time Travel Bugster

[+GrumpyHusky]

Extreme Newbie wishing to send a trackables out into the world in honor of her late husband. I’m going around in circles attempting to accomplish this. My apologies. He and I didnt have enough time together to learn this aspect of Geocaching.  
Backstory:

Many years ago we took my 10y niece on a hike to a geocache.  She’s now in her 20s and is going to Europe for the first time on Saturday. She wants to bring along a Travel Bug in honor of my husband and place it into an active cache so that we have fairly good odds Geocachers will help move it around the world.
 I’ve read the Help Topics but truly have no idea what I’m doing and I’m going around in circles trying to get at least one trackable ready to be sent with my niece. Help! I’m beginning to panic. Our hearts are in the right place. Truly.  My niece’s fiance has volunteered to find a geocache in Italy and place the Travel Bug in it. He’s downloaded the app and purchased Premium, as have I.

1. are there naming conventions for Trackables and Travel Bugs?

2. ditto for descriptions and goals

3. the photo is just the trackable/travel bug and what it is attached to?

4.Is there a way to know what constitutes an “active” cache? 
5. The first time a trackable/travel bug is placed in a cache do we log it? Or some other action? Or is there a specific action I need to log   when I hand it to him here at home?

 

We look forward to more geocaching locally when they get back home and these answers will probably be self-evident. Unfortunately I have a busted leg or I’d be tracking down a few caches in my neighborhood in the hopes of educating myself. 

[fendmar]

Many trackables quickly go missing. You should try to avoid sending out anything you have any sentimental attachment to. Consider releasing a proxy.

[+kunarion]

23 hours ago, GrumpyHusky said:

Extreme Newbie wishing to send a trackables out into the world in honor of her late husband. I’m going around in circles attempting to accomplish this. My apologies. He and I didnt have enough time together to learn this aspect of Geocaching.  
Backstory:

Many years ago we took my 10y niece on a hike to a geocache.  She’s now in her 20s and is going to Europe for the first time on Saturday. She wants to bring along a Travel Bug in honor of my husband and place it into an active cache so that we have fairly good odds Geocachers will help move it around the world.
 I’ve read the Help Topics but truly have no idea what I’m doing and I’m going around in circles trying to get at least one trackable ready to be sent with my niece. Help! I’m beginning to panic. Our hearts are in the right place. Truly.  My niece’s fiance has volunteered to find a geocache in Italy and place the Travel Bug in it. He’s downloaded the app and purchased Premium, as have I.

1. are there naming conventions for Trackables and Travel Bugs?

2. ditto for descriptions and goals

3. the photo is just the trackable/travel bug and what it is attached to?

4.Is there a way to know what constitutes an “active” cache? 
5. The first time a trackable/travel bug is placed in a cache do we log it? Or some other action? Or is there a specific action I need to log   when I hand it to him here at home?

 

We look forward to more geocaching locally when they get back home and these answers will probably be self-evident. Unfortunately I have a busted leg or I’d be tracking down a few caches in my neighborhood in the hopes of educating myself. 

 

1.  I've always named mine whatever I like.

2.  ditto for descriptions and goals.  Except that some promotional tags have text that can't be removed or changed.  I'm pretty careful now about how I word my TB's Goal.  I don't, for example, say that I want it to "visit caches", I say that I want it to be Dropped into a cache and to log the Drop.  "Visits" are quite different from that.

3.  I post a photo of a tag and its attachment as the official image, so that finders know what it looked like when I placed it.  But I also post a few fun photos of it as well.

4.  An active cache at least has Found It logs regularly.  Some caches are better than others for placing a TB.  If it's completely empty of any items (especially if there are a lot of listed Trackables, yet it's empty), that's a no from me.  But you never know.  Maybe the next finder is very responsible and careful with Trackables.

5.  I'd suggest Dropping it into a local cache before the trip.  For one thing, you'll get the idea of how this works.  Next, immediately Retrieve it from that cache.  Your niece's fiancé should then do a Grab log, so he has it in his Inventory.  Then he Drops it into the Italy cache.  At that point, you can see on the TB map that it has traveled from your home town to the cache in Italy.  Some Trackable Log info is here:  https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=30&pgid=151

 

Good luck!

 

Edited May 8 by kunarion

[+GrumpyHusky]

9 hours ago, fendmar said:

Many trackables quickly go missing. You should try to avoid sending out anything you have any sentimental attachment to. Consider releasing a proxy.

Thank you for the great advice, @fendmar! Nothing sentimental, just a travel bug and a cartoon explorer kid and a globe. I’ll be attaching some charms to them as well.    

[+GrumpyHusky]

8 hours ago, kunarion said:

 

1.  I've always named mine whatever I like.

2.  ditto for descriptions and goals.  Except that some promotional tags have text that can't be removed or changed.  I'm pretty careful now about how I word my TB's Goal.  I don't, for example, say that I want it to "visit caches", I say that I want it to be Dropped into a cache and to log the Drop.  "Visits" are quite different from that.

3.  I post a photo of a tag and its attachment as the official image, so that finders know what it looked like when I placed it.  But I also post a few fun photos of it as well.

4.  An active cache at least has Found It logs regularly.  Some caches are better than others for placing a TB.  If it's completely empty of any items (especially if there are a lot of listed Trackables, yet it's empty), that's a no from me.  But you never know.  Maybe the next finder is very responsible and careful with Trackables.

5.  I'd suggest Dropping it into a local cache before the trip.  For one thing, you'll get the idea of how this works.  Next, immediately Retrieve it from that cache.  Your niece's fiancé should then do a Grab log, so he has it in his Inventory.  Then he Drops it into the Italy cache.  At that point. you can see on the TB map that it has traveled from your home town to the cache in Italy.  Some Trackable Log info is here:  https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=30&pgid=151

 

Good luck!

 

Thanks for this level of detail and your suggestions, @kunarion. I will definitely heed your advice, cross my fingers, and hope!

[+cerberus1]

Kunarion has great info and ideas.  We like this help section   on Trackables, thinking it might have a bit more to peruse... 

[+CAVinoGal]

On 5/7/2025 at 1:33 PM, GrumpyHusky said:

Extreme Newbie wishing to send a trackables out into the world in honor of her late husband

 

My husband created at tribute trackable in honor of my mother after she passed away.  He simply added a hummingbird to one of the Hidden Creatures trackables we had, and renamed it Hummingbird Memories as my Mom loved hummingbirds!  It traveled with me, and I took a bunch of photos with flowers and then dropped it at an event we hosted in NY.  It traveled a bit in New England, was dropped and retrieved a few times, but the last log was a retrieve by a cacher in Pennsylvania in Sept 2023, coming up on 2 years ago now.  We're hoping it resurfaces, but not holding our breath.

 

https://coord.info/TB91N5J

Edited May 9 by CAVinoGal

[+kunarion]

On 5/7/2025 at 4:33 PM, GrumpyHusky said:

Extreme Newbie wishing to send a trackables out into the world in honor of her late husband.

 

Consider the idea of a personal TB that you carry, not placing into a cache.  It can be as fancy as you like, and when you log a Visit, you get an ever-growing map of where it's been.  If you go to cache Events or see a cacher on the trail, they may ask if you have a personal TB for them to discover.  Looking up their TB is a good way to keep track of cachers you meet.

 

I have 3 including my car TB that I have with me to choose while I'm caching.  And I have others, such as a special hiking stick and a "Toothless" dragon stuffed animal for special occasions.

 

One advantage to just keeping a TB is that it's unlikely to vanish. Plus it can have great logs and photos every time. 

Edited May 10 by kunarion