How to keep a streak alive...

[+TheCachingJilljeck]

I have a consecutive days of geocaching streak going and would like to keep it going as long as possible but have an interesting dilemma. In the future, I will be flying from North America to Oceania. As I will be headed west across the international date line, I will advance ahead 2 days. Thus, in essence, one day will not exist for me and my streak will come to an end.

 

Any ideas of how to keep it going (within the spirit of the rules)?

[+The_Jumping_Pig]

I'm assuming its an overnight flight, otherwise you would still have some time on both days.

 

Better hope you haven't logged your locationless yet ;). 

[+TheCachingJilljeck]

1 hour ago, The_Jumping_Pig said:

I'm assuming its an overnight flight, otherwise you would still have some time on both days.

 

Better hope you haven't logged your locationless yet ;). 

I thought about the locationless one...but I don't think this gets around the issue of the date

[+The A-Team]

If the departure and arrival times/dates are such that you won't be on the ground during that middle day, then you really don't have any options. The streak would have to end.

 

There's a local who has been working on a streak for over 10 years, and he chose not to go on an Alaskan geocaching cruise with lots of other locals because it had a day at sea. He personally felt strongly enough about continuing his streak that he just didn't go.

 

If you really want your streak to continue, then you might need to change your flights so you're on the ground and can find a cache on each day, or cancel the trip entirely. It's up to you to determine how important it is to you.

[+lee737]

4 hours ago, TheCachingJilljeck said:

I have a consecutive days of geocaching streak going and would like to keep it going as long as possible but have an interesting dilemma.

Clearly you are more ethical than the 'hyper-streakers' in these parts.... good for you! People use all sorts of scams to keep streaks going - spare EarthCaches, challenges, and straight-up delayed logging! None of which are 'streak ethical' in my books, but they do it.....

[+NanCycle]

1 hour ago, lee737 said:

Clearly you are more ethical than the 'hyper-streakers' in these parts.... good for you! People use all sorts of scams to keep streaks going - spare EarthCaches, challenges, and straight-up delayed logging! None of which are 'streak ethical' in my books, but they do it.....

Yep, someone I know was "saving" a bunch of finds to log for days when they didn't actually find a cache.  I deleted them from my Friends because of this.  It was too aggravating to see the notices of their so-called finds on local caches long after I knew they had moved to another state.  

[+The_Jumping_Pig]

5 hours ago, TheCachingJilljeck said:

I thought about the locationless one...but I don't think this gets around the issue of the date

 Unless you pass the international date line at exactly midnight, you'll have some time to log the locationless (if you can get wifi on the plane, may have to buy it).

Like

10:00pm flight leaves, get a cache earlier in the day (day 1)

11:00pm cross internation date line, log locationless (find something on plane with 25 in it). (day 2)

12:00am next day, grab a cache in whatever your final destanation is (day 3)

Edited June 29 by The_Jumping_Pig

[+barefootjeff]

6 minutes ago, The_Jumping_Pig said:

find something on plane with 25

 

There'll almost certainly be a seat row 25.

[+Smitherington]

I was recently on an Alaskan cruise and I was surprised to be able to log earth caches from the ship in Glacier Bay.  Lovely.

[+TheCachingJilljeck]

Thanks for the suggestions. Everyone has their own priorities but personally I would never cancel a trip like this just to keep a streak going (as apparently others have done). Isn't exploring the whole point of geocaching? Sounds like in all probability my streak will come to an end and thats ok with me. 

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 6/29/2025 at 3:01 PM, The A-Team said:

There's a local who has been working on a streak for over 10 years, and he chose not to go on an Alaskan geocaching cruise with lots of other locals because it had a day at sea. He personally felt strongly enough about continuing his streak that he just didn't go.

 

Hopefully the cruise didn't interest him that much (they're not for everyone).

 

If he really wanted to go, but would rather keep his streak going I think he needs to consider his mental health and possibly addictive behavior. 

[+Smitherington]

2 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

consider his mental health and possibly addictive behavior. 

Addictive behavior?  Not me for sure. I just have to get out there. It is FOR my mental health that I geocache. 

[+JL_HSTRE]

13 hours ago, Smitherington said:

Addictive behavior?  Not me for sure. I just have to get out there. It is FOR my mental health that I geocache. 

 

Geocaching frequently for your mental and/or physical health is one thing.

 

A compulsive need to find a geocache literally every day is not healthy. That's either a behavioral addiction or OCD.

 

Edited Sunday at 12:06 PM by JL_HSTRE

[+The A-Team]

15 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

Geocaching frequently for your mental and/or physical health is one thing.

 

A compulsive need to find a geocache literally every day is not healthy. That's either a behavioral addiction or OCD.

 

There are tons of officially-sanctioned challenge caches that request that cachers do exactly this. There's even a line in the geocaching.com stats for every member that lists their longest streak.

 

Everyone caches in their own way. Some prefer to find caches to fill their Fizzy grid. Some prefer to find non-Traditionals. Some prefer to streak. None of those is "wrong". The cacher in question is well-adjusted and a decent person, and I certainly wouldn't characterize them as mentally ill. This is just the way they cache.

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, The A-Team said:

Everyone caches in their own way. Some prefer to find caches to fill their Fizzy grid. Some prefer to find non-Traditionals. Some prefer to streak.

 

Living in a region where caches are fairly sparse and ones I haven't found even sparser, I have to do a lot of travelling and take what I can get. The only streaks I've done were 7-day ones for the Streak Week promotion in 2019 and the Wheel of Challenges streak challenge in 2023. In the first one I was battling heavy rain on a couple of days and for the second, it entailed a long drive to Sandy Hollow in the Hunter Valley, a train trip to Newcastle, a couple of train trips to Sydney and a ferry-bus-bus-ferry trip to Scotland Island in Pittwater. After that came a 10-day slump to recover before my next cache.

[+MartyBartfast]

I'm not particularly into streaks, I just completed my longest 16 days while on holiday, and on the 17th day when back home I couldn't be bothered to drive 8 miles for a find to keep it going.

But in your situation, if you're able to find a cache every 24 hours during your travel and vacation, then I would probably log the finds on the dates in my home timezone, then the dateline issue doesn't come into it, I would certainly feel that's legit.

ETA: Not sure if you can do that with the Groundspeak app, but you can with others or by logging on the website.

Edited 14 hours ago by MartyBartfast

[+JL_HSTRE]

8 hours ago, The A-Team said:

Everyone caches in their own way. Some prefer to find caches to fill their Fizzy grid. Some prefer to find non-Traditionals. Some prefer to streak. None of those is "wrong". The cacher in question is well-adjusted and a decent person, and I certainly wouldn't characterize them as mentally ill. This is just the way they cache.

 

Honestly maintaining a streak is not inherently bad. It can be a fun challenge or a positive goal that encourages exercise. 

 

It becomes wrong when you start sacrificing things to keep it alive.

 

It's bad when people sacrifice their integrity to it, cheating to keep it going.

 

It's bad when you have to go too far out of your way to find the nearest cache, wasting time and gas.

 

It's bad when start sacrificing other parts of your life to the streak. As I said earlier, maybe this person doesn't really enjoy cruises. But if he does enjoy cruises? If he really would have liked to spend that week with his geo-friends?

 

If he was in danger of losing his job or his marriage because of his efforts to maintain his streak you wouldn't say that's just his choice. If he was missing out on the birth of his child.