Newbie Lifespan

[+Bluespreacher]

The other day I got to looking through logged cache visits that were about a year or more old. Time and again I read logs by enthusiastic newbies. They were excited! Many said they were 'hooked'. But then it would just say 'so-and-so 4 logged'. It seems that they heard about geochaching, bought a GPSr, went out a very few times, and that was it! Or maybe they have changed their 'handle' since then, I don't know.

 

Any thoughts on this? How common is it to burn out that quickly? I know that interests may come and go, but that quick?

 

Conversely, how many get in and stay active? I know I've been going since last November, so I'm still a newbie, but my activity level is still high. How long have you been an active geocacher?

 

Just checking,

 

Bluespreacher

[+Team GPSaxophone]

It could be that there are very few caches in their area. Also, they may have done 3 or 4 "easy" ones (drive-up) and got discouraged when they embarked on a difficult cache.

 

I went out my first weekend and found 7 or 8 that were around town. The other ones in my area require a bit of hiking. I have 3 small children, so I only do the easy ones. I'll do the harder ones when I have the time by myself.

[vagabond]

Caching since Feb. 2001 over 200 caches found.

My first 2 caches I spent half a day doing them, both were fairly easy caches, its just that I didn't study the map and spent most of the time hiking in and back out. If I had studied the map then they would have been done in under 2 hrs, but being a newby I didn't know what I was doing.

A few more like that and I more then likely would have quit.

[+Runaround]

It actually seems to be quite common. When caching was written up in the local paper there was a run on GPS units in the local stores. Gander Mountain sold every yellow e-trex they had in 2 days. A number of caches had a flurry of activiy and a number of people logged 2-4 finds. A few months later, they're still at 2-4 finds and according to their profile they haven't visited the website in months.

 

I'm going to be watching the classifieds for some good "like new" GPS units to go on sale soon.

 

Now where did I park my car???????

[+Lazyboy & Mitey Mite]

I almost quit after a couple of finds. I picked some caches that were placed by brand new users who didn't do a great job of putting out a cache. What I do now is make sure that about 1/2 of my caches are fairly easy to find. Others require more of a hike or search to locate.

 

I was very encouraged when a couple of cachers from Klamath came over and put out a couple of fairly easy caches. I got into after that.

 

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

[GeoStars]

It's not burn-out, just scheduling conflicts. We got into this as a family thing so it waits until all can go. Sometimes that takes awhile. I doubt we'll ever get into the 100's of finds category but it doesn't mean were not enthusiastic about the sport. And as far as difficulty, we prefer the harder finds. We especially like the ones that involve a good hike. We have several on our watch list that sound promising, just waiting for the work and weather gods to come into alignment!

 

GeoMedic - team leader of GeoStars

[+Salvelinus]

The worst part is, many travel bugs are likely picked up by this type of cacher and end up lost.

 

I have contacted at least three who have low statistics, seemed to be "into" it, picked up a travel bug and haven't been heard from since.

 

 

It's understandable they don't stay involved. I just fear many TB are lost because of this.

 

Smoochnme

 

"Only when the last tree is cut,

and the last stream is polluted,

and the last fish is caught,

will we realize that you can't eat the money"

[+Rusty & Libby]

I just did a little research becuase this thread made me wonder how many have stuck with caching. I manually checked every profile from #1 to #100 (yeah I need a life) and what I found surprised me.

 

Of the first 100 to register at geocaching.com in September of 2000, I found that 22 have logged on in the last 90 days since the new system went into effect.

 

Out of those 22:

14 have 10 or few finds (2 with 0)

3 have between 11 and 20 finds

3 have between 21 and 100 finds

1 has 141 finds

1 has 336 finds.

 

There are 14 cachers that have been here since the beginning and still log in to check things out yet they have less than 10 finds, that amazed me.

 

I found a few other neat things too, check out the hides for profile #2.

 

Rusty...

 

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

[+Bluespreacher]

I appreciate the responses. It is just so strange to see folks that are so obviously caught up in geocaching drop right out in the begining. I guess I was just hoping that they had changed their log-name after they got started. Oh, well.

 

I have been doing this since Nov. 01. I pid my 7th cache today, and I love every minute. I'm really into hiking, so anything that gets me out on new trails is OK by me!

 

Bluespreacher

[+The GeoGadgets Team]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bluespreacher:

I appreciate the responses. It is just so strange to see folks that are so obviously caught up in geocaching drop right out in the begining. I guess I was just hoping that they had changed their log-name after they got started. Oh, well.

---

 

Steak and I started caching in Oct. of last year and we currently have in excess of 60 finds - not great but not bad. We are obviously some of those who dive in with both hands and feet and come out dancing.

 

I write an infrequent column for the local paper here and I wrote an article on Geocaching that was published in Nov. '01. The local Wal-Mart claims that they have sold quite a large number of GPS units since, and the person buying commented that they were going to try Geocaching. But the number of "local" visitors to caches here don't bear that out. We get a high volume of tourist traffic when the weather is good, and that brings more GCers into the area, but doesn't say much for the locals.

 

The funny thing to me is that I think some of the newbies, most of whom are people between the ages of 18 and 30 whom we've encouraged to start, got scared away. I won't say why in this forum... I know what will happen if I do, but scared and harangued away from a great hobby they were. Not by us, trust me. It isn't the lack of caches here, we have a good number for an area of this population density.

 

Maybe it is just me and all of my friends and aquaintences are flakes... sheesh.

 

At this point, wild elephants couldn't drag our family away from this sport!

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Lori aka: RedwoodRed

KF6VFI

"I don't get lost, I investigate alternative destinations."

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