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The Growth Of Geocaching


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Posted

Does anyone know if the sport of geocaching is growing, peaking out, or declining? I've only been at this for one year, but in that year have only seen a handful of new geocachers in my area. Perhaps it is still growing worldwide, but perhaps in the US, or in particluar my state it has reached its peak? I was just curious if anyone in admin or otherwise has plotted a user trend curve. Hopefully there has been some sort of increase in new active users, but it doesn't seem so.

Posted (edited)

When I started in Boise about 2 years ago there were 79 Caches within 100 miles. Now there are 752.

 

About a year later I moved to Pocatello. There were about 79 caches within 100 miles. There are now 396.

 

The hobby is still growing and now a lot of people who are not geocachers themselves know about it and have friends who do. A year ago you either geocaches or were clueless. Not so anymore.

 

Some areas take a little time to catch on to the hobby.

Edited by Renegade Knight
Posted

Here, check out this thread. You'll have to scroll down a bit but you'll find some interesting graphs.

 

Judging by my area it's grown and is still growing. I can't imagine anyone is seeing anything different in other areas.

 

Bret

Posted

My state (Louisiana) has gained over a hundred new caches since I discovered the sport a little less than a year ago. It might be slow compared to areas where it is more popular, but there were less than 200 caches when I started. I'd say that's a dramatic growth. Many of these new caches are due to the generosity of a small number of prolific placers. Ten more cachers like them, and we'll have lots to do on the weekends. :)

Posted

With no stats in front of me, I have to judge the growth of geocaching mainly by local caching activity and forum activity. IMO, both areas show a dramatic growth in geocaching in the seven short months I've been playing.

Posted

My question was: Is the number of new cachers (not caches) growing? If this is such a fast growing sport, we should be seeing new geocachers all the time (and exponentially as the word gets out). But from my experience, I pretty much see the same names hiding and finding caches all the time.

Posted

-There's uh...13,000 cachers & a new newest member every time

 

-there is a new post somewhere on these forums about every minute

 

-Have you been to a recent event cache that wasn't crowded?

 

-on the front page, they couldn't keep track of how many countries caches are in, so they just put "over 180."

 

I think its growing

Posted

For my area, The Kingdom of The Netherlands, there are statistics about nearly everything. See here:

http://www.geocaching.nl/stats/grafiek.php

The first graph (algemeen) shows the founds/month rising to 2300 lately. It nearly triples every year. The total number of caches shows an exponential curve starting at 2001/1 and ending now 2003/11 at about 1000.

Last year there was about 1 new cache a day, now it is nearer to 2.

Posted

Well - we certainly have more caches - but not more cachers. When I started (April), we pretty much had one active cacher and there were around 35 caches within 100 mile radius. Today we're close to 90, but we've only really added myself and one other couple. So - it's not really taking off here, I'm afraid. Frustrating, really. I think it's because the city is somewhat isolated in an already BIG state... And, while we have a student population, they're not finding out about it... There are a lot of things we lack - and we lack them for the same reason we lack geocachers... And I'm not sure exactly what the reason is... But it's the cause of a lot of frustration!

:D

Posted (edited)

Well it must be a function of the population of the area you live in. Perhaps those living in the larger cities are seeing an increase in the number of geocachers, and thus new caches. I'm from a small town (40,000 pop) and it seems the same 3 or 4 people who hid caches a year ago, are the same 3 or 4 people hiding caches now. We have gained a few new geocachers in the last year, but have also lost the same amount due to relocation, or to losing interest. So from my perspective, the growth in my area is stagnant. :D

Edited by The Navigatorz

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