How Far Do You Drive To Caches?

[+Mastifflover]

How far do some of you drive to get to caches? I just started on Dec. 15 2003 and have 18 finds. Not too bad compared to the other cachers in this area. The problem being that I am now having to drive 30-45 minutes to get to new caches. Is it because I live in a remote area? Is it easier when you live closer to a bigger city?

Mastifflover

[+The Divine Ones]

So far, most are very close by. I live in a suburban area outside Portland, Oregon. At last count there were 43 more caches to find within 5 miles of my house. I would definitely say if you live in a remote area it's likely you'll have to drive farther and farther from home to keep your find count climbing.

 

As for how far I'd drive: If it was reasonable, I'd drive 50 miles to find a cache, maybe even a hundred if I really felt it was worth the trip (or if I happened to be making the trip anyway).

[+Mastifflover]

Wow I may have to move just to feed my geocaching habit! I have a grand total of 1 cache within 5 miles of my house. I spend more time driving to the caches than actually searching for them.

Mastifflover

[+WeightMan]

I just did a little research on this one. Within 20 miles of Indian Pipe Trail cache, that is an early find of yours, there are 24 caches. Within 20 miles of my first find there are 633 caches. I notice that you have one hide already. By hiding a cache you are encouraging others to find caches. One response to finding is to hide caches to help pay back. We don't all live in a city with lots of caches, but we can all help spread caching.

[+Tiwica]

I agree with WeightMan, hiding caches will encourage others to hide. I just hid three today. My first hides. I spent about 50 hours over 3 weeks to set up one Multi and two Trads, all within walking distance from home and all .2 miles of each other. Hopefully by placing them within easy access of each other it will encourage cachers to seek them all at once. I am also hoping that having a D/T rating higher than the average in this area will encourage better caches to be hidden within 20 miles from me. I like the harder ones. I've been a seeker since I was knee high to a grasshopper.

[+~del Mar~]

I often drive 200 miles in a day for my work. I plan out a few caches along the way and back to break up my drive. There are tons in my area but I have purposly gone to other states with cache info in hand just for the heck of it.

[+astheravenflies]

Driving to and finding a cache is usually the result of driving to some other activity or business. In other words, caching is a pleasant adjunct to some other activity or purpose for travel. If I'm out of the office for a meeting or project, I'll look to see if there are any caches in the area to search for during a break or at the end of the day. If I'm out of town on business I'll look for caches in that town. If I'm on vacation, I'll look for caches along the route or at the destination. There are times when the location of a hike or place to go will be a selected based on the number of potential caches in the area. Lately, I've been trying to find all the caches in my neighborhood that I can walk to. There's only two or three left that I can practically walk to now. Its been great. Its amazing how much more you can see just by walking.

[Bobthearch]

There are only two caches around here and I've found them both, so I do most of my caching while out-of-town.

 

Best Wishes,

Bob

[+Right Wing Wacko]

Well, I once drove close 800 miles in a single weekend to do some caching. 350 miles to get there (stopped several times and scored a dozen caches along the way), 35 caches while I was there, and another 350 miles home (and another dozen caches found along the way).

 

Why did I do it? Because they were there! There are over 1000 caches within 75 miles of my house, but I still go out of town to cache, for the variety.

[+DustyJacket]

I started out driving 5 minutes from home or work, but as I find all the close caches, my drives are getting longer and longer.

 

One fallout is that I am going from finding one or two caches on a trip, to planning 6 or so per drive.

[+gallahad]

To date I haven't driven more than 150 miles for a day of geocaching. Even though there are hundreds of them within a radius of half that distance, I tend to seek out hides created by members of the sport who have a reputation for creativity. It's worth driving 150 miles, in my opinion, even if it results in a DNF - provided the hide is easy enough to reach but well camo'd and difficult to find; and I usually find a good previously unvisited restaurant or two during the journey.

Edited January 5, 2004 by gallahad

[+2Wheel'in]

We're very fortunate...there are hundreds of caches in the immediate area (2 to 50 miles). Usually end up driving 30+ miles though, stringing cache hunts together. We had a great 5-for-5 day yesterday and put 37 miles on the odometer.

Regards,

2Wheel'in

[+briansnat]

There are over 100 caches within 20 miles of my house, so a lot of driving isn't necessary. I think the longest I've driven specifically to find a cache was about 60 miles. Must of the other far away caches I've found were because I happened to be in the area.

[+Halden]

Normally I don't have to travel too far. There are a fair number of caches within 10 to 20 KMs of my house. Over the holidays I did some Northern Ontario caches which are 400+ KMs from my house.

[+Metaphor]

This weekend I drove a 200 mile round trip to do 7 caches that were 25 miles from my house.

[+Sparky-Watts]

Aside from my own, the nearest caches to me are 15 miles in any direction. I've found a lot of the closer ones, although a new one just popped up this past week that I'll have to find....my first multi. <shudder> I'm now out to a 18 mile ring from my house to find caches, and it's getting bigger each time I go out. I'm a slow cacher, so it's going to be awhile before I have to drive more than 25 miles one-way.

[quimbly]

The most I've travelled in one caching day is perhaps 150 miles. Although there's 317 caches within 50 miles of my home, 100 mile round trips aren't unusual, as the caches are rarely as the crow flies, and my navigating can be atrocious at times.

[+Naefearjustbeer]

The furthest I have driven to find caches is 5 hours each way with an overnight stay. The caches are pretty sparse in my part of the world at the moment, But I am doing my best to increase the number, In fact there are only 2 active cachers (including myself) in about 100 miles from where I live.

[mortonfox]

I regularly travel anywhere from 70 to 150 miles from home for geocaching. There are caches closer to home but I found that I enjoy some areas a lot more and those happen to be a bit more distant.

[+Mastifflover]

Did a little search for caches in the nearest larger cities in my area and there were literally hundreds of caches within a 20 mile radius. Now I see how some of you folks can hit 10-20 caches in one day. I am soooo jealous!! Guess I will have to plan a trip to Buffalo Ny or Erie Pa. both about 2 hours away from me to do some power Geocaching!

Mastifflover

[TahoeJoe]

I once drove over 500 miles to find some caches (I was on vacation), but the farthest I have ever drove just to look for a cache was about 60 miles from my house.

[+beejay&esskay]

The normal drive for me to find the nearest caches is now about an hour...so I try to find a cluster of caches and find them all in one trip.

[+ZingerHead]

When I started out geocaching I would hit one or two and head home. But as the distance to unfound caches has increased I've changed tactics. Now I wait until I have a "critical mass" of unfound caches in a "distant" area. Then I make a full day of it, finding an average of 10 caches or so per trip. I would guesstimate that 97% of my caching has been within 60 miles of my home, but we are fortunate to have a fair number of caches here. I started out hunting only the easier caches on these extended trips but now I find that most of the "low hanging fruit" has been picked, so I've started tackling some of the tougher stuff as well.

[+Tprints]

Hey Mastifflover...

 

Just read your comments about not many caches near you and that you planned on going to Erie to find more. I just hid 4 more caches yesterday and there's lots more in the area already. Come on by! South Buffalo has alot of caches as does the Cleveland area where I have hit alot lately.

 

Btw. I found the cache that you just adopted back in early November and it was my first snow cache this season. Found alot more since then. Cya!

[+GEO*Trailblazer 1]

The farthest is from Missouri to Pennsylvania.

I just had to get the (Forefathers) National Monument at Plymouth Rock....and a few along the way.

 

It was well worth it.

[+Snoogans]

I drove about 1,700 miles from Houston to San Francisco to get Sounds of the Bay.

 

Sn gans

[+Team GPSaxophone]

We've done most of the caches around town, the rest are 20-30 minutes away and that's just to the parking area. Most of our caching is done on vacation now.

[+Kealia]

It depends on how far the cache is!

 

Seriously, most are about 20 minutes or so away at this point - time to plan the attack!!

[+ChrisCindy]

Till the road stops.

 

I haven't driven that far for just a cache. There have been other reasons involved in our "far from home" caches.

[+shunra]

Just did a check... I have 146 *unfound* caches within a 30 mile radius, as the crow flies, but for all but 9 of those I need to take at least one ferry, and most of the remaining require a considerable drive-around. This means that I don't have much opportunities for "caching during lunch break" (never mind that self-employed people tend not to have lunch breaks), and that I find most of my caches either on the fly (while traveling for some other reason), or during a special caching day-trip.

Edited January 6, 2004 by Shunra

[+Zinnware]

Did a little search for caches in the nearest larger cities in my area and there were literally hundreds of caches within a 20 mile radius. Now I see how some of you folks can hit 10-20 caches in one day. I am soooo jealous!! Guess I will have to plan a trip to Buffalo Ny or Erie Pa. both about 2 hours away from me to do some power Geocaching!

Mastifflover

Finding a lot of caches in a single day is a different kind of fun. You may realize that finding that take a hour or two each in the field are more enjoyable.

[+rover-r-us]

so far about 45 min

[+Contryguy]

If I want to find a number of caches I drive 100 miles to Lincoln, NE or 150+ Miles to Omaha, NE - Council Bluffs, Iowa area. I have driven further than that on a geocaching weekend with the grandkids with grandma helping out. Lots of Lewis and Clark Caches in Eastern and Northern NE, Western IA and MO right now as the Lewis and Clark Centennial celebration is coming up soon. Sometimes my Son and I go on a day road trip together and take some of the grandkids along.

[+IV_Warrior]

I'm planning on driving about 275 miles, one way, just for an event cache, does that count? How about the 225 miles, one way, I drove last month just to have a steak dinner with a group of geocachers? I did a cache on the way

[+robert]

IV_Warrior:

 

You going to come to the camping/caching weekend?

[+southdeltan]

As I've posted in the past, there are 35 geocaches within 50 miles (as the crow flies) of my house. I own 10 of those. The closest cache to me that I don't own is 32 miles away. (I of course have found that).

 

The closest cache I haven't found is 54.7 miles as the crow flies. Of course I have to drive 50 miles to Vicksburg to cross the MS River, then 40 or so miles across I-20, then 10 or more off of I-20. So.... it's not the closest to me...

 

The closest cache in MS to me is 56 miles, but I again must drive over 80 miles to get to it. I've found 124 out of the 190 geocaches within 100 miles of my house. Most have required me to drive 80 miles one way.

 

Needless to say I usually only get to geocache once or twice a month. I have added 10 caches and have 10 more in the works - I'll get them out as soon as I can. There are new geocachers in the area and I want them to not have to drive 40 or 50 miles like I did.

 

I wonder if anybody lives in a more cache-deficient area that is EAST of the MS (and in the US) than me.

 

southdeltan

[+IV_Warrior]

IV_Warrior:

 

You going to come to the camping/caching weekend?

Not sure yet. That's a little far into the future for my planning. I have to check my work schedule, which probably isn't made yet, for that far out.

[+maleki]

We currently have 482 within 25 miles of our driveway in NW suburban Chicago.

 

Trouble is, ony 29 left to be found(and at least a third of those are disabled now).

 

Means dedicated cache trips usually in the 30 - 60 mile one way range now, I really want my Geo Metro back - gas in the van is killing me.

 

Still extremely lucky to have 588 unfound cache within 60 miles.

 

Thanks to all the Chicago area and Southern Wisconsin area cache hiders for the fantastic number of caches in the area.

[+SerenityNow]

With the exception of a few isolated caches that just got planted in our area, we now have to drive about 55 to 100 miles to reach caches we have not yet done. We have pretty much "cached out" our area! We don't mind though. We make a caching marathon day of it and have a blast!

[+robert]

IV_Warrior:

 

You going to come to the camping/caching weekend?

Not sure yet. That's a little far into the future for my planning. I have to check my work schedule, which probably isn't made yet, for that far out.

It would be nice to meet you, and yes it is a bit of a drive. then again that IS the topic, right?

[+JohnnyVegas]

I have driven around 200 miles round trip, But my girl freindlives 90 milea away, so we do a lot in her area. Besides I am almost out of caches that are less then 20 miles from me I guess the more you find the more you drive.

[+Polgara]

I drive 300 miles round trip to the beach or the mountains every week, sometimes both places in one week....I was born into a family of weekend warriors. There's always a cache to be found in either place! My furthest caches were in Erie, & Pittsburg.

[+JMBella]

I drive 1 to 2 hours one way every Saturday now.

[+programmer64]

I've drive 300 miles just to cache, That was for a planned 12 caches. We spent 3 days there and cached while checking out other things in the area. Generally up to 100 miles in one day,thats for an all day cahing trip though.