Vacation cache question...

[McKenzie Clan]

I plan on putting a few caches around my cottage this summer.

 

My question is, will these get approved considering it is technically far from my home. Will the fact I maintain a cottage in the area work in my favour?

 

What is the outside limit from your home to a cache before it is considered too far?

 

Thanks,

 

Scott

[ChiefPig]

If it is near your cottage, I think it does not fall under vacation caches. I know of some caches around here where the owner resides 300kms away.

[+erik88l-r]

The guidelines say you should be able to maintain your cache, or it won't be approved.

 

If your cottage is in a area where the nearest caches get a visit once a month and you're going to be there about that often I see no problem. However if the nearest caches are visited every weekend and you're only there once or twice a year obviously that won't work.

 

If you can find a local geocacher, or even a friend who knows exactly where the cache is hidden, to act as a "cache guardian" I'd have no hesitation in approving your cache. The bottom line is that if a problem is reported (like a damp logbook) or if a string of people can't find the cache you need to be able to check on the cache and/or "service" it.

 

The admins get scores of "this cache should be archived" logs daily, and a fair number of those are for caches placed by people who live too far away to maintain them. That is why the guidelines were clarified in March of this year to prevent that from happening. You will find caches placed prior to that date by vacationing geocachers. If in doubt e-mail an admin before placing the cache with all the details.

 

Cache responsibly!

 

erik - geocaching.com admin

[+Touchstone]

On the other hand...

 

We have one cacher that was in the military and was posted in our area for a few years. He hid some of the most excellent caches in the area. I would have been heartbroken if he'd archived all of them upon leaving. He has been very responsive with questions about his caches (hints, placements etc.).How do the rules relate to moving out of an area. I've seen a few posts of people moving looking for an adoptive cache family. When this guys caches turn up missing, he just disables/archives them. What's the etiquette in this situation?

 

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. The rest go geocaching.

[+erik88l-r]

quote:

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I've seen a few posts of people moving looking for an adoptive cache family.

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That would be the ideal solution - that someone adopts the cache. It can be done as a formal adoption, with the new geocacher's name replacing the old on the cache, or just informally.

 

I found a cache in New Jersey two weeks ago. Someone had urinated into the cache. It was pretty nasty, needless to say. That sort of thing is very rare, but can happen. I was really concerned when I saw that the cache owner's profile page indicated that he'd moved to Virginia. I e-mailed him to apprise him of the situation and was pleasantly surprised to get a reply from someone who lived 1000 feet from the cache who'd volunteered to act as cache guardian. The reply came within a half hour of my notification to the cache owner. He said he'd send his son out the next morning to remove the cache.

That illustrates really responsible behavior, not just proper etiquette. Some might have just disabled or archived the cache and left it out there as trash.

 

erik - geocaching.com admin

[+Langley]

Couldn't it be possible to have a publically owned cache? I mean if I were out looking for a cache, and I found it in tatteres, I would put it in a new gladlock containter or put a new logbook in it myself, if it really needed it.

[+erik88l-r]

quote:

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Couldn't it be possible to have a publically owned cache? I mean if I were out looking for a cache, and I found it in tatteres, I would put it in a new gladlock containter or put a new logbook in it myself, if it really needed it.

---

 

Good question. Many geocachers carry a spare log book in case the book in the cache they find is full, a spare pen or pencil, etc. You really can't have a publicly owned cache but we can all chip in to maintain those owned by others. This cache is a great example of people chiping in to help. A bear damaged the cache container right after it was hidden, I did a temporary repair with a garbage bag, and ALacy,the next geocacher to visit, replaced the plastic container with a good old ammo box. He had to hike many miles on the Appalachian Trail with that ammobox to do it.

 

~erik~

[+Touchstone]

I have an inventory of "repair" items in my cache pack at all times. I have a couple of logbooks, pens, sticker, and the like. I rarely have to use them, but it's nice to freshen up a cache that seems neglected.

 

Sometimes I run across caches that are filled with, well, garbage. Is it OK to clean some of the trash out? I'm not sure whether I'm taking someones treasured signature item or what. I think it looks a little junky sometimes.

 

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. The rest go geocaching.

[+erik88l-r]

quote:

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Sometimes I run across caches that are filled with, well, garbage. Is it OK to clean some of the trash out? I'm not sure whether I'm taking someones treasured signature item or what. I think it looks a little junky sometimes.

---

 

We're going off topic here, but it also pains me to find the cache at the culmination of a great cache hunt and discover broken McToys. That's when I try to put in a couple of good items and either take nothing or do some clean up. I think of it as just trading up so the next finder will have an even better experience then I did.

 

I feel sorry for anyone who's "treasured signature item" is a broken McToy.

 

~erik~

[+IntotheWoods]

Although I understand the reason for the prohibition of the so-called 'vacation' caches, take a minute and consider how many caches would really exist outside of the English speaking countries if this law had always been in effect. I would say you could cut the number at least in half, probably even more. With this rule, how many new caches will we see in places like Mexico? Africa? Asia? ________ (add your country/region here)? This won't affect the majority of cachers, but for those of us who travel to places like these it's frustrating, to say the least. There just isn't anywhere near the cache population in these countries that there is in N. America, Great Britain, etc. To me, it's better to allow people (tourists, visitors) to place caches which may one day disappear than to prohibit them from placing them at all.

 

Just my $.02--

IntotheWoods

[+15Tango]

IntotheWoods has some valid points, but playing devil's advocate here--an unmaintained cache sometimes devolves into nothing more than litter--I've found a couple locally placed by somebody local who just lost interest that were nothing more than a few mctoys floating in stagnant water in a lidless gladware container. The way I see it, TPTB put the ban on vacation caches in place to cut down on caches like this--why would we want to litter up non-english speaking countries as opposed to english speaking countries? I would rather seek out a few quality caches than a lot of garbage caches.

 

"There comes a time in every rightfully constructed boy's life when he gets an urge to seek for buried treasure"--Mark Twain

[evilrooster]

Another devil's advocate point about vacation caches in less-densely cached areas...

 

Just because those places don't currently have a lot of cachers doesn't mean they won't in time. And how will the locals feel about having had all the best places snaffled by tourists who have long gone home?

 

Or worse yet, what about cases where the tourists placing the caches haven't understood local sensibilities, and have placed something inappropriate? That could make for some bad blood indeed, between local and foreign cachers, or between geocachers and officialdom.

 

Better to let the local cache scene develop than to colonise it with vacation caches, I say...

 

evilrooster

http://www.bookweb.sunpig.com

-the email of the species is deadlier than the mail-

[+Touchstone]

quote:

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Originally posted by evilrooster:

 

Just because those places don't currently have a lot of cachers doesn't mean they won't in time. And how will the locals feel about having had all the best places snaffled by tourists who have long gone home?

 

Or worse yet, what about cases where the tourists placing the caches haven't understood local sensibilities, and have placed something inappropriate? That could make for some bad blood indeed, between local and foreign cachers, or between geocachers and officialdom.

 

Better to let the local cache scene develop than to colonise it with vacation caches, I say...

 

_evilrooster_

http://www.bookweb.sunpig.com

-the email of the species is deadlier than the mail-

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We were over on the East Side of the Sierra a month or so ago, and there were a number of caches that fall under that category (i.e. vacation caches). It was fun to have something to hunt for, but a number of them were "virts". There were several caches placed by locals, but quite honestly, there was plenty of room for more. Most of the caches that appeared to vacation caches were very close to the Hwy, or at rest areas.

 

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. The rest go geocaching.

[+erik88l-r]

quote:

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Better to let the local cache scene develop than to colonise it with vacation caches, I say...

---

 

That's a good way to put it, evilrooster.

The sun never sets on the British geocaching empire?

 

As a cache approver I've seen that scene develop in places like Italy and Spain in the past year. There are also good geocaching communitees apparently consisting of western expatriates in places like Saudi Arabia.

 

InToTheWoods is right though - without a non-local to seed the area would the local geocaching scene have developed? Perhaps not, perhaps yes, but more slowly.

 

Geocaching started in the Northwest US, and it wasn't long before locals placed caches in my Southeatern state of Georgia. Just a month or two if I remember correctly.

 

Hopefully the cache poor areas of the world will be "seeded" by geocachers who've moved there on business or are on a regular business cycle to the area - in other words a non-local who can maintain the cache.

 

erik - geocaching.com admin

[evilrooster]

quote:

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Originally posted by ~erik~:

quote:

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Better to let the local cache scene develop than to colonise it with vacation caches, I say...

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That's a good way to put it, evilrooster.

The sun never sets on the British geocaching empire?

---

 

That was pretty much the meaning I was going for...surely a primarily American audience can identify with the sentiment.

 

quote:

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InToTheWoods is right though - without a non-local to seed the area would the local geocaching scene have developed? Perhaps not, perhaps yes, but more slowly.

---

 

Our experience in Edinburgh is that "if you hide them, they will come." When I started caching, there was one cache in Edinburgh, by the one local cacher (He hunts caches throughout Scotland and the north of England). I duly found that one cache. Then I did a few out of town, then started hiding. Then other people got interested, and started adding caches of their own. We just had a cache bash, admittedly drawing people from all over Scotland and the UK, but with seven or eight local cachers in attendance as well.

 

quote:

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Hopefully the cache poor areas of the world will be "seeded" by geocachers who've moved there on business or are on a regular business cycle to the area - in other words a non-local who can maintain the cache.

---

 

All you really need are one or two caches in the area. Tourists may feel that that distribution is too thin, but I would very much prefer that locals (native or transplanted - I'm an American expat, though after 10 years I'd consider myself a local) have the chance to choose the optimal location. Local knowledge makes a huge difference.

 

The caches I've set up include a few specifically targetted to tourists. They're distributed to take cachers to the main areas of the city centre, but are all located in places that only a local would know about. A tourist might have left a cache in the same general area, but probably not in quite the same spot.

 

evilrooster

http://www.bookweb.sunpig.com

-the email of the species is deadlier than the mail-

[+Allen_L]

quote:

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Originally posted by ~erik~:

Geocaching started in the Northwest US, and it wasn't long before locals placed caches in my Southeatern state of Georgia. Just a month or two if I remember correctly.

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First geocache anywhere May 3, 2000, first cache in Georgia the Beaver Cache June 3, 2000. Unlike the first one the Beaver Cache is still active and being found.