Jump to content

Geo-burnt


Recommended Posts

Did a quick 3 cache run the other day, over in Laughlin, NV, along the Colorado River...you know the routine: park as close as you can, follow the arrow to the cache, take a quick glance at the usually-crappy swag littering the bottom of the ammo box and then sign the logbook...after finishing up the third cache, I suddenly asked myself "Why am I doing this, just driving around to sign my team name on a notebook? What am I getting out of this? How is this improving my life? Why am I driving all over, wasting gas?"

 

Anyone else experience this? And if you have, do you cache alone or with someone? (Do single cachers experience this more often than those who go with another person?) :laughing:

Link to comment

Absolutely. And the challenge is to come up with a solution for that feeling. This is supposed to be fun.

 

1. Take a total break from geocaching... for a week, for a month, whatever it takes to make it fun again.

2. Pick different caches to hunt. Maybe a nice long scenic hike might be the fix after doing three park and grabs. Refrain from hunting any more park and grabs until you feel the urge to go on a "numbers run." When you WANT to find quick caches, it can then be fun again.

3. If the first two caches aren't making you feel relaxed, and you drive up to the third one and get that feeling, just skip it and drive home - or drive to a nice restaurant, bar or store in the neighborhood you found yourself in, to justify the time and gas money.

4. Create your own challenge. Try finding those 1/1 caches at night, or without a GPS.

 

I have used all of these strategies at one time or another, with obvious success, since I haven't quit yet. My longest break was a month with no finds.

 

I have indeed noticed that the "why bother?" feeling happens more often when I am hunting caches alone. Adding a caching partner instantly makes the hunt more fun, even for a cache that doesn't have much of a challenge to offer. You can laugh at the cache, or gripe about it, or create a challenge by seeing who is first to find the pile of rocks or the right guardrail.

Link to comment

Only when I do a cache of the kind I hate, which is basically any one that makes me feel like I've been bumbling around in a place I shouldn't ought to be attracting attention I shouldn't ought to attract. So I've started trying to exercise restraint and just not do those that look hinky in the description.

 

Oh, yeah...and when I can't find the thing after 45 minutes and I'm seriously flexed.

Link to comment

Caching is fun, and it combines well with everything else. Last weekend we went fishing and got skunked. Then we did a cache and found it. The cache was a nice alternate to a bad day of fishing. (We also caught 4 ticks but they don't count).

 

I no longer rush out to find a cache first. It will be there when I'm ready. I don't sweat the numbers, I'm already a 'power cacher'. I've re-discovered shooting and want to get into that. Because there are other things I can balance out geocaching with them all and not flame out.

Link to comment

When I get tired of hunting them, that's when I start to think of devious ways to hide 'em. Then after I've hidden a few, I get back into finding again.

 

Also, if you wait a bit, you get some new cachers in the area and these are always fun to meet. Throw an event and make a party of it. Seeing the excitement of the new cachers can be contagious.

Link to comment

Hey, Team 360, just come on up north & try out some of the "Old Farts" caches...as in

It was a dynamite place

It a LARGE cache with some 'nice goodies' in it.

 

Or you could go for our Mulit-cache--Dial Out...& if you need company, we will even ferry your b--- around to find all of the Chevrons, because we know all of the shortcuts! Couldn't ask for more than that. :laughing:

 

Just the 2oldfarts~

Link to comment
after finishing up the third cache, I suddenly asked myself "Why am I doing this, just driving around to sign my team name on a notebook? What am I getting out of this? How is this improving my life? Why am I driving all over, wasting gas?"

Your description sounds like what I sometimes do with my kids (9 & 10 yr old girls). For them, finding the cache is the exciting part. Even if there's nothing worth trading (though they always seem to find something) finding it is what gets them all pumped up. So I target caches with less of a walk and many times a larger number of caches.

 

When I'm alone, I have a completely different goal now. I usually look for long loop hikes where I can park and hike (sometimes 10-15 miles) before returning to my car. Maybe it's that we're lucky where I am with the large number of great caches that are placed, but you can hit up between 3 and 10 caches in a loop of 10 or more miles. The exercise, the outdoors, the quiet and yes, logging the cache, is now what I enjoy when I'm going out there alone or with a group of other cachers that want to do the same thing.

 

So, unless you're out of caches in your area and you're hitting "the leftovers", maybe it's your choice of caches for the particular mood you are in that needs fine tuning.

Link to comment
"Why am I doing this, just driving around to sign my team name on a notebook? What am I getting out of this? How is this improving my life? Why am I driving all over, wasting gas?"

Taking a break from hunting and creating a quality cache yourself may renew your geocaching spirit. Search out a nice walk (or hike) that brings you to an inspiring site. Pick a theme and fill one of those ammo cans to the brim with things that you want to keep for yourself. Post the cache and read the admiring logs as they roll in.

 

Whatever you do, don't hide a micro someone can drive up to.

 

-WR

Link to comment
When I get tired of hunting them, that's when I start to think of devious ways to hide 'em. Then after I've hidden a few, I get back into finding again.

 

Also, if you wait a bit, you get some new cachers in the area and these are always fun to meet. Throw an event and make a party of it. Seeing the excitement of the new cachers can be contagious.

I'm with you on this one ol' buddy. Who'da thunkt we'd EVER totally agree on something? :tired:

 

I have almost 280 (only 220+ logged) finds in just under 18 months. I could have a whole lot more, but I'm in no rush to some milestone.

 

I'm wayyyy into geocaching, but life comes first. :tired: I'll NEVER stop caching all together.

 

SNOOGAV.jpg

Link to comment

You know, I had that 'what am I doing' thought today... although it was because I had to spend 30+ minutes leaning over a barbed wire fence with a stick because I dropped the cache box when trying to put it back and it rolled into plain sight - with a muggle across the streeet, I might add. Thankfully I was far enough down a slope that she didn't see me in my BRIGHT ORAGNGE shirt that I decided to wear out to be descrete while caching.

Oh, and why did I do that? For a TB that was taken over a week ago and not yet logged in.

Link to comment

I think most people tend to do this with most all their hobbies. Some of mine were paintballing, scuba diving, astronomy, photgraphy, remote controlled cars, etc,,,. Started out hot and heavy, bought all the gadgets associated with each and thought each was the bomb! But after a while you tend to lose interest. I still mess with all of them to some extent but my feelings toward each did change over time.

 

Geocaching is different for me in the fact that i havnt gone overboard and made it my only activity in life. My wife loves to cache as much as i do so that does indeed make it more fun. Going to events, meeting such a diverse mix of fellow cachers, making Friends, challenging our brains with some caches, and getting out to see different areas all make it worthwhile and just plain old FUN!!! :tired:

Link to comment

I had one of those moments today too. I found myself beating the bushes next to some play equiptment filled with screaming shouting children. Never mind attracting attention (I don't care), it was hot and I couldn't find the dadgum thing and it just wasn't fun. I bagged it and went home, 0 for 1.

 

But I'll be out again soon. One thing I know is that if you have a bad time caching somewhere, go somewhere else. If you're trying to 'clean out' a pocket of your area, just pick somewhere further away and do a few caches there. I cache in 4 or 5 distinct areas around the san francisco bay, and when one sort of fails me, another one picks me up again.

Link to comment

Mostly I pick and choose interesting caches. There are a lot of urban caches near me but I just don't have the urge to go and find them right now. Much more interesting to go to an interesting location or solve a puzzle cache. The more you put into a cache find the more you will get out.

 

Groover

Link to comment

It is difficult to keep brief on this but I'll try. (pipe the applause down a bit wil ya?) :tired:

  • You've apparently reached goals that were at one time thought to be unattainable.
  • You found yourself in the middle of a debate that shouldn't have carried as far as it did.
  • You now find yourself questioning is it worth the effort.
  • Overall, you made a sport and hobby into a job and it stopped being fun.

Quit working at it. Go after caches in interesting areas, enjoy the scenery, smell the blossoms, listen to the wind. Enjoy the camaraderie of those sharing the same interest.

 

I would love to point you at a couple of videos that someone made, but I think I would be out of line to swamp his website unless he posted here himself, but they really do capture what geocaching is all about in my very humble and limited opinion on this subject. The above paragraph inadequately describes what the videos captured.

Link to comment

I do not get the chance to go out caching near as much as I would like. So when I do get out I tend to look for caches that look like fun. I also try to take my kids with so I try to get for them those that will get us out and have it not be a park and grab. For me a good walk or hike with nice views and a log book are enough. I could care less about the SWAG and for the most part my kids are that way as they often leave more than they take.

Link to comment

That is why we enjoy so many other parts of this hobby.

 

We alternate geocaching with benchmarking...and trying our own version of that with historical markers in our state....as soon as I can get that database I know exists out there. Benchmarking is one reason we are still in this hobby. As soon as I can upload pictures, we have a lot of locationless caches to log. The alternative things to caching make it fun.

 

Sometimes we make a big trip out of it, sometimes we get one as an afterthought to another days activity. Sometimes we take the dog with us and treat it like a date.

 

We are picky though about caches. I noticed that burnt out feeling after too many caches that were not fun. Now they have to have something appealing about them for us to go after them. No more dog park caches, no more downtown drug addict area caches.....no more caches where a recent entry was something about a nearby homeless camp, or mating park, or anything like that. We are not consumed with numbers (too much). We have a good time with our caching. Scenic parks, interesting multis or puzzles, a clever hide, scenic rural cache...this is what we want to find.

Link to comment

For those of you that need to mix it up a little to make it interesting, have you ever considered joining Markeroni? The site is dedicated to finding all of the historical markers around the US... Place to put in cords/descriptions/pictures in the page... Kinda like reverse cache hunting...

 

Do you Snarf?

Link to comment
Anyone else experience this? And if you have, do you cache alone or with someone? (Do single cachers experience this more often than those who go with another person?)

Geocaching should not be the goal - only the medium.

Maybe your wife has a nephew whose Dad is a jerk. Take him along. Maybe there's a kid at church with no Dad, or a brother-in-law, etc.

By Aug. 19 I will easily have 70 finds, my "goal." But I have some time coming up in a few days with Sisters and Cousins. I may get close to 100. Those are the best.

I have to go alone once in a while, and I often go 2-3 weeks barren. Then I call up some teenager, or my youngest daughter gets in the mood. :tired:

Link to comment

Granted I just got started but now have over 70 finds. I thought that quite a few times. I got my answer in different ways. At first it was you have always looked for a hobby and now you have one you enjoy. Right at this moment...........I had to break up with my girlfriend of a year and a half because I realized it just was not gonna work she doesn't have a clue in life. Instead of thinking about her Geocaching keeps me busy enough to not dwell over something I know I did for the best but still feel bad. When it is all said and done if you can come up with an excuse big or small to keep doing it and it not not putting you and your family in jeopardy keep doing it you trully enjoy it. If you can't make anymore reasons to do it, walk away. I still enjoy geocaching and it is my relief right now from my everyday problems.

Link to comment

I never got to the point where it gets old. I pick my caches carefully and rarely go out simply to grab a find, but instead incorporate it in a hike, or other activity. The few times I do, it's usually as a diversion from something else. Maybe I'm on a business trip, or visiting relatives and just need to get out, or I happen to be in the area and notice a cache nearby. Because of this I'll often go weeks and even a month or more without a find.

 

When I see people with thousands of finds, or relative newbies who rack up 100 finds in their first month, or 500+ in their first year, I often wonder how they don't get burnt out. I know I probably would.

 

Besides, my favorite part of the sport is hiding caches. I never tire of looking for interesting new places to hide caches. It gets tough being that I live in the most densely cached state in the US, so when I do find a good, new spot, it gives me all the enjoyment I need out of the sport.

Edited by briansnat
Link to comment

As some of the earlier posts mention - I combine it with my hobby of Mountain bike riding & hiking.

Often I get to ride new hills and new challenges. And new hills to Cooeee down too.

Also get to ride to areas I haven't been before. As for wasting gas/petrol/fuel - I do very little of that, I get to enjoy the ride and experience the environment too. (yes, even if the geocache is 100km away, I'll ride there & back - taking a route I've never been on before. This has taken me along some great trails indeed).

 

Interstate geocaches - well I seek them when I'm travelling interstate to visit relatives - relieves the boredom in the car when travelling long distances, and also takes me to places I would never normally visit off the main highways.

 

Motto - ENJOY, and keep your life too! Coooeeee.

Link to comment
What is this "burnt out" you speak of? :tired:

I'll probably slow down after #3000. Of course, I said that at #2000 and look what happened.

We spent the whole weekend doing cache maintenance and hiding caches. The only "find" we had was a pizza event cache. We had a blast. It just goes to show you that it's not just about the numbers. :tired:

 

--Marky

Link to comment
Actually I'm fortunate enough to have several differrent angles to geocaching. I have caching its self, then the hiking staffs, and the magazine. As you can tell from my stats after 3 years of caching I only do it on occassion.

 

El Diablo

I think this is key to prolonged interest. If it weren't for the community here in MI I would have gotten bored/burnt out with caching long ago.

 

I haven't done that many caches lately, and when I have - they tend to correlate to an event weekend.

Link to comment
It was a dynamite place

It a LARGE cache with some 'nice goodies' in it.

Wow, farts, that's a heck of a FTF prize!

 

Keeping on topic, I've been caching for a little over 2 years and I have just hit 35 finds. I find that if I go caching "once in a while" or whenever I want to get away for a few hours, it keeps things interesting for me.

 

But, on the other hand, I do like to be FTF, so if a cache pops up near me, I'll try to make every effort to hit it.

 

Tim

 

edited due to my inability to type

Edited by TimInOhio
Link to comment

I've moved twice in the past few years, and seem to do most of my caching in between jobs, with a few scattered about once I go back to work. My Photography and Fishing hobbies often take me to places where I can combine one or more of these activities at once, sometimes all of them.

I have just about decided to stop looking for micros, some are fun, but I'm starting to ask myself why look for a crack vial in a forest when most of the time there isn't anything there to photograph and nothing for my kids to enjoy.

Link to comment

I forgot to put on my sunscreen a few weeks back and got geoburnt that day. :tired:

Oh burnt-out you say. nah I'm with floopy here haven't had that feeling yet. :tired:

Like others have suggested by alternating periods of high numbers with high challenge searching, and more and less activie hiding it never gets old for me.

I have noticed that I'm more likely to want to do this with geopals then I was in the beginning. It used to be more about getting some 'me' time away from my employees/customers/home/job; i.e. responsibilities! Now it's more about enjoying the hunt with my geopals, especially the Team CHB ones.

PS ditto the thanks fly46-that snarfing looks like fun. Heck there are a dozen markers right outisde work. I'm in the science musuem in the middle of the state government complex in Raleigh, NC.

Edited by wimseyguy
Link to comment

Not yet, but we've only been at this for four months so far. It's still new to us. I could see it happening if every cache were the same: here are some coordinates, go there, find a container full of junk that looks exactly like every other container full of junk you've seen lately. Especially if you had to travel quite a distance to get there. But we're lucky enough to live in a pretty cache-dense area where we have hundreds to choose from within a fairly small travel radius, of all types, ranging from fifteen-minute strolls to some several-hour grueling multi puzzle caches, some with very clever hides. There's such a wide variety that I can't see us getting bored with it for quite a while yet.

 

Maybe you could try focusing on other aspects of caching. Bored with easy ones? Limit yourself to 4-star or higher for a while. Bored with searching? Hide some. Bored with junky contents? Trade out the entire contents of crappy caches with lots of good stuff, just to read the logs of subsequent finders. Bored with traditional here's-the-coordinates ones? Find some puzzle caches. Need something else? Try playing with travel bugs. One of my favorite parts of caching is taking fun or amusing pictures of TBs (both our own and others' bugs). These can sometimes take a while to set up, depending on how elaborate you want to be. We've actually been known to go out and spend money on props just to get a good picture, but I figure anything that makes me laugh out loud as I'm doing it is worthwhile.

 

You could also try doing some maintenance on caches that appear to be in need of help. (Not official adoption; more like foster-caching.) On a recent camping trip we were out for an aimless hike one evening, and it was tiring and buggy and I found myself kind of disappointed that there was no "prize" at the end. The next day when we were on a much harder sweaty two-hour upward climb toward a 4.5-start terrain cache, and had stopped partway up to rest and were swatting bugs away, I was much happier, and said "But it'll all be worth it because there's a box of mildew waiting for us at the top!" (Previous cache logs had mentioned that the contents were a mess, due to being waterlogged; we were bringing lots of replacement trade items and a new logbook with us.) Cleaning up that mildewed cache felt very satisfying, even more so than finding one full of great stuff.

Link to comment

I find that attending a caching event is a great way to renew my spirits. Cachers are such a great and diverse bunch, just being around so many amazing people gets me going again.

 

For me, my biggest burnouts occur when I set a high goal, because then I feel obligated to reach it no matter how miserable it is. My caching partner and I challenged ourselves to find 200+ caches in under a month to hit our goal of 1000 before the big Southern California Geocachers picnic earlier in July.

 

By the time we reached 999, we were ready to never look at another cache again. The picnic really helped us not stop caching entirely after all that, though I've abandoned striving for any future milestones and decided to just focus on having fun.

Link to comment
Did a quick 3 cache run the other day, over in Laughlin, NV, along the Colorado River...you know the routine: park as close as you can, follow the arrow to the cache, take a quick glance at the usually-crappy swag littering the bottom of the ammo box and then sign the logbook...after finishing up the third cache, I suddenly asked myself "Why am I doing this, just driving around to sign my team name on a notebook? What am I getting out of this? How is this improving my life? Why am I driving all over, wasting gas?"

 

Anyone else experience this? And if you have, do you cache alone or with someone? (Do single cachers experience this more often than those who go with another person?) :tired:

Everytime I get up in the AM and go to work I say the same thing, almost. :tired:

 

Hey, caching is supposed to be fun and relaxing....If you arent getting that, maybe its time to take a break from it.......if it seems like work it is no longer fun.....

 

And unless you are after the numbers or you like McD toys, I couldnt see doing geocaching for any other reason BUT relaxing/fun/adventure....Lets face it, unlike most sports or games, no one will ever be declared "winner"...so the goal of the sprt is the hike and the relaxation....at least that is what I see...

 

Just another $.02

 

shadango

Link to comment

When I first started I hit all the local caches,if a new cache popped up close I would go day or night to be FTF, then Idid some that were a longer distance, I went on vac and took all the cache pages I wantedto do when I was there but ended up fishing for the whole week I was there, and didnt even care about caching. When I got back I did a few more with JMJZ. It just dosent appeal to me like it used to, but it is still fun just not everyday like when I first started :tired:

Link to comment

Team360, if I went to the Northern Edge of Insanity five times in a single weekend, you deserve to question your motivation for caching!

 

I've been on the edge of burnout for a while. The funny thing is that whenever someone asks me to hit the trails, I do and I don't even think about burnout. Come to think of it, half mile Rails 2 Trails hikes seem a whole lot shorter when you don't have to talk with yourself.

 

For me, I think what removes the actual burnout is stepping away from the forums (all of them). Maybe it's because I'm responsible the chattiest, zaniest geoboard around and it's work to keep things to a low murmor. I can't imagine how they mods around here stay up to it. What all that organization stuff does, though is blame my caching activity and not the actual causes. So, when I step out for a little bit (usually by hitting some remote areas of Ohio) I get refreshed. But that's just me.

Link to comment

The Leps response (2nd post on this thread) was pretty darned comprehensive.

 

As for me, I'm fortunate that I travel for my job, so every new city or metro area is an opportunity to spend my after-work hours exploring a new area and picking up some caches (and maybe even a clever hide idea or two that I can steal and bring back home to Mississippi).

 

However, recently I've been between work assignments and working from home. Since I've cleared out my local area (and keep it clear whenever a new cache is hidden), this means my caching has gone down. So, what I've been doing is planning caching weekends in different cities within 4-8 hours of home, and heading out on Friday afternoon, driving either to, or close to, my destination area, and then storming it first thing Saturday morning from sunrise to sunset. I made a run to Tallahassee (5 hrs from Biloxi) one weekend, and one to Birmingham (also 5 hrs from Biloxi) another weekend. These were both "virgin drat19" territories, so that meant new exploration, and a full slate of caches to hit. I've got some other metro areas that are 6-8 hrs away on my radar for upcoming weekends (so don't be surprised to see a bunch of drat19 log entries in caches in a region near you!).

 

Besides keeping things fresh, I also get the opportunity to explore new regions in great detail, beyond where the Interstates would take me as any ol' roadtripper. So, even if it's a metro area strewn with not-exciting caches (which by the way was NOT the case in Talla and B'Ham...the caches there were top notch too!), visiting the "hidden gem" areas of each area makes it fun anyway!

 

Consider those weekend road trips to new areas!

-Dave R. in Biloxi

Link to comment

I get burned out occasionally on the forums and the geocaching community, but not the activity itself. Geocaching for me is the means, not the end. I've found some really neat places that I never would've found were it not for geocaching.

 

When I need to recharge, I take the forums off of my favorites list. When I find myself accumulating caches in large numbers is usually when I stop enjoying it. That means that I've been grabbing a bunch of "park and grabs" or virtuals and not hiking.

 

When I get in one of these moods, I plan a trip where I have to hike or bike a long ways just to get to a single cache. I found myself biking all over Denver this week while on vacation. I could've grabbed a lot more caches if I had wanted to, but I was more interested in burning the cobwebs out of my brain than hunting Tupperware.

 

-E

Link to comment

I've shared 360's feelings recently. I've just taken another look at the closest 60 caches to my home. I've managed to find all 60. Only 12 of these required a walk of more than a quarter mile to get to the cache. You could park within 30' of 15 caches. You could park within 10' of 8 of them. 22 of 60 are urban micros. Only one required a round trip walk of more than a mile.

 

I can't speak for everywhere, but around here the hobby is clearly changing. The long hike with the nice sized container at the end has become quite rare. The micro park and grab is now the norm.

 

To stave off the burnout, I usually save the park and grabs and just make a day of them. I take my time and spread out the long hikes and try not to get more than one or two at a time. That gives me more to look forward to.

Link to comment

Stop bothering with cache and dashes, unless you are really interested in the area.

 

You could do a 3 hour trip drive all over the place and find 5-10 caches, or you could do a 3 hour trip- drive somewhere nice, go on a long hike and find just one 3 or 4 rated terrain cache in a place that is special to someone. Come back tired and satisfied!

 

I ignore all the nearby cache and dashes unless there are superlatives in the logs from experienced cachers, but I will drive 2 hours for a great hike in the woods/mountain/beach/desert. I guess I'm lucky to have all of that within 2 hours drive!

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...