Confused By The Various Geocaching Sites

[eliasbats]

Hi there! I am new to geocaching and want someone to explain to me how all the geocaching sites are connected to each other. I mean, if I place my own cache, I have to register it to all the geocaching sites, like, geocaching.com, navicache.com etc.?

 

The same question is made when I visit a cache. Please help!

 

Thanks very much.

[+PandyBat]

They aren't connected to each other. If you list a cache at one site, it is not seen on another site. You have to go to each individual one and list your cache, if you so desire to do that. Same goes for logging a cache....have to log at each site for the same cache if its listed.

[+briansnat]

There are numerous geocaching sites. Many are the sites of local organizations (eg.Texas Geocaching Assn. and Maryland Geocaching Society) and some are personal websites (e.g.Clayjar's and Cybret's). These sites contain tools and info that augment geocaching.com and the sport, but are not related to the website.

 

Then there are the listing services. Geocaching.com is the first, the biggest and most say the best. Navicache.com is its closest competetor, but doesn't come close to having the number of listings that geocaching.com has. There were some other attempts at creating listing websites that have yet to meet success. There was www.geocachingworldwide.com which failed, www.opencaching.com, which seems stalled after a lot of early enthusiasm and www.geocaching.gpsgames.org which doesn't have many caches listed. There may be one or two others that I'm not aware of.

 

Most of the competing listing sites were developed by people who became disenchanted with geocaching.com for one reason or another. These sites sometimes have more liberal listing requirements and add features that geocaching.com won't, like stats and cache reviews, in hopes of attracting listings.

 

You are free to list your caches and log finds here and/or on any of the competing sites, but since the vast majority of geocachers use this site and many don't even know about the others, your cache will get maximum exposure if you list it here.

Edited August 5, 2004 by briansnat

[+Robespierre]

Well, that was concise, yet thorough!

A few weeks ago I started posting in the forums, then I found a travel tag, and suddenly I discovered what you're discovering. I emailed a couple of cachers with more experience with a couple of questions, since I wasn't even sure I was allowed to mention "the competitors." I learned enough, and info slowly trickles in.

End result: no point (for me) in roaming. I have no desire to help build up another "agency," and I'm very happy with this one.

[+Old Bet]

Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint (http://www.brillig.com/geocaching/) does not register

caches, but it does have a search engine that appears to find caches listed at a number of different sites, including geocaching.com and navicache. So, if you are looking for caches in a certain area, Buxley may give you more results than a search of geocaching.com alone. Of course, if you locate a NaviCache cache you can't add it to your statistics on geocaching, which may or may not be an issue for you, depending on your perspective.

[+Osmirik]

I have to say, I love the prevailing attitude that lets a thread like this exist.

I've been in too many other communities (More often IRC than forums, though) where the people running it have decided to 'shield' the participants from any mention of anyone else. Being banned from a Neverwinter Nights IRC channel for mentioning a developer chat that happened to be on a different network comes to mind.

 

Of course, geocaching.com has nothing to fear, as it is, imho, the best around.

[+fly46]

I agree that this is the best site. Sometimes there are other options that you can do, but these seem to be the best out there. GeoCaching certainly has the 'market' per say on caching. We have better listings, more of them, a better designed website, easier navigation, etc... Groundspeak travel bugs are the only travelers of any sort that are linked directly to cache pages that I know of, the large promotions run here/etc.