Positives & Negatives Of Geocaching

[+Katydid & Miles Stone]

During one of my hikes today, I was considering my top three positives and negatives to geocaching and came up with this list:

 

Positives:

-Gone places I'd never ever go.

-I'm much healthier.

-Met many good people.

 

Negatives:

-Mosquitoes.

-Ticks.

-Thorns.

 

What are yours?

MS

[+briansnat]

My positives are similar to yours. I've also experienced mosquitos, ticks and thorns and don't consider them to be negatives.

[+JMBella]

Pro

1. Healthy Distraction from everyday stress

Con

1. Distracts me from everyday responsibilities

 

Pro

2. Met some great new friends

Con

2. Met some very strange new people who think I'm their Friend

 

Pro

3. Keeps me out of trouble

Con

3. Keeps me out of trouble

 

[+Milbank]

Positives:

-It's a family activity.

-Going places we have never been to.

-I now take more time to notice my surroundings.

 

Negatives:

-Mosquitoes.

-Gas

-Spending even more time online.

 

 

Ticks and thorns are not all that bad, but mosquitoes

Edited January 3, 2005 by Milbank

[+Snoogans]

Positives:

 

The great Southeast Texas geocachers/ Geocachers in general

Fun creative outlet

Exercise/weight loss

 

Negatives:

 

Poison Ivy

West Nile

Lyme Disease

[+New England n00b]

Positives:

1) Gets me outdoors

2) Gets me to see places I have never been to, but still within 50 miles of home

3) Helps burn calories

 

Negatives:

1) Not enough time to do it as much as I'd like

2) Addicted to the forums

3) ROUS. Egad, it's horrible!

[+El Diablo]

Positives,

 

1) Get to spend more time with my wife.

 

2) Get to meet new people.

 

3) Get to spend time with new people.

 

Negatives,

 

1) None

 

2) None

 

3) None

 

El Diablo

[+airmetro]

On the Plus side...

I'm getting out there

There's a REASON to get out there

The pictures I'm taking are pretty amazing

 

On the Minus side...

I absolutely DESPISE snakes, and they are out there

Some folks don't tend to their caches, so I don't know if I'm screwed up or if the

cache is actually gone.

People look at you strangely (and, in some cases, call the police) when you're feeling

up a "USA Today" machine at a Cracker Barrel. This is the main reason I've

decided to stop looking for micros.

 

C'mon, folks, let's get some good "Traditional" caches out there!

[+Subterranean]

Geocaching is incredibly fun and, at times, challenging.

It’s a motivation for me to do more physical activity.

It’s a great reason to get out and explore new areas.

 

It can be frustrating and even dangerous.

It can be addictive, causing other, more important things to get neglected.

It increases the amount of money I spend on gas, car maintenance, etc., as well as on AA batteries.

[+Mastifflover]

Positives:

 

Gets me outdoors

 

Spend more time with my dog

 

Great excersize.

 

Cons:

 

Spending way more on gas

 

Loss of interest in other hobbies

 

Friends think I'm a geek for wandering in the woods following a little arrow.

[+briansnat]

2. Met some very strange new people who think I'm their Friend

 

Heeey, I resent that!

Edited January 3, 2005 by briansnat

[+wolves shepherd]

Any excuse to tramp through the woods is a good excuse.

Looking for toys in the woods keeps the kids motivated.

It's an activity the whole family can enjoy.

 

At some point, you've got to travel farther and farther to get finds.

I don't see nearly as much wildlife in the woods with the kids along.

Yet another eccentric hobby I have to explain to people, still it's cheaper than golf.

[+Ed Rad]

Positive...

 

1. Been to places I never would have visited.

 

2. Gets my lazy butt off the couch and outside.

 

3. Met alot of nice people.

 

4. Met the love of my life because of geocaching.

 

5. Fun

 

6. Have learned some new things

 

7. I know my way around the Chicago area really well now.

 

Negative:

 

There's negative aspects of geocaching??

Edited January 3, 2005 by Special Ed

[+Honest John & Suzies Jule]

The plus side is;

More electronic toys, to buy, to get to play with, and the satisfaction when they work!

 

The downside is; Keeping them running, keeping other hands off them, and having to read instructions to use them!

 

[+JMBella]

2. Met some very strange new people who think I'm their Friend

 

Heeey, I resent that!

Present company excluded of course.

[+JMBella]

At some point, you've got to travel farther and farther to get finds.

That's actually one of the most positive things I can think of.

[+GeoCraig]

Positives:

 

Been to many places I normally would not have gone

Being able to get out hiking and exploring

 

Negatives:

 

Getting handcuffed

Getting poison oak, again, and again, and again, and . . . (Yes, I do know what it looks like. I guess I am just a very lucky guy.)

[+geosliders]

Positives:

 

- Great fun and exercise with the kids - teaching them there IS more to life than gameboy

- find interesting, new and beautiful places every time

- meeting new people with similar interests

 

Negatives:

 

- MOSQUITOS - UUUGGHHH!

- Found out Poison Ivy is not my friend

- getting Dog Poo that was on the trail out of a five year olds sneaker is not fun

[+BigHank]

Positives: Doing something that the whole family, of all ages, can enjoy together.

Getting outside

Finding out things and places I didn't know about

 

Negatives: Poison Ivy....I can get it just by looking at a picture.

Crude and rude emails from cachers who can't find a cache you've hidden and demand that you tell them where it is, among other things.

People who destroy other's caches

 

The positives, of course, far outweigh the negatives.

[+Salvelinus]

Plus (++++)

 

Snakes

Mosquitos

Poison Ivy

thorns

ticks

 

I enjoy the "field", and all it's parts, where this game is played.

 

Minuses (-----)

 

Caching for numbers

un-maintained caches

95% of all micros...especially Urban Micros

 

Salvelinus

[+Ambrosia]

Negatives?

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

Positives:

 

-- creating adventures for people to enjoy!

-- seeing places of great natural beauty

-- using technology in a physical way

 

Negatives:

 

-- none

-- none

-- folks seeking to "control" the game beyond reason

[+Pyewacket]

Positives:

• A fun reason to be outdoors with a goal in mind
  
• Setting a goal and actually accomplishing it
  
• Meeting wonderful, like-minded people, both on-line and face-to-face
  

Negatives:

• The worry my husband suffers when I'm caching alone
  
• The frustration of knowing a cache may only be 20 feet away, but I can't get to it
  
• I don't live in a cache-dense area and wait impatiently for new caches to be placed nearby
  

These are the first to come to mind, though I'm sure there are others. The positive reasons outnumber the negatives ones by far, however.

[+cottonmouth]

Positives:

finding places I didn't even know about

meeting nice people

honing my observation and navigational skills

 

Negatives:

having a hard time to explain the new hobby

total loss of sense of time while caching (got me considered MIA on a friend's birthday party where I arrived 2 hours after the start)

cachers inflicting damage in the vicinity of caches

[+TEAM 360]

Cache events-it's always great to meet and greet with other cachers!

Hidden, out-of-the-way places I would not have otherwise known about.

Being sneaky on the retrieval, right in front of non-cachers!

 

Trashy caches with trade-down, busted-up swag.

Having a 1/1 turn into a 4/4.

Batteries dying out with only .1 to go!

[+Enspyer]

Positives !: 1) Spend more time outdoors

2) Learn more about the town I live in

3) Learn how to use digital camera

 

Negatives !: 1) More time spent at the computer

2) Forgetting the bug spray

3) Getting strange looks from well-meaning strangers

[+Anonymous']

I like just about everything about Geocaching except for the damage that people do to plants and stuff near a cache site.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Positive:

Beautiful places the I would not otherwise ever have seen

Keeping off the 20# I lost backpacking last summer

Travel Bugs!!

 

Negatives:

Ticks. I really hate ticks!

Not having enought time for other hobbies.

Injuries, from lepidopterism to managing to stick my eye into a twig.

[+DanOCan]

Positives

 

- Chance to discover new places I have never been before. This is the big reason I still like virtual caches, even if they don't have a "Wow" factor.

 

- Physical Exercise -- we now have an excuse to get and do something rather than an "aimless" walk.

 

- Helped me justify the purchase of a GPS unit to my wife.

 

Negatives

 

- Increased expenditures on fuel and vehicle maintenance.

 

- Explaining geocaching to friends and relatives who "just don't get it." I now resort to just saying we are going hiking.

 

- Makes the hours spent in the office all the more pointless and frustrating.

[+fly46]

My positives are pretty much the same.

 

The negatives are:

 

New cost for batteries/gas/cheap trinkes

Being covered with mud when I don't want to be

Losing time for other hobbies

[+AtlantaGal]

Pros:

Great way to excercise regularly

Meet a lot of new people

Always have something to do/rarely bored

 

Cons:

Cost of gas/car expenses

The elements... Ivys, Torns, Bugs, Ticks, Spider Webs, etc.

Procrastinating on things that need to be done to go geocaching instead

[Emily87]

postitive:

healthy

fun

 

negatives:

bushwacking

THORN

can't find the dern thing

[+Trekin Triad]

Pros: Nice family time together, get to see some great places I'd probably never go otherwise, seeing my two year olds face light up when we find the "treasure".

 

Cons: The only thing I can think of is the fact that it's on my mind almost every wakeing moment! I'm at work... supposed to be working... but I'm fantasizing about finding that specific geocache...

 

Crystal

Edited January 4, 2005 by Trekin Triad

[+Strohem]

So many positives......it's difficult to pick 3

1. I love being outside

2. The exercise beats going to a gym

3. Other geocachers...what can I say?

 

There is only ONE negative for me. Poison Ivy. If I even look at it I break out all over!

[+Ltljon]

Positive:

 

Learning the difference between a Poision Oak leaf & a Red Oak leaf.

 

Negative:

 

Learning the difference between a Poision Oak leaf & a Red Oak leaf.

[WH]

Positives: Far too many to list here.

 

Negatives: They know who they are .

[+ZackJones]

Positives

 

- getting out and seeing/learning things I never knew before (for example: Charles Lindberg made his first solo flight here in the state of Georgia)

- finding an activity that my wife enjoys almost as much as I do

- Meeting other geocachers and hunting with small groups

 

Negatives

 

- Poison ivy

- $1000+ of GPS equipment (StreetPilot 2610 and (2) Garmin 60c + software)

- DNF's

[+drat19]

Positives:

 

- Discovery of "hidden gem" locations I never would have otherwise discovered, both near my home as well as in areas throughout the country where I travel

 

- Bonding opportunities with like-minded (and differently-minded!) people, both on the trails when team-caching, and here in the Geocaching community

 

- Meeting great fellow cachers at Event Caches, and the fact that they're willing to accept this transplanted Yankee here in the heart of Deep Dixie

 

- Where else can one find an obscure "The Princess Bride" reference??

3) ROUS. Egad, it's horrible!

 

Negatives:

 

- Metro areas where certain cachers have chosen to BOMB the area (as opposed to placing IN MODERATION) with caches in less-than-desirable locations just to bump up their own Hide stats and their fellow local searchers' Find stats, and then have the temerity to just say "If you don't like my caches then don't hunt for 'em" when the effort to travel to the locations has already been expended

 

- "Micro fatigue" - and again, the issue is not that ALL micros suck, it's that TOO MANY micros in a given area, placed "just anywhere" with no thought as to the VALUE of the location, creates white noise

 

- The fact that Virtual Caches have become severely limited for approval, resulting in "micro pollution" in so many areas instead

 

- (Have I mentioned that I'm sick of thoughtlessly-placed micros, a trend and an evolution of our game which was NOT an issue when I started back in '02, to the point where my caching activity has dropped at least 50% from its previous levels, in just the last several months, for that reason alone?)

 

-Dave R. in Biloxi

Edited January 5, 2005 by drat19

[+ValleyRat & TillyMouse]

It seems that many cachers from "Up Nawth" speak about Ticks when they actually mean Chiggers. As a lifelong resident of Texas, I don't remember ever seeing a tick in South Texas, but have read many forum posts about the area being infested; they're endemic in the piney woods of East Texas, however.

 

Tick: A pin-head sized insect that attaches itself to your skin and must be carefully removed to avoid leaving its head imbedded in the skin. To safely remove, tick experts warm their (the tick's) behind with a hot ember -- we don't use cigarettes anymore. After a few hours of sucking your blood, the tick can become like a brown marble, up to 3/8" in diameter.

Click here to see.

 

The deer tick can carry Lime (or Lyme) Disease, an extremely serious infection. If you're caching in deer country, watch out for the little bullseye-shaped lesion caused by that insect.

 

Chigger: Virtually invisible insect, often called a redbug, that the victim seldom sees because it's so tiny. He does, however, see and feel the itching bump that's left by the chigger, beginning the next day and lasting for up to a week. Probably no creature on earth can cause as much torment for its size than the tiny chigger. Chigger mites are about 1/20 inch long, usually bright red, have hairy bodies, and travel rapidly. They reside in grassy areas.

Click here to see a chigger.

 

Chiggers do not burrow into the skin, but insert their mouthparts in a skin pore or hair follicle. A single chigger may remain on your skin for hours, producing a dozen or more itching bumps. You can avoid a lot of bites by showering soon after exposure to grassy areas that are infested.

 

Afficianados treat the bumps with a coating of clear fingernail polish or New Skin. If the bumps become red and infected, doctors recommend they be treated with an antibiotic cream (Neosporin is our OTC choice).

Edited January 5, 2005 by valleyrat

[Mushtang]

Pros

1. Seeing new and out of the way places

2. Having fun with technology

3. The sun on my face

 

Cons

1. Muddy shoes

2. Ticks and thorns

3. The sun on my face

[+Salvelinus]

It seems that many cachers from "Up Nawth" speak about Ticks when they actually mean Chiggers.

Trust us...we know what ticks are.

 

Lyme disease was first diognosed in the "Nawtheast" so why would you think we don't know what a tick looks like?

 

Salvelinus

[+clan_Barron]

Negatives:

 

Getting handcuffed

Care to tell the story?

 

Positives

great places

great people

fun times

 

Negatives

None

none

none

[+e3brown]

+++

 

1. Well cameod hides forcing me to "THINK" vice tearing up the environment.

2. The tongue-in-cheek humor some people put in their hides.

3. The sense of accomplishment when finding a difficult hide.

 

---

 

1. "Mongo" hunters who tear up the environment

2. Hunters who think its all about the numbers

3. "Finders" who do not take the time to conceal the hide as well as they found it. They are in a hurry to satisfy item 2 above.

[AJK]

Positives - all too easy, and mentioned above

 

Negatives -

 

Rental car towed after getting stuck off-trail

Personal car towed from side of road

Speeding ticket

 

I'll take the positives over the negatives any day.

[Mr. TSP]

Positives:

 

1. All the exercise I got by bicycling about 600 miles total to most of the caches I did this past Summer.

2. Meeting some very cool and nice people at the two Event Caches I attended.

3. I love the outdoors and getting to play with the coolest toy I own while being outdoors just made it all that much better.

 

Negatives:

 

1. Caches that don't get maintained or cache containers that just won't hold up to the elements. About half the caches I have found were wet inside.

2. People who don't know how to play nice in the Forums.

3. People who take Travel Bugs then either lose them, don't log them, or just don't care what they do with them. TBs are other people's property. If you take a TB, play right or don't play at all.