First Hide

[+pghlooking]

Just curious what rule of thumb have you used before placing your first cache. I just placed my first after 57 finds. Personally i wanted to see more than one style and location and get a better feel for the game before placing our first one. I noticed 2 other caches placed in the same area within the past 2 days by cachers have a combined 19 finds. I am not saying these arent good hides as i haven't done them yet, and am not saying there should be a written rule to how many finds before you are allowed to hide, i am just asking what YOUR rule for yourself was before placing one. thanks

[+Joe Smith]

I think the word on the street was 10 finds. You can hide a cache whenever you want to. Usually the more finds you have the more thought you will put into a cache, or you will have a better idea of the kind of caches you like to find.

 

 

I think I waited about 20 or so before I hid mine.

 

 

Joe Smith

[+Anonymous']

I never really felt like hiding any caches until this summer. I had 60 finds or so when I hid my first. After I hid my first I hid 2 more within a month after hiding my first.

[+stugotz]

I agree, you should get some finds in before placing a cache. I also had about 50 finds.

 

I new that I wanted to put out caches that should be somewhat interesting. But, if you’re like me and don’t have the greatest imagination in the world you need some help. I found that after caching in some other areas (500 miles away) I did some caches that I liked that were different than the ones in my area. I created similar caches in my area.

 

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

 

Thanks for reminding me I need to start thinking about some more.

[+Enspyer]

It looks like I found 12 caches before placing my first...it's nice to know I'm so average!

[+Katydid & Miles Stone]

I was eager - I placed one at 10. I purposely made it simple and intended for it to be more of a "family" cache. We placed some rather good items in it. One think I've learned:

 

Good booty averts much criticism. MS

[+briansnat]

I don't think there should be any rule of thumb. People tend to hide the kinds of caches they find. If a newbie comes along and wants to place a cache why should they be influenced by the common hide tactics in an area? Perhaps they might have something new to offer. If they screw up, they'll learn soon enough.

 

There are many people with hundreds of finds who hide incredibly lame caches and there are people with few finds who are excellent cache hiders. Its imagination that creates an interesting cache hunt.

 

I placed my first cache after one find and the only thing I've learned since was that I didn't have to put so much thought into the container, contents and location.

[+Renegade Knight]

I hid my first cache when I thought I had a cool location and felt the urge. It was almost immediatly after I started the game. Looking back, it was a cool spot for an urban cache. 20/20 hindsight still says it is. I may even bring it back even though I moved from the area.

[Ted's Trekkers]

we waited a whole year before placing our first cache - i guess we had over 100 finds (including several locationless). I think I started reading the forum too soon - so many complainers - my family was afraid we would do it wrong or something. But after a while we settled down and decided to enjoy Geocaching as we see fit and now worry about the complainers. We now have 1 and 1 waiting approval.

[+DanOCan]

we waited a whole year before placing our first cache - i guess we had over 100 finds (including several locationless). I think I started reading the forum too soon - so many complainers - my family was afraid we would do it wrong or something.

I agree with what you are saying. We had plans to hide our first cache last fall but it just never happened. We have now been caching for more than a year, despite only having 40 finds.

 

After you start reading the forums you start getting the impression that if your cache isn't something totally different from what has been seen before it isn't worth it. It seems "a box hidden in the woods" isn't worth it to a lot of people. I certainly have my doubts that any cache I place would meet with the approval of the people for whom the hunt just isn't enough.

 

Anyway, I think you should find 10 - 20 caches before you start worrying about hiding a cache. (There, I got back on topic.)

[+Baxter-MD]

After reading comments form folks in the forum I decided that I needed some more research before placing my first cache. I made an effort to go after a diverse series of regular caches - - placed in different areas of my tri-state area (MD-VA-DC), placed by different geocachers, and different types of environments. I learned a lot. In the end, I think my cache locations, choice of containers and original contents were better than they would have been if I had not waited. Overall I think I had about 25 finds.

[+fly46]

The general rule of thumb around here is 10, but the longer you wait the better. I was at about 10 when I hid my first one, but I was at about 150 when I hid my second.

[+Clan X-Man]

11 finds/2 DNF before my first hide. If you really like this hobby you'll put a good bit of thought into a cache before placing your first hide. The moderator we had here at the time was very helpful in my first hide.

 

GCH4ZK

 

It's been a year and two months and I still have good hit rate, decent cache maintanance, meaning that I don't go out there that often other cachers trade up and trade fair so the cache basically takes care of it self. Placing a good cache will result in people taking care to hide it well and trade fairly. No thought in a cache and I don't feel like trading anything. It's judt another number. You can tell if it's a good cache just by the logs anyway.

[+Team Perks]

I had almost 100 finds before I hid my first few caches. I wanted to see how people in several different areas did it before I started out, and I'm glad I held off until I had learned some.

 

If only I'd have known I'd get as hooked on hiding caches as I'm hooked on finding them.

 

That said, you should place your first hide when you are confident you're ready to do it...and some of the best hides I've seen have been from people who only had a handful of logged finds--in fact, three out of the four caches on my "Most Impressive" list were from people who had 13, 12, and even zero logged finds.

[+JMBella]

I hid my first after 2 finds I think. The one thing I can say for sure that I learned since then is that cheap disposable containers suck.

[+The Neverlanders]

I agree with Briansnat - Imagination! We placed our first cache with only having done a couple. We have great reviews on it! We came up with an interesting container idea that makes the cacher have to think out of the "box" and filled it with great swag.

 

We are currently waiting for another cache to "age". We have three out there and more in planning stages. We like to think of clever ways to hide thing besides covering containers with sticks and stones. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[+Monkeybrad]

I waited till I had three hundred finds, before I placed my first one, but I placed 9 that all came up the same day.