Europe Geocaching

[gulliver22]

I was just curious as to why there is such a huge difference in numbers of caches placed in Germany compared with France. I can understand the high-tech German culture being more into this thing than the more laid back French but nearly 8,000 caches in Germany compared to a paltry 500-odd in the whole of France? What's going on there, or not going on as the case may be? Any insight out there?

[+º]

It's not a single reasen for this:

• In France there's another type of treasure hunt very popular. It's compareable to letterboxing: Cistes
  
• There're less people in France who speak English than in Germany (There are not even very many caches in eastern Germany)
  
• The French culture never adopts Anglo-Saxon hobbies/trends/behaviours/... as fast as the German does.
  

There might be more reasons ...

[+The red-haired witch]

More Germans speak English (the two languages are "relatively" close) and the Geocaching website is in English...

 

Language is an important factor I believe.

[+Divine]

Nick of sTeamTraen once posted a very insightful answer to this question.

[+sTeamTraen]

... but the thread then degenerated somewhat near the end

[cezanne]

More Germans speak English (the two languages are "relatively" close) and the Geocaching website is in English...

 

Language is an important factor I believe.

In my opinion, the level of proficiency in English is only one of several aspects that play a role. Consider for example the situation of the French speaking part of Switzerland. The level of activity there is smaller than in the German speaking part, but it's certainly not due to a lower level of proficiency in English. Neither it is the case that the people in the German speaking part are typically richer or better equipped with technical devices. I did not mention the case of Belgium where again the cache density is much higher in the non-French speaking part because Wallonia is economically weaker than Flanders.

 

I believe that in many countries geocaching is still hardly known, not even to people who already have a GPS receiver at home and use it for other types of activities. (In my experience, it occurs quite frequently that people already own a GPS before they start geocaching - in Austria, I'd roughly estimate that group to comprise about 50% of the community.)

 

As the situation of French-speaking areas is regarded, I still believe that the creation of a subforum dedicated to French speaking cachers and some reports in the media would certainly help to improve the situation in the long run. In contrast to, for example, Slovenia or Italy, I have the feeling that the level of activity in the French-speaking areas and the number of potential users of the subforum are already high enough to warrant the existence of such a forum. Unfortunately, gc.com seems to have its own opinion in this regard.

 

Cezanne

[+Enspyer]

In France there's another type of treasure hunt very popular. It's compareable to letterboxing:

That's really cool...I'd never heard of that before. Apparently there was one in the United States but it's missing now.

 

I've never been to France so this isn't from personal experience, but in French class they teach us that French culture is to try to resist American influences and maintain the old French traditions/activities. If geocaching is perceived as an American activity that is only accessable to Americans, that could be some problem. Especially if someone searched and found not many French caches but many in America...

[+sTeamTraen]

I've never been to France so this isn't from personal experience, but in French class they teach us that French culture is to try to resist American influences and maintain the old French traditions/activities. If geocaching is perceived as an American activity that is only accessable to Americans, that could be some problem. Especially if someone searched and found not many French caches but many in America...

The French sometimes like to pretend that they are defending European culture from McWorld... but they sure have a lot of hamburger restaurants, out-of-town shopping centres, Coca-Cola, etc

 

FWIW, I think that people of similar age and educational level are more similar than either most Americans or most French people imagine. It's hard to have an informed opinion about another country without having lived there. If you can't manage much time for that, a home exchange (eg www.intervac.org) is a good way to start.