Traveling And Finding Caches

[+CanUCacheThis]

My family and I plan on taking a trip to Niagara Falls in June, and then venture over to Connecticut for about a week. Other stops will be in Cincinnati, the Baseball Hall of Fame, Johnson City Tennessee then back to Alabama. What is the best way to find caches along the way? Especially the caches located at rest areas and close to the major interstates. What would be some must see caches? Thanks in advance!

Edited April 26, 2005 by CanUCacheThis

[+Logscaler and Red]

Myself, I would use a laptop, wireless internet, GSAK and PQ's for the zipcode your in or heading to.

 

It works real well for us anyway.

 

Logscaler

[+jimmyreno]

My family and I plan on taking a trip to Niagara Falls in June, and then venture over to Connecticut for about a week. Other stops will be in Cincinnati, the Baseball Hall of Fame, Johnson City Tennessee then back to Alabama. What is the best way to find caches along the way? Especially the caches located at rest areas and close to the major interstates. What would be some must see caches? Thanks in advance!

Try Terracaching.com, they go for Quality

not quanity.

[Keystone]

jimmyreno, that is a decidedly unhelpful response. Please stay on topic.

 

The OP may want to check out the "Caches along a route" thread that's pinned at the top of the Geocaching.com forum. While primarily devoted to a technical discussion of a new feature that's not yet implemented, there's also lots of tips on how to get caches along a route using presently available tools.

 

You'll also want to seek out shared bookmark lists where local cachers help out visitors by listing all the caches on the interstates that run through their area.

[+CanUCacheThis]

Where can I find a detailed map of each state that has caches located or marked?

[Keystone]

Premium Members can zoom out from any Geocaching.com map to a very large view of the caches. For regular Members, the old maps remain available by following the link from the applicable state "homepage." Go to a state homepage by clicking on the state in the dropdown list at the top right corner of the main Geocaching.com homepage.

[+CanUCacheThis]

Will the Premium membership give the specific name of the cache? How much detail will the premium membership give? Can you or someone provide me a sample of a premium membership map?

[+Ed & Julie]

Will the Premium membership give the specific name of the cache?  How much detail will the premium membership give?  Can you or someone provide me a sample of a premium membership map?

As a premium member, you can view a map of the area (or road) that you are traveling and have several options.

 

You can zoom in, out, and pan the map to follow your route.

 

You can have the map identify the caches with links to the cache pages. I can be tedious if you are taking a long trip.

 

I prefer to download several pocket queries and combine them with Gsak.

 

Edited April 27, 2005 by The Badge & the Butterfly

[+hukilaulau]

I just returned from a trip from Boston to Charlottesville, VA and back. The way I plotted caches for the trip is tedious and time consuming, but for me, that's part of the fun! I have a premium membership, but the only feature I really use is the zoom and pan on the maps because I have a Magellan GPSr without the ability to download waypoints. I located a cache on the freeway near my starting point, then used zoom out and panned in the direction I was going. When I saw caches near the freeway, I used the "identify" feature to see if they looked interesting, then put them into my Magellan by hand. Then I would pan on down the road to the next interesting cache. Warning: If you use this method, do not use the "back" button. Instead, click "view on map" for the cache you are currently looking at, then start pannibng again. I also printed out just the first page of the cache listing, and sometimes a map if it was not right on the freeway, and a travel bug page so I could see where the bugs wanted to go. Another warning: I found A LOT of caches that had bugs listed that weren't there. Sometimes they hadn't been there for years. Read the logs before planning on going out of your way for a travel bug!

Sounds like your trip will be a lot longer than mine. But you've got until June! What else could you possibly have to do that's more important and more fun then tediously preparing for a great geocaching experience?

 

BTW, IMHO, the enhanced map features alone are worth the price of premium membership

[medoug]

You could try this site:

 

Buxley geocaching waypoints

 

You can search by entering the states you will be traveling through also. Unfortunately, though, there are no roads shown on the map.

 

Newer caches aren't on it since it appears that it is only periodically updated.

 

medoug.

Edited April 29, 2005 by medoug

[+Ed & Julie]

You could try this site:

 

Buxley geocaching waypoints

 

You can search by entering the states you will be traveling through also. Unfortunately, though, there are no roads shown on the map.

 

Newer caches aren't on it since it appears that it is only periodically updated.

 

medoug.

Buxley's hasn't been updated in months, as geocaching.com has blocked his access.

 

Ed

[+CanUCacheThis]

If I become a premium member what other features will I have access too? Will the query option only work for premium members?

[+Team Cotati]

Myself, I would use a laptop, wireless internet, GSAK and PQ's for the zipcode your in or heading to.

 

It works real well for us anyway.

 

Logscaler

you're

[+slapshot52]

If I become a premium member what other features will I have access too? Will the query option only work for premium members?

Yes, The pocket queries are restricted to Premium Members. There are a number of threads that debate the merit and value of a premium membership. You might want do a search in the regular forums and take a look the opinions expressed there. I for one, can’t imagine not supporting an activity/sport I like so much.

 

I find Markwell’s Geocaching FAQs page to be an invaluable resource. He has links to a number of sites that convert addresses in to coordinates. When I travel, I put in the address of the hotels I’m staying at and do a search radiating out from that point. It always gives a few caches to check out after work and gets me out of a lot of depressing hotels. You can use this same approach with any known address along you route.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Link to Markwell's FAQ Page:

 

http://members.aol.com/marklent60544/myhom...rkwellgcfaq.htm - Address

[+Miragee]

Because I couldn't come up with the whole $30.00, I signed up for the Premium Membership at $3.00 per month.

 

Very painless that way -- paid through PayPal.

 

I absolutely cannot imagine trying to organize the caches I might want to seek without getting the Pocket Queries and organizing them in GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) and Cachemate, on my Palm M500.

[+Hoppingcrow]

Sounds like everybody is making it very complicated...too complicated! What works for me is to bring up the good ol' USPS zip code directory, get numbers for some of the one-horse towns en route (I live outside a town that doesn't even HAVE a horse!), and then just look up caches by zip. But then, I'm also using an eTrex Summit which doesn't allow for downloads. Amazing how the deeper we get entrenched in technology, the more complicated our solutions must become.

[+slapshot52]

I gotta admit that the zip code approach sounds like a good idea. I only use the address/coordinate conversions because I usually have to walk from my hotel and need caches that closer than those identified from the central post office. If you have a car then the zips sound like a good way to go.

[+sbell111]

...But then, I'm also using an eTrex Summit which doesn't allow for downloads. ...

Are you sure that the Summit doesn't allow downloads? A couple of years ago, I bought yellows for the guys in our wedding party. I downloaded caches to those.

 

Back on topic...

 

Before I became a premium member, I would just find a cache at the beginning of my trip and pull up a list of all nearby caches. I'd go through the list and print off the ones that were 'on my way'. (I could have downloaded them also, but I didn't.) As I got further down the list, there would be fewer on my route, so I would just pull a new list from one of these. It worked to plan a trip, but it was long and tedious.

 

As a premium member, I have much better tools. I first plan my route using MS S&T (or MapPoint). Then, I run PQs along my route and merge the PQs using GSAK. I use GSAK to save the list as a .csv file. I import this file into S&T (or MapPoint). I can quickly identify those caches that are 'on the way'. I delete the rest of the caches in GSAK and toss the remainder into my GPSr and pda.

[+Logscaler and Red]

Myself, I would use a laptop, wireless internet, GSAK and PQ's for the zipcode your in or heading to.

 

It works real well for us anyway.

 

Logscaler

you're

 

 

And thank you.