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Post by NeverSummer on Oct 18, 2013 8:30:02 GMT -9
I've been pondering travellers lately. I feel bad about the fact that a handful in my "possession" stayed in a locked drawer at work during the shutdown and didn't get placed quickly enough. It got me thinking about how travelers like Travel Bugs and Geocoins get treated...
I remember when I started my account with geocaching.com back in 2005, I was already keen on the "GPS stash hunt" aspect. What I wasn't familar with was the travel bug. With travel bugs being rather new, and geocoins still a rarity, I enjoyed finding any traveller I could to move along on their mission. I would watch TBs move on and on, and felt very good about taking pictures and getting them to caches that helped their missions. Then, with Geocoins, I felt the same level of excitement--especially when they started to have their own unique icons to collect. I even started a significant Geocoin collection in 2006.
As time went on, I didn't seek TBs as much, but would certainly try to move as many as I could each time I saw one. Geocoins were starting to get very popular, and the idea of keeping coins in a personal collection became the norm. More and more coins were made, released, and sometimes lost to someone's desk drawer. Of the 2 actual coins I released to the wild, both were stolen and never have seen the geocaching world again.
More and more, I see Geocoins missing from caches. Even TBs have become a regular MIA discovery when I log a cache. I don't really seek out TBs anymore when I see them in nearby caches, and I haven't taken the time to photograph their journey like I used to. I'll still help them on their missions, but not with the regularity or enthusiasm I used to have.
This all made me wonder, have TBs and Geocoins lost their lustre? Have the missions of TBs and Geocoins taken a backseat to the more prevalent "get your find count increased" side of the game?
I really wonder all of this, as I consider myself a pretty well-rounded and community-minded cacher. I am disappointed in myself for letting the traveller side of the game take a backseat to the cache hunt itself. (I'm no numbers cacher, but I haven't been focusing on solving puzzles, or helping travellers like during my first 5 or so years of caching.) I really feel bad for the TBs that I move along and find to be missing a short time after. It makes me feel responsible for their demise: Did I put it in a "bad" cache for TBs? Is there anything I could do to keep it moving on its mission in a better way?
So, how do y'all feel about travellers? What do you do? Do you have any of your own Travel Bugs or Geocoins missing? Are you aware of any caches that are a black hole--a TB graveyard--in your area?
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Post by SSO JOAT on Oct 18, 2013 11:35:55 GMT -9
I'm in pretty much the same boat. I occasionaly scan the area for TBs listed in caches, but theft, lack of logs when picked up, and lack of cache owner's attention to moving the missing TBs to "missing" status on a regular basis have all compounded the problem of even knowing where a TB might actually be.
If I see a TB, I'll usually pick it up. I'm never in a hurry to drop them off, and usually carry a TB for awhile to put some mileage and multiple cache stops on it before leaving it somewhere. As long as you keep moving the TB and logging cache visits, there is no reason why you can't carry it for weeks or months at a time. That old 2-week guideline was mostly based on the fact that people didn't perform the drop and retrieve actions with TBs as they traveled through caches. The new GC interface allows you to automatically do that by picking the 'visited' drop down next to the TBs when you put in your normal cache log.
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Post by NeverSummer on Oct 22, 2013 10:44:45 GMT -9
23 views, apparently, and no other feedback? Come on, lurkers, join in the conversation!
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Post by ladybugkids on Oct 22, 2013 11:16:07 GMT -9
Travelers (whether it be a geocoin, travelbug, tag, nomad, replicoin, or something else) were meant to travel. I don't actively seek out travelers (except when traveling, in which case I seek out any cache with "hotel, "lodge," "hostel," or other equivalent word) but I always pick up any traveler I find in a cache unless the traveler has a goal sheet with it that indicates the traveler should stay in the area. Once I get home, I sort the travelers according to their online goals into three piles... 1) stay in Alaska, 2) distribute in the Lower 48, 3) distribute internationally. I personally do the Alaska and Lower 48 distribution since I travel a fair amount. When I go to Houston, a few cachers there will hand me dozens of travelers for mileage to Alaska and if I don't get to the IAH Coin and TB Hotel near the airport, I will give them the travelers that I'd accumulated that want to roam the Lower 48. During the past three years or so, we've exchanged a couple hundred travelers, racking up hundreds of thousands of traveler miles moved. For international travel, I hand them off to skifast when he passes through town (he ranges between Hong Kong, China, and many points in the US and Canada) or I stockpile them if I have a hop to Europe on the calendar. When I stockpile for a big trip, I post a note to the TBs page about when the trip is going to occur and then periodically log a visit through an Alaskan cache (oftentimes with a photo) to demonstrate some Alaskan hospitality and to assure the travelers' owners that their item isn't lost in the bottom of a backpack. While many of our personal bugs and coins have dropped out of circulation, we still have several that have been moving for close to a decade since the time the junior ladybugs really were junior. The girls and I still enjoying clicking on the "View in Google Earth" link on the traveler's page to see the traveled path. It's especially nice to get a traveler to Europe, Australia, or New Zealand because they enjoy greater longevity there. Also, the travelers to which we attached a goal tag seem to stay in circulation longer because cachers can tell at a glance where the traveler needs to go. Finally, never give up on your own travellers. More than once, we've had a TB or geocoin come back to life after being "dead" for up to three years.
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Post by fuzzybelly on Oct 22, 2013 16:11:14 GMT -9
I don't seek out TB, nor do I like to have to many I my slippery little hands. Early in my caching days I fear I lost someone's TB, so I really watch how many I have(only 2 maybe 3 at a time of, someone else's)(not counting the coins in my collection, maybe 8).
I only grab and move COINS. I like the heavy, substantial feel of them, and may carry them in my pocket at work for a few days if they're really cool(never know who you may come across to show it to). I very rarely take dog tag type TB's with something attached to them(to big and daggly to carry around). And I'll never take a dog tag with a note attached to it, inside an old dirty plastic bag.
I try and keep a traveler with me for a short while, maybe a couple months at the most, but then take it to a few scenic spots and drop it in a cache for miles, and post it with a nice photo.
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Post by barnacle9 on Oct 29, 2013 21:09:04 GMT -9
I pick them up if I see them - it is an aspect of the game that I enjoy. I try not to have too many in my possession at once, but 2 or 3 make nice companions to my personal stash of unreleased TB's and coins.
One thing I have noticed is that the owner only gets notified on Drops, Retrievals, and Discoveries - not on Visits. I have some I thought were just sitting for months, only to look them up and see tons of activity on the TB page. Because of that, I will occasionally Drop, then Retrieve a TB from a cache of interest, just to give the owner some notification.
I try to avoid sitting on a TB for very long without racking up some mileage or at least cache visits, unless I can help it towards it's specific goal. I also try to post a photo or two - I wish others would do the same with my trackables! (2c)
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Post by akgh519 on Oct 30, 2013 3:20:17 GMT -9
Would be nice if there was an easier way to download photos to multiple trackables at the same time. If anyone knows how to do so please share! I would post more pics to them if it didn't take so much time....
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Post by ladybugkids on Oct 30, 2013 7:57:20 GMT -9
I haven't looked in detail, but GSAK may be the answer: Geocaching.com access=>Publish logs=>edit button=>trackables button
If that doesn't work, try posting a question in the GSAK forums. If there isn't already a macro, there's a good chance someone will write one up in a hurry as their are macros for loading photos with cache logs.
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Post by akgh519 on Oct 30, 2013 16:14:10 GMT -9
Thanks Mike I will take a look and see what I can figure out I am a GSAK beginner but will try!!!
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Post by fuzzybelly on Dec 21, 2013 8:14:34 GMT -9
abosco has an Event early, early, early New Years day with a TB race going on GC4VHYT. I'll be making it a point to move travelers more this year just in case it's a traveler that's in the race.
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Post by NorthWes on Dec 29, 2013 17:23:45 GMT -9
I like to move travel bugs, but with so many small to micro caches out there it becomes a bit difficult sometimes to facilitate that movement!
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Post by SSO JOAT on Jan 1, 2014 22:14:15 GMT -9
Easy fix to that... just place a couple ammo can caches along the highway route that you drive every 2 weeks. Then you can pick up bugs along your travels and carry them around to a few caches or do something toward their goal for awhile. When you've had your fun, just stop at one of your own ammo cans by the highway and drop off anything you want to make available to others.
The thing about TB's that really irks me, is that it seems to me that over half of the TBs that I drop off at my stragetically placed (and out of town) ammo cans simply disappear and never get logged out. I generally give them up to a month before I perform the CO duty of "move to missing" for TB's that are not in my caches.
Another peeve is CO's who never clear the TB inventory of their caches. If it ain't in there and hasn't been for weeks to months, then get it off your cache's inventory listing. Takes a ton of effort out of the process of TB hunting. As it is, when you do a cache search by TB, you then have to go to each cache listing and look at the TB inventory to see when the TB was dropped off and then check to see if the cache has been logged since that time. Makes it extremely labor intensive to search for caches with trackables in them.
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