The GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit opens on Sunday, October 2 at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada and runs through Sunday, January 8, 2012. Exhibit visitors learn about geocaching, GPS technology and navigation while exploring a fun and family-friendly interactive maze. Those who log the maze will also earn the unique GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit cache type icon.
From 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. on October 2, the Ontario Science Centre will celebrate the opening with a meet and greet event for geocachers. Groundspeak Lackey Eric will attend the event to celebrate the Maze opening with the geocaching community. For future Maze locations, please visit www.gpsmaze.com.
Trackable Week presents a new story Monday through Friday this week about creative ways to experience Trackables. Geocaching.com Trackables allow people to tag and track an item from location to location. Trackables typically come in three varieties, Geocoins, Travel Bugs® or Promotional Trackables like the “Find the Gecko,” Geico campaign. (Watch a video on Travel Bugs)
See the bottom of this article for a place a share your Trackable stories, links to other Trackable stories and a limited time special offer for 30% of individual orders of Travel Bugs this week only (US costumers only). Check out Tuesday’s installment for Trackable Week:
BECOME TRACKABLE ON GEOCACHING.COM – TATTOOS TO TRAVEL BUGS
Whether your decision is permanent or a passing phase, becoming trackable on Geocaching.com offers you a new way to interact with the world around you. Some geocachers choose a Travel Bug tattoo. There’s even a special icon available on Geocaching.com for those with a trackable tattoo.
Click the image to see the story behind this Travel Bug tattoo
Others decide to add a Travel Bug decal to their car, put a Travel Bug on their dog’s collar, or even make themselves trackable. Every Lackey at Groundspeak is trackable. It’s easy. Other geocachers must discover you in person. They enter your unique tracking code on the Geocaching.com Trackables page. They then log their discovery and often leave fun and entertaining log entries.
CSavvy recently made himself trackable. He discovered geocaching about two years ago. He’s an Australian sound technician and frequently travels to record natural sounds. He enjoys geocaching because he says, “I love being in the outdoors. I am very outgoing and love an adventure. Geocaching is the perfect sport for me as it’s exactly that – an adventure!!”
CSavvy spoke with Geocaching.com about becoming trackable and sent in the video below. You can get clues about where CSavvy might be next on his Savvy The Trackable Sound Guy Travel Bug page.
Geocaching.com: What inspired you to become a Travel Bug?
SAVVY: ” I Thought it would be a great way to track my adventures while also meeting fellow geocachers and making new friends along the way. And because I work in television and always out recording sound at various locations for TV shows, it’s also a chance for my fellow geocachers to get a look “Behind the scenes” of TV production as not many people get to see that side of things.”
Geocaching.com: Will there be any clues as to your next location?
SAVVY: ” I can mainly be found around Adelaide in South Australia and also Mount Barker which is in the Adelaide Hills…..But I do travel around the country (Australia) sometimes, so I could pop up anywhere! To make it a bit more easy for people to locate me while I am out and about, I will be posting clues of my location on the TB page on Geocaching.com and I have also set up a Facebook Page where fellow Geocachers can follow me.”
Geocaching.com: What advice do you have for those considering becoming a Travel Bug?
SAVVY: “My advice would be…..get out into the great outdoors…..travel, see places and meet people, and make yourself easy to find. I am easy to spot, as I carry around a big fluffy microphone and also have a big audio bag strapped to my waist! I am also never too far away from a broadcast camera!!!”
See CSavvy’s video here:
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Additional Trackable Stories:
Click on the image for a 30% savings on orders of Travel Bugs (U.S. customers only)
Check out a Travel Bug race with do-it-yourself tips
Trackable Week presents a new story Monday through Friday this week about creative ways to experience Trackables. Geocaching.com Trackables allow people to tag and track an item from geocache to geocache. Trackables typically come in three varieties, Geocoins, Travel Bugs® or Promotional Trackables like the Find the Gecko, Geico campaign. (Watch a video on Travel Bugs)
See the bottom of this article for a place a share your Trackable stories, links to other Trackable stories and a limited time special offer for 30% of individual orders of Travel Bugs this week only (US costumers only). Check out Monday’s installment for Trackable Week:
Nottingham to Nottingham Travel Bug Race
By Kelly Ranck
The geocaching community is becoming larger every day, but the global community is using geocaching to make our world increasingly smaller.
EyeD1OT 4th2, U.S. Travel Bug competitor
Take the Travel Bug, for example. Grab a small item, attach it to a Trackable keychain, assign it a destination and watch it travel across the globe as it is passed from geocacher to geocacher, most of whom are strangers to one another.
As a way of bringing the geocaching community ever closer, Jacaru and Balrgn have created a Travel Bug race. The race challenges cachers to send Travel Bugs between Nottingham, United Kingdom and Nottingham, New Hampshire, United States. They organized a race which began over the weekend. It involves more than 90 Travel Bugs.
According to Jacaru, the originator of the race, “It came about as I had been thinking that it would be good to organize a race between Nottingham here in the UK and another one abroad. We could then become the geocaching equivalent of twin towns.”
Jacaru emailed a few geocachers in the Nottingham, U.S. area with his idea. Balrgn responded that he would gladly like to help out. Both geocachers worked with local reviewers to establish a Travel Bug hotel cache in each location.
Cameron Tiede2, UK Travel Bug competitor
These Travel Bug hotel caches are the starting and finishing points for the race. They then started contacting local geocachers and asking whether they would like to enter a TB into the race. According to Jacaru, “Word soon got round and I had quite a few locals wanting to participate. The same happened over in New Hampshire.” By race day, they expect about 30 entrants from both locations.
The organizers have created a Nottingham to Nottingham Travel Bug race blogwhere, once the launch promotional events finish and the two hotels go live, owners will be able to track their Travel Bugs as they race across the globe.
“Entrants can go and find the hotel as a normal cache and pick up a bug. However, they cannot pick up their own bug,” says Jacaru. “The first bug to arrive at the UK hotel, and vice versa will win its owner a new specially designed Geocoin, only two of these coins have been made.”
Nottingham, New Hampshire, U.S.Notthingham, UK
For more information, Jacaru and Balrgn have also created a Facebook page, where geocachers will receive weekly updates on the race.
“This is turning into an exciting race that has really taken shape now and inspired people to join in,” says Jacaru.
This is just one of the many examples of the ways in which geocachers are working to creatively build the geocaching community and promote involvement, with a hint of friendly competition.
Quick tip alert: If you are racing several bugs at once, check out this helpful hint in our Knowledge Books. It gives you a code so that you can view the status of all of your TravelBugs on the same page.
Click on the image for a 30% savings on orders of Travel Bugs (U.S. customers only)
Additional Trackable Stories:
Sometimes it takes just one glorious snapshot to tell the whole story of a geocache and its location. Bachalpsee (First) GC1TJFP is just such a cache.
The difficulty 1.5, terrain three traditional geocache delivers cachers to a pristine Swiss lake called Bachalpsee or Bachse. The “First” referenced in the name of the geocache is a nearby summit in the Bernese Alps.
The area might look familiar to those acquainted with Switzerland. It’s one of the more photographed regions of the landlocked country. The vast valleys also serve as fertile grazing grounds for herds of Swiss cows.
More than 200 geocachers logged smileys on the cache hidden by Compi7 in 2009. It’s earned eleven Favorite Points so far. But the most significant praise for the cache comes from those who logged the high altitude find. One log entry reads, “Our highest cache at 7475 ft. We just seem to be going higher & higher… Great views & a lovely walk with marmots playing close by TFTC.”
Geocache among the Swiss cows
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
Groundspeak needs your help featuring a geocacher each month that stands out by inspiring other geocachers with their innovation, creative hides and/or logs, respect for the environment, and helpfulness. More than a fifty geocachers submitted outstanding nominees from around the world.
The featured Geocacher of the Month recognition celebrates geocachers for their contributions. A panel of Lackeys had the difficult task of selecting three of the most outstanding nominees. You can help name one of these nominees the featured “Geocacher of the Month.”
Each geocacher you see below displays extraordinary geocaching qualities including generosity and inventiveness. Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you’d like to see as the September featured “Geocacher of the Month.” Those not recognized as a nominee or as the featured “Geocacher of the Month” are encouraged to submit nominations again next month.
Read the testimonials below and leave a comment with your suggestion. Some testimonials have been edited for length.
Nomination by pkreun: “AussieCacher has hosted events in both the US and his native country, Australia, helping experienced and new geocachers alike. He is always willing to go out of his way to help others. In 2007 he organized a Travel Bug race from Sydney, Australia to Sioux Falls, South Dakota with 33 Travel Bugs taking part in the race. He laminated each competitors TB details and delivered them all to the starting location in Australia. AussieCacher has created and hidden some very unique and creative geocaches in both Australia and the US. Many of these geocaches have not been seen anywhere else and were hand made from scratch.
AussieCacher thoroughly enjoys the outdoors and respects the environment immensely. During his travels geocaching he has performed CITO many times and rescued animals from turtles, birds, frogs to dumped kittens. AussieCacher has taken part in 12 CITOs and just last month he hosted his first CITO. He has developed 12 EarthCaches as well as finding over 180.”
Nomination by The Weasel: “Jeff has hosted five “official” 101, 201, and 301 events. What I would like to stress is that Jeff has done WELL over 50+ 101 events for SEVERAL groups from the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Libraries, and any group that asks for a class to be held. Some of these events have been several hours away, but Jeff is always willing to lend a hand and do this.
Jeff has hosted 8 “unofficial” trips to a 5×5 caches of his, The Siege!. This is a very extreme cache which involves going over a cliff face. Jeff is ALWAYS willing to take groups to this cache to ensure their safety.
Jeff is a VERY active member of the Iowa Geocachers Organization where he has held a position on the BOD for several of years as well as part of the Land Management committee.
Jeff is a volunteer with the Linn County Conservation, and has donated several hours helping them with various events.
Jeff is a model geocacher which all of us in the area and beyond can be proud of. He is always willing to lend advice/help to any cache that approaches him or contacts him.”
Nomination by OddAngles: “David and Tina would be an excellent choice for this award. This team has a Fire Love for Geocaching. They will take anyone who wants to caching and take them to do any and every cache that their heart desires.
David and Tina are always willing to participate in CITO’s and have co-held many CITO Events.
They have been caching since December 2006.
I would say David and Tina are well rounded cachers in experience when it comes to terrains and difficulties. Their cache hides are as versatile as the caches that they’ve hunted. The Pilgrim’s have hidden water caches and high terrain land hides as well.
When Pilgrimsprogress help’s with an event, they will go to no end to make it fun. David and Tina will come up with the most exciting and fun games. Besides the Human Checkers, they did a boardwalk team race once…where a team of 3 had to walk using boards as their feet. Pilgrimsprogress also co-managers of a Geocaching Group out of Augusta, Georgia called “CSRA Geocachers”. They are the heart and soul, the brains and backing behind many of the group’s monthly events.”
A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide the featured Geocacher of the Month award. Each featured Geocacher of the Month will receive an exclusive special edition featured ”Geocacher of the Month” geocoin along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by the founders of Geocaching.com: Jeremy Irish, Bryan Roth and Elias Alvord.
Every nomination must meet the following requirements. Please include your name, the name of your nominee, their username, at least one picture of the nominee and description (in 500 or fewer words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Geocacher of the Month. Please inform your nominee that you’ve submitted them for the award. Nominations for the October Geocacher of the Month must be received by October 3rd.
Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so we might learn from each other.
The GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit opens on Sunday, October 2 at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada and runs through Sunday, January 8, 2012. Exhibit visitors learn about geocaching, GPS technology and navigation while exploring a fun and family-friendly interactive maze. Those who log the maze will also earn the unique GPS Adventures Maze Exhibit cache type icon.
