Year: 2012

/ Eric Schudiske /

Afkule Monastery GC1RM77 GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – March 26, 2012

A view of "Afkule"

A remote geocache perches along the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It’s hidden on the coast of Turkey.

But finding “Afkule Monastery” (GC1RM77) does more than reward cachers with a smiley; it transports  treasure-hunting adventurers a thousand years in the past.

The cache is located among the isolated ruins of a monastery. The buildings, including structures carved into the rock face, date back to the 11th century.

The difficulty 2, terrain 3 traditional cache was hidden by barmbek in 2009.

Cache and log from "Afkule Monastery"

Geocacher Schlauchen logged the cache last year. She emailed Geocaching.com to suggest “Afkule Monastery” as the Geocache of the Week. She says the cache rates as her favorite find in 2011. She writes, “You climb down a very steep hill and all of a sudden you’re out of the forest and have a breathtaking view of the old monastery and the sea, which is really as blue as it’s shown in the cache listing.” She says another element adds to the allure of this cache, “Of course there’s also the famous ‘usual muggle tourists don’t come here’ feeling.”

View near cache location
View near the cache location

Just over 50 people have logged smileys on the cache, averaging about two finds a month. It’s received 12 Favorites Points.

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

If you’ d like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.

/ Eric Schudiske /

Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter – March 22, 2012

Sort by Favorite Points

 

There’s a one-click solution to discovering some of the most interesting geocaches anywhere in the world. Premium Members can click the blue ribbon on their search results page and presto magic, the search results are sorted by Favorite Points! This is an easy way to instantly see which geocaches leave your fellow geocachers in awe. The one thing you can say for certain is that the quality of the caching experience is likely to be far above average.

Geocaches might earn a Favorite Point if the location is really interesting or the container and hiding place impress cachers with their originality. Some geocaches have racked up hundreds of Favorite Points (some have even earned more than a thousand). Searching by Favorite Points also offers a big time-saving advantage, since you won’t have to sort through page after page of search results to find the best caches in an area.

Premium Members earn one Favorite Point for every ten geocaches that are found. They can reward their points to any cache they have logged as found. Basic Members who upgrade to Premium Membership receive Favorite Points accordingly to their past finds.

To start earning, rewarding, and sorting by Favorite Points, upgrade to Premium Membership for as little as $2.50 per month!

See how to use Favorite Points here: Geocaching.com Presents: “Favorites”

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching with Zorro – A Literary Challenge

Zorro makes an appearance at a geocaching event

Sometimes geocaching offers much more than a treasure hunting adventure at the intersection of a certain of latitude and longitude. The Long Beach Public Library Foundation in California, USA is tapping into the power of geocaching to encourage kids and adults to crack open the pages of a library book.

Geocaching is now part of an annual event called, “Long Beach Reads One Book.” The book selected this year is Zorro by Isabel Allende.  Di LaPlume with the foundation says, “For the first time ever, we are adding geocaching to the lineup [of activities for the event]. For March, we’ve hidden a series of six Zorro-related caches in Long Beach. They are what I would describe as “mini” Multi-Caches. Each cache has its own theme that is related to the story of Zorro.” All the geocache descriptions are in English and Spanish. One of the Zorro-themed geocaches even leads geocachers into a library.

Zorro cache container
Zorro library cache

LaPlume says the Library Foundation hopes the Zorro-themed geocaches promote literacy,  encourage people to get outside, learn more about the book, and have fun.

Geocachers are given some incentive to find more than just one of the caches. LaPlume says, “During the month of March, anybody who finds all six caches can enter to win a special Zorro prize.”

So far the caches have been logged dozens of times. Geocachers in the Long Beach, California area still have until the end of March to discover all the caches and earn an additional prize. But the real prize might be that snapping open a geocache leads to more people opening books.

 

/ Adela B /

Geocaching for a Cause: From Germany to London

German geocachers travel to the UK for 12 hours of caching with locals

A group of German geocachers packed more than their GPS devices on a recent geocaching adventure to the UK.  They also packed good intentions. Their epic international caching trip doubled as a fundraiser.

At the end of January, 80 geocachers made ​​their way from Düsseldorf and Aachen, Germany to London, UK to spend an entire weekend treasure hunting with geocachers from several different countries.

The event, “London 2012” (GC38HZA),  took place at the Joy of Life Fountain. The German cachers met an international group of geocachers at the event. Adventurers from Norway, France, U.S., and of course the UK joined to embark on a 12-hour treasure hunt. The teams found 64 caches. The favorite cache for many was “London – Beatles Abbey Road” (GC6F12). Geocachers got to transform into a “Beatle” for the cache. Others visited platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter movies.

The trip there and back across the English channel was about more than the event; it was also a chance to help others.

German geocachers make their way from from Düsseldorf to London

Janina Hering aka Döskopp says, “We thought about how to best utilize our time on the bus.” So, with some planning and the help of German geocaching shops and other businesses, Janina and her team collected prizes for a raffle that would take place on the bus drive back  to Germany. The raffle money went to an organization for sexually abused children.

“We knew we wanted to support this organization. Their work is absolutely admirable,” she explained.

Janina was in charge of the collection of prizes, such as Geocoins and gummy bears. The team was busily selling raffle tickets and ended up raising more than 500 Euros for the association.

Board Member Monika Schiffer (left) and Geocacher Janina Hering (right)

“Such private, dedicated fundraisers are unfortunately rare,” says an excited Board Operator, Monika Schiffer. “The great thing about this initiative is that their hobby connected them to such a great gesture.”

Congrats to Janina and her fellow geocachers on a successful, well planned event. To find a geocaching event near you check out the Geocaching.com Events Calendar.

 

 

 

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

View Carre’ GCE02C GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – March 19, 2012

View from "View Carre'"

View Carre’ (GCE02C) perches high atop a New Orleans landmark. The cache ranks as the most ‘favorited’ geocache in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It’s accumulated more than 550 Favorite Points. With a view that stretches from horizon to horizon, it’s easy to see why.

Bamboozle hid the cache, with the permission of the facility owner, in 2003.  He works at the building where the cache is located. He writes, “Many years ago I would notice tourist photographers in front of the building and occasionally offer to take them where they could get some really nice shots….the roof. They would be almost overwhelmed by the experience. When I started geocaching in 2003 I thought it would be a nice experience for geocachers as well.”

He was right. More than 1800 geocachers have claimed smileys on the geocache so far. The cache page offers details on finding the difficulty one, terrain one cache. A geocacher who found “View Carre'” over the past weekend logged, “Absolutely the coolest cache I’ve ever done. Alfred was great to us and gave us a wonderful tour. Simply the best cache I’ve ever done. Anyone who has not done this must add it to their short list. THANK YOU and all involved for making this happen. So much fun!”

The cache is close...

Bamboozle and his staff, like Alfred, often offer more than just finding the cache. He says, “My staff and I were all born and raised in the city and act as tour guides for the visiting geocachers. Over the years the View Carre’ has hosted events and has been the destination of school field trips and visits by geocachers from surely every state and many foreign countries.”

And geocachers didn’t forget Bamboozle when Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans in 2005.  “I received at least a dozen emails from cachers all over the country offering us a place to stay in their homes until we could return to ours. This added to the already high esteem that I held for geocachers having met so many nice folks at the cache.”

A geocacher serving in the U.S. Army after the hurricane even helped Bamboozle restore the cache. “Hurricane Katrina had blown down the roof elevator and collapsed a wall on top the cache container. Johann Panholtz, a cacher from Indiana serving in the U.S. Army which occupied New Orleans, came by to make the grab and we “unearthed” the cache together and it has been available ever since.”

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

View Carre' cache container

If you’ d like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.