Geocacher of the Month Nominees for July 2013 – Add Your Comments

The earned, never for sale, Geocacher of the Month geocoin (sun flare optional)
The earned, never for sale, Geocacher of the Month geocoin (sun flare optional)

From geocaching community websites, to creative geocaches to inspiration for geocachers—these nominees for Featured Geocacher of the Month have it all.  They’re spread across two continents and have contributed more than two decades of geocaching know-how to the adventure. This is your opportunity to  help decide which will take home the earned, never for sale, Featured Geocacher of the Month geocoin (at left).

Each Featured Geocacher of the Month will receive the exclusive special edition geocoin, a hat and profile icon. They’ll also receive a certificate acknowledging their contributions, signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com.

In June, fredrikhast, was named the Featured Geocacher of the Month for his use of use of multimedia to enhance the experience for geocachers visiting his geocaches.  One geocacher wrote, “As a father of a child with mental disabilities, I know he tries to put out hides to satisfy all types of geocachers, including the ones in a wheelchair. Another thing Fredrik does for the geocaching community is vlogging about his geocaching adventures (Swedens only, in fact).”

fredrikhast - Geocacher of the Month for June 2013
fredrikhast – Geocacher of the Month for June 2013

Now it’s your turn to help us select the next Featured Geocacher of the Month. Write a supportive comment at the bottom of this blog for the nominated geocacher that you feel should be awarded the title.

Each geocacher named below is already a winner and will receive a prize package from Geocaching HQ. A panel of folks from Geocaching HQ will then use your comments to help guide the decision of which geocacher is awarded the Featured Geocacher of the Month honor.

Here are your nominees for the July Featured Geocacher of the Month. Some testimonials have been edited for length.

 

De broekies

De broekies - Nominees for Featured Geocacher of the Mont
De broekies – Nominees for Featured Geocacher of the Month

RHCV aka Ruben H. says, “That’s Robert and his wife Hemma, both playing under the name De broekies. They have a community website called Globalcaching. It’s a fantastic website and for a lot of things in association with Geocaching.com.

The 1st of July the website existed 4 years now. Four years of giving a lot of themselves by giving a lot of opportunities to the local geocaching community. It’s not only about the website and the website’s forum, but also the tools and programs they offer us to use for free. A program called GAPP (Globalcaching APPlication) is now in action for more than a year. It’s really unbelievable what you can do with it. They also put a lot of effort and money in their website. And all this just to make geocaching a little bit more enjoyable over here. Even when it’s not always that easy to go on, because of some difficulties from time to time … they just keep on going and make it as enjoyable as possible for everybody!!!

So … for all the work they’ve done so far, all the effort, all the enjoyable moments on their forum, all the help we get from them and hopefully for some several years more … I want to nominate them as geocacher of the month. Please consider this nomination because they earn it more than words can tell.”

goblindust

Goblin Dust - Nominee for Featured Geocacher of the Month
goblindust – Nominee for Featured Geocacher of the Month

Debbie Eyman-Whitehead (TTUMS) writes, “Scott (goblindust) is fairly shy about his contribution to the caching community but, having been a part of one of his most technical caches and a co-host in several events, I can tell you, from a close up and personal perspective, that he puts his heart and soul into everything he does.  He’s one of the few people who are genuinely good and decent and kind from both a personal and caching standpoint.

Scott’s caches are known far and wide. He puts countless hours into making a cache creative and fun for everyone. Super Pages is just one example.  He wants you to find his caches and he wants you to have fun doing so.

The events he’s been involved in have always been with one express goal. “Lets have fun”.  In the case of the event that he threw for Jared, the Make a Wish boy, he proved that fun and good deeds go hand in hand.”

 

 

mollov

Mollov - Nominee for Geocacher of the Month
Mollov – Nominee for Geocacher of the Month

Hristo Dakov aka dakich says, “I would like to nominate Ivelin Mollov aka mollov  from Bulgaria. All it’s started back in 2010 when I first met him at the 10 years Geocaching.com event in Plovdiv. That was his first event that he organized and it was very good with a lot of caches and a lot of fun. Since then he hid more than 100 caches which is pretty much for our country. His contribution for the geocaching society in Bulgaria is huge, with his movies (about his geocaching adventures) and his stories about them, with the advertising around and last but the most important with his geocaches. His caches are always different and interesting I could say he manage to get the game to the next level around here.

He manage to combine his work as professor in Plovdiv University (biologic faculty) with the game. Always taking pictures of an animals and flowers, telling facts about them while we are searching for caches, with his knowledge about the environment he creates original caches. He even has a geocache hidden in front of his office.

Since then we have found so many caches together and he manage to invite more and more people to try this game.”

Comment below to tell us who you think should be the July Featured Geocacher of the Month. We will be accepting comments through August, 19.

If your nominee wasn’t recognized here, please submit your nominations again next month. We’re always looking for the next Geocacher of the Month. To nominate a geocacher, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@geocaching.com and include the following information:

  • Your name, the name of your nominee, their username
  • A picture of the nominee
  • Description (200 or more words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Featured Geocacher of the Month

Please inform your nominee that you have submitted them for the award. Nominations for the next Featured Geocacher of the Month should be received by July 15. Once Geocaching HQ has received 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 that we might learn from each other.

31 Days of Geocaching Printable Calendar

Download the PDF of the 31 Days of Geocaching calendar you see below. Collect the calendar-style souvenirs for your Geocaching profile one by one. Each date you log a “Found it” or an “Attended” you earn the souvenir for that date in August.

You won’t be alone. The Geocaching HQ staff will be finding geocaches all month long. And here the Top 8 Tips for Maintaining a Geocaching Streak to help keep you in the game.

Download the calendar to play along, and share you stories here in comments, or on the Geocaching Facebook page.

31 Days Calendar Image

Announcing the June 2013 Geocacher of the Month

fredrikhast - Geocacher of the Month for June 2013
fredrikhast – Geocacher of the Month for June 2013

Geocachers from around the world congratulated their nominees and shared the wonders they offer the greater geocaching community. This time, all three nominees joined in on the discussion. They thanked the other nominees and talked about how amazing the geocaching community is—we agree.

Geocachers proved that the most important lessons can be learned from each other, even if we’re divided by international borders, language, or culture.

The three nominees for the June Featured Geocacher of the Month make geocaching a more welcoming adventure by vlogging about geocaching, creating geocaching events, crafting coveted geocache hides, and more.

The Featured Geocacher of the Month is named by Geocaching HQ after reviewing community input and blog comments. After tallying the sentiment, fredrikhast is officially named the Featured Geocacher of the Month for June 2013.

One comment shows fredrikhast’s commitment to geocache quality, “His caches always got that little extra! Great places, amazing stories and a lot of work and love put into his caches makes you feel fantastic when you have logged a “fredrikhast-cache”! I also like to say that I really enjoyed the events Fredrik and his teammates arranged!”

Fredrik has also created a popular geocaching YouTube vlog.

Fredrik will receive the earned, never for sale, collector’s edition Featured Geocacher of the Month Geocoin, along with a Featured Geocacher of the Month hat and a certificate acknowledging his contribution, signed by two of the founders of Geocaching.com. See a list of all the Featured Geocachers of the Month here.

The earned, never for sale, Geocacher of the Month geocoin (sun flare optional)
The earned, never for sale, Geocacher of the Month geocoin (sun flare optional)

 

If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be considered for the honor, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@geocaching.comEvery nomination must follow these requirements. Please include:

  • Your name, the name of your nominee, their username
  • A picture of the nominee
  • Description (200 or more words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Featured Geocacher of the Month

Please inform your nominee that you have submitted them for the award. Nominations for Featured Geocacher of the Month are accepted at any time.

Congratulations again to fredrikhast for being recognized as the Featured Geocacher of the Month for June.

 

Meet some of previous Featured Geocachers of the Month

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cGOns2eBMQ]

Results from Geocaching Get Outdoors Day

The official Geocaching Get Outdoors Day souvenir.
The official Geocaching Get Outdoors Day souvenir.

Congrats! Nearly 88,000 adventurers from around the world gave the couch a rest, and earned this Geocaching Get Outdoors Souvenir on Saturday July 13, 2013.

Keep the couch lonely – will you join the global geocaching community for 31 Days of Geocaching starting on August 1?

Geocaching HQ is along for the journey for a geocaching streak stretching 31 straight days. Staff from Geocaching HQ will be lining up to find geocaches for each day in August and sharing the adventure here on the blog. And there’s now a way you can share your journey.

Be part of 31 Days of Geocaching 1 second at a time. We’re creating the video 31 Days of Geocaching in 31 Seconds. Follow us on Instagram and tag us in your geocaching videos. We’ll chose one second from your Instagram videos each day for August to showcase all of 31 Days of Geocaching.

Psst… The final video will look something like this: http://vimeo.com/56599373 (but only 31 seconds, and with geocaching) And don’t forget to log your “Will Attend” to 31 Days of Geocaching on Facebook.

3 Travel Bug Travel Tips

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3 Tips to Help Keep Travel Bugs on the Road

Thousands of Travel Bugs are in motion right now. They’re powered by geocachers, bounding from geocache to geocache. Travel Bugs travel in pockets, backpacks, purses and snuggle up in suitcases for long distance voyages. Sometimes though, their travels stop cold. They get stuck in couch cushions, lost in the kitchen junk drawer or simply (and sadly) forgotten.

Here are 3 tips to help Travel Bugs do what they do best: travel. First, if you find a Travel Bug® or any trackable in a geocache, you are not required to trade anything for it. But if you take it, follow some common sense trackable etiquette. It all starts by entering the tracking code here.

•    Log that you have retrieved the Travel Bug or trackable from the geocache as soon as you’re able. By logging that you’ve retrieved it, the Travel Bug owner, geocache owner and all those looking for Travel Bugs will know that this one is on the move.

•    Check the Travel Bug’s goal by going to its page. It’s as easy as typing in the tracking code. Then you can find out if it’s headed to beaches around the world, mountain tops in Austria or somewhere else. The idea is to place the Travel Bug in a geocache that will move it closer to its goal.

•    Drop the trackable in the next geocache and log that you have done so. If you need to keep the trackable for more than two weeks, please email the owner to let them know that their trackable is taking a short rest, but will be on the road again soon.

Geocachers who follow the 3 keys to Travel Bug etiquette help create the beautiful global choreography that unfolds in this Travel Bug® Travels video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nJ_GHVY7aI]