October 13, 2011 / Eric Schudiske /

Featured Geocacher of the Month Nominees – Add Your Comments

supergoober2 — September's Featured Geocacher of the Month, SuperGoober

Last month the geocaching community voted SuperGoober as the September Featured Geocacher of the Month. According to those who nominated him, “he 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 cacher that approaches him or contacts him.”

The featured Geocacher of the Month recognition celebrates geocachers for their contributions to the activity. A panel of Lackeys had the difficult task of selecting three of the most outstanding nominees. Now it’s your turn to help name one of these nominees the featured October “Geocacher of the Month.”

geocacherofthemonthGeocoin(anniephone) — Geocacher of the Month Geocoin

Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you’d like to see as the featured “Geocacher of the Month.” Those whose nominees were not recognized here are encouraged to submit their nominations again next month. Read the testimonials below and leave a comment with your suggestion. Some testimonials have been edited for length.

seping

(Member since 2007)

Nomination by Ceddy:

“seping is a very active geocacher, he lives in Catalonia / Spain, in his native [country] many geocachers know him! He has found more than 18,000 caches all over the world and has over 240 caches hidden!
seping also already has organized two Mega-Events, including the recent Mega Catlunya 2011, and brought together geocachers from around the world. I met seping. He’s a very friendly and helpful man, and I think that’s he’s seen similarly by many other people.”

coast2coast2coast + Zoe

(Member since 2002)

Nomination by adventureseeking3:

“They have hosted multiple events, hidden excellent caches, all at various levels of difficulty, and are always aiding fellow cachers when in need. Tom currently serves in the Canadian armed forces so not only is he promoting geocaching here in BC, Canada, but he is also contributing world wide. They head up a local organization, Mid Island Geocaching that just recently had a summer end event “The Geo-Poker Rally” which was held in conjunction with Our local BCGA year end Blitz. Even though he is currently overseas on a mission supporting world peace, he is still staying in contact and helping people back home who geocache. They are both very dedicated and very well respected in the community.”

bpp_picnic

(Member since 2006)

Nomination by Mrs.Hoagie:

“Around Chester County PA, caches by bpp_picnic are notorious for their unique locations and even more interesting camouflage. bpp_picnic hosts a great event at the Brandywine Picnic Park (his family’s place) every September, and though his park, Big Red (his truck), and the event were flooded out this year by all the rain in SE Pennsylvania, bpp_picnic was still gracious enough to feed those of us who showed up with his amazing bbq pork and brisket.”

Comment below to tell us who you think should be the featured October “Geocacher of the Month.” A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide which geocacher is awarded the honor. 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 2 of the founders of Geocaching.com. We will be accepting comments through Monday October 24th.

If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be the Geocacher of the Month, send an email to

GCotM_geocoin — Geocacher of the Month Geocoin

geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com.

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 November Geocacher of the Month must be received by November 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.

October 11, 2011 / Eric Schudiske /

15 Countries in 24 Hours – One Big Day of Geocaching

Nine geocachers invested months of planning and preparing for a single day this weekend. The group based in the Netherlands included Team Mac Bean Stash, The Heuv, Ellino, Mr. Loggy, Demostar, The Axe Factor, and Fine-Line. They all launched on their mission on October 9, 2011. (That day can also be read as 9/10/11 – if written day/month/year.) Their goal was simple and extraordinarily complex.

Every geocacher enjoys the game their own way. Some enjoy spending months on one puzzle cache or hiking for days to find a dozen caches in the wilderness. This group wanted to challenge their wits, endurance and planning abilities to claim a world record in the geocaching community. The geocachers researched the most countries any group logged within 24 hours. Geocaching.com does not keep nor endorse official records.

Latitude 47 posted this article in August about a group of three geocachers who logged geocaches in ten countries in 24 hours. A reaction came back that a group of geocachers from Sweden accomplished 14 countries in 24 hours.

The geocaching group from the Netherlands set out to break the record. They say on their official website that they beat 14 countries in 24 hours. The group says they geocached in 15 countries in 24 hours. They countries, in no particular order include, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland in 24 hours.

They also promise more details will be available soon. After a cache run like that, there must be time to re-coup. Check back for updates in the story as they occur.

October 10, 2011 / Eric Schudiske

“The British Library” GC2M0AF GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – October 10, 2011

The husband and wife geocaching team of Nickie! & Brian~! hid the Multi-Cache “The British Library” (GC2M0AF) back in January of this year. Bryan writes, “I’ve been given co-credit for the cache, but it was really all Nickie’s work, I just tested out some of the maths involved. ”

The difficulty three, terrain one geocache was placed with the permission of the library.

The geocache is one of the largest caches in Central London and quickly tallying up Favorite Points. “The British Library” takes geocachers on a tour of the famed institution. Geocachers are directed around the library to gather clues. The answers to questions like, “Outside in the piazza, there is a statue of Newton. The last number on the plaque will give you A.”

Geocachers then explore several more stops in the library to discover clues in paintings, plaques and signs. They even discover the visual illusion of Paradoxymoron to help lead them to the geocache.

Once geocachers accumulate the answers to all of the clues, they plug the information into a formula found on the cache page to locate the geocache. The cache page reads, “Once at that location, you will find a small keysafe with directions back into the Library to find the final cache. Leave enough time to enter the building before it closes to sign the final log book! The final container is quite large (5 gallon) and can hold many swaps and Travel Bugs.”

newton — The statue of Newton at the British Library holds one of the clues

Geocachers who logged the cache wrote, “Wow – excellent and worthwhile cache.. loved the challenge on this one… and what a contatiner / location.. brilliant – 10 stars from us.”

Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the globe. Explore 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.

October 7, 2011 / Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching Vlogs and Online Videos – The New Horizon of Caching Media Part II

[Editor’s Note: Make sure to obtain cache owner permission when featuring a specific cache and spoilers. Include a spoiler warning if a spoiler is absolutely necessary.]

Geocaching video blogs (vlogs), as well as YouTube-based video series, have become hugely popular in the geocaching community. The Geocaching.com YouTube channel receives thousands of viewers each day and the Geocaching.com videos have been viewed nearly three million times so far. Vlogs and other videos created by the community showcase the diversity, creativity and intelligence found in the geocaching world.

Vlogging has become an exciting way to share geocaching experiences. We now invite you to enjoy Part II of the “Geocaching Vlogs and Online Videos” blog post. This post introduces you to three popular English-language geocaching vlogs and their vloggers. Part I, which featured geocaching vlogs from around the world, can be found here.

Mayberryman, or Joshua Johnson, is an American geocaching vlogger out of Minnesota, USA. With more than 40,000 views on his site, Joshua is capturing the attention of geocachers and non-geocachers around the world. According to the vlogger, “the beauty of online video is that it is global, so I think it is fun for people to see geocaching in different places of the world.”

Joshua spends much of his free time recording his caching adventures and posting them on his vlog for all to see. He says his vlog has enabled him to “connect with cachers all over the world through this medium. An example of this is a video collaboration video where a cacher named Captain Hardy from Norway shot a video of him sending the Travel Bug my way.”

Joshua says one of the goals of his is videos, “is to make the viewer feel like they are caching along with us.” Joshua also hopes to use his vlog to “share with the world the incredible hobby/sport that is geocaching… to introduce others to the hobby through the videos.”

Headhardhat, or Andrew Smith, another popular English language vlogger. Andrew has posted videos on YouTube for years. He has more than 60 videos online and has had more than 370,000 hits to his YouTube site. He sees his vlog as a “teaching tool to educate geocachers from all levels of expertise.” Andrew has found that creating a vlog has been beneficial to his personal geocaching experiences as well as the community’s.

He says, “I have heard everything from thanks for planting the seed to go out geocaching, to making things smoother for others as they ventured out, to saving several marriages and bringing families together.” Andrew’s vlog has connected him to people all over the world. According to the vlogger, these connections make geocaching “that much more fun because I get to share my experiences with others.”

Joshua and Andrew all showcase geocaching in the English language. They are among a more and more geocachers flipping on the video camera and sharing their adventures, tips and geocaching tricks online.

You can start sharing your experiences right now. Share your videos, pics and geocaching expertise (or geocaching questions) on the Geocaching.com Facebook page.

October 6, 2011 / Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching.com Presents: “First to Find”

[Editor’s note: This video contains spoilers and was filmed with cache-owner permission. The video is in Czech. For English subtitles, play the video then click on the CC button.]

[vsw id=”6WhqAHcTu0A” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

Geocaching.com Presents: “First to Find.” Watch this video and be part of the hunt to claim a FTF on a newly published cache (GC2X6AW). The Geocaching.com video team perched at ground zero as a Groundspeak Reviewer published the cache listing. The cache is located in the rural countryside of the Czech Republic. The crew counted the minutes until the first cacher arrived, but being FTF on this cache would take more than being first to the coordinates. Watch to find out why. The video mentions “instant notification” which is a Premium Member feature. Find out more about instant notifications and Premium Memberships here.

The next Geocaching.com Presents video showcases some of the most exciting geocaches with Favorite Points. It’s scheduled for release on October 20th. See a preview of all the Czech videos to come by clicking here. Geocaching.com will continue to release English, Czech and German language geocaching videos in the coming months. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to be one of the first to see new videos. Watch the more than 40 videos produced by Geocaching.com on our video page.

Geocaching.com uvádí: “First to Find.” Podívejte se na toto video a zúčastněte se lovu a závodu o FTF nově uveřejněné keše (GC2X6AW). Video posádka z Geocaching.com číhala u cíle, když kontrolor společnosti Groundspeak zveřejnil podrobnosti keše. Keš se nachází ve venkovské krajině České republiky. Posádka počítala minuty, než dorazil první kačer, ale získat FTF této kešky nebude tak snadné. Dívejte se a zjistíte proč. Video obsahuje spojlery a bylo natočeno s povolením majitele keše.

Další video Geocaching.com uvádí se soustředí na geokeše s nejvyšším počtem příznivých bodů. Plánujeme jeho zveřejnění na 20. října. Podívejte se na ukázky všech českých video záznamů kliknutím zde. V příštích měsících bude Geocaching.com také dále zveřejňovat geokešingová videa v angličtině, češtině a němčině. Podívejte se na více než 40 video záznamů, které vyrobil Geocaching.com na naší video stránce.

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