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Driving time?


birvine81

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So, I'm relatively new and this may seem like a silly question. But generally speaking, is about 90% + of your time supposed to be driving to the caches?

 

When I first heard of geocaching, the area was in a hiking trail on a national park, and then I naturally did some around my neighborhood along my natural path I jog on. But otherwise, it seems like if you're "going to go do some geocaching", its all about just driving somewhere almost right on top of the cache then searching for maybe 5 minutes or less before finding them (although my first find took forever), and then its back in the car again.

 

I guess my question is does this seem right? It doesn't feel like an 'outdoorsy' activity as more of a driving/exploration type thing. Is this the experience I should be having?

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I guess 90% of our time is spend caching, not driving to a cache :lol:

 

We drive to a starting point where we walk or cycle multi's or series for most of the day only to return by evening to drive back hope. In winter we sometimes drive from cache to cache. Again mostly to combine multi's/mysteries/trads but a shorter distance so we can go somewhere and have a warm drink/something to eat in between.

Most of the time the caches where you drive up to are P&G or LPC and we avoid these anyway.

 

In order to spend as much time caching and as little time driving we prepare our cachingdays in detail.

 

I must admit that in order to fill our cachingdays the way we want we have to increase the distance from home but we try to stay within a 1 hour from home area.

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So, I'm relatively new and this may seem like a silly question. But generally speaking, is about 90% + of your time supposed to be driving to the caches?

 

When I first heard of geocaching, the area was in a hiking trail on a national park, and then I naturally did some around my neighborhood along my natural path I jog on. But otherwise, it seems like if you're "going to go do some geocaching", its all about just driving somewhere almost right on top of the cache then searching for maybe 5 minutes or less before finding them (although my first find took forever), and then its back in the car again.

 

I guess my question is does this seem right? It doesn't feel like an 'outdoorsy' activity as more of a driving/exploration type thing. Is this the experience I should be having?

 

Yup, like others have said, it's kind of what you make of it. Some days we feel like taking a nice long walk in a park and pick up some caches. Yesterday we didn't have a lot of time so we drove to 10 different caches. It depends on where you live, too. In my area there are caches everywhere so I can pick what I want to do. In more rural areas it may be more of a driving thing as there aren't many caches.

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For the first year or two, before I cleared out all the local caches, if I needed to drive at all, I'd spent 20 minutes driving round trip, max, for a 2 hour walk, so let's call it 15% of the cache trip driving. Now that I have to go further for unfound caches, I'd say I'm averaging 40 minutes, and I walk a little further each time, so maybe 25% driving. I'm blessed to live in a very active caching community with lots of caches, so I'm finding that this 25% number has remained constant for the last couple years.

 

For me, the point is walking. 9 times out of 10, I'm picking up caches that I could have driven to, but instead I leave my car somewhere and walk around to pick up several. Someone else could choose to drive to each one, so naturally they'd spend all their time driving. Sounds boring to me, but my impression is that that's more typical.

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Go for whatever kind of cache makes you happy. There probably aren't as many of the long hike style caches as the park & grab variety (actually, there's no "probably" about it), so your options may be more limited, and you may actually have to do a fair bit of driving to get to the parks and woodsy areas that feature those sorts of caches. You'll probably have to do more planning before heading out but if that's your thing then go for it.

 

Myself, I'm not in the best shape so really long hikes don't appeal to me much, plus my area has a significant dearth of public lands and accessible wild areas compared to other states, so cool hikes and woodsy adventures aren't really available (even though Louisiana is known as the "Sportsman's Paradise", apparently that paradise only applies if you're into hunting and fishing, but I digress....). I'm more into the "road trip" aspect of the game....I don't mind driving from cache to cache and in fact to me that's part of the appeal....I like exploring new places and finding cool landmarks and interesting locations off the beaten path.

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My favorite mode of caching is with a kayak, but last week we had to drive six hours to get to a very unique lake where we have wanted to paddle and camp on an island. Once we got there, while waiting for the winds to calm down, we hiked into large fissures, like a mini slot canyon. I focused on the earthcache and had no particular interest in looking for a traditional. The next day it was still windy enough to keep us from going to the island, so we went to a different lake and noticed a cache about an hour's drive away that took us to four petroglyph sites. After that we finally were able to get our camping permit. We kayaked four miles to the island and set things up, then I hiked over a ridge to explore some ruined structures. There was an earthcache to complete and I decided that I might as well find the traditional in a different part of the island as well. After we returned, we drove back, stopping for an earthcache that involved a relatively short walk in a national park, before staying in a state historical park with an earthcache, virtual, and Wherigo. We would have hiked to a couple of virtuals in national and state parks but my wife had a broken toe with a pin sticking out of it and our range was a bit limited. So we stopped for a few non-traditionals along the way and ignored a far greater number of caches.

 

Driving sometimes is a fact of life. Deciding what you do as part of this game is up to you.

Edited by geodarts
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Well, if you are as bad as I am, you'll spend 30 minutes looking for a children's cache! hahaha! sad but true...

 

A lot of what caching is to me is getting out and seeing new places. I enjoy driving to an area that I have never been before. And to make the drive as fun as possible, I travel mostly on my trail bike. When I'min the city I go by bicycle or by foot. It's whatever you make it out to be. :)

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I am an Aussie cacher living in the country in a small country town. I have to travel to find caches. I only have 190 under my belt and to add interest for local cachers and draw people to our town, I have set about 24 based on local history and gold mining. Also having to be a carer, I am limited to the amount of travel I can do and I have learnt that a good caching run depends on the 7 P principle. Sit down and plan your run. Even if it is to do a traditional and attempt a multi cache, ooh I dislike them, in one day and you achieve it, it is a great day. The seven P's are Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. If you counted 6 Ps you are right, the seventh P I am not allowed to print, but you can guess it.

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I am an Aussie cacher living in the country in a small country town. I have to travel to find caches. I only have 190 under my belt and to add interest for local cachers and draw people to our town, I have set about 24 based on local history and gold mining. Also having to be a carer, I am limited to the amount of travel I can do and I have learnt that a good caching run depends on the 7 P principle. Sit down and plan your run. Even if it is to do a traditional and attempt a multi cache, ooh I dislike them, in one day and you achieve it, it is a great day. The seven P's are Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. If you counted 6 Ps you are right, the seventh P I am not allowed to print, but you can guess it.

 

I applaud your efforts to enhance your local caching environment so others don't have to travel so far.

 

And, BTW - your user icon: Is that Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp?

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And, BTW - your user icon: Is that Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp?

Certainly is, grew up watching him. Looking for an avatar for Geocaching that needed stealth and spying and found him. Thought you beauty and bingo, I had an avatar!

 

I loved the adventures of him and Mata Hairy.

 

Horribly exploitative by today's standards, but back in the 1960's there wasn't much better.

 

They're out there online to be watched!

 

"James Bond is to Maxwell Smart" as "Maxwell Smart is to Lance Link."

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All depends on what you want to do! And how you enjoy geocaching.

I do local P&Gs. I take long hikes along trails. I just got back from a 600 mile (round)trip to find The Spot (and two caches each in four counties in Pennsylvania and two in New York.) I've even been noted to convince my sister to drive us from Maine to Nova Scotia so we could fly to Newfoundland to find caches there. Flew to my brother's wedding in Washington, and picked up BC, Washington and Oregon. Even took a road trip to Iowa and Minnesota once.

Mostly I work on caches in my thirty-five mile range. Want some caches along a trail? Go for it. Feel like some cache and dashes today? Go for it. Want some tough hikes in the hills? Go for it.

They are all available. Pick what you want today, and go for it.

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I'm new to it but I have done both. i drove to some and then drove off. One day I walked 2 kms to grab two. Then a week later I hiked 8.5 kms to get 4/6. There is more on that trail. I think there is about 30 kms and I plan on finding as many as I can. I will have to plan the deeper ones.

 

There are some in another area that I want to get using my Jeep.

 

James

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