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collecting countries


terratin

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We love caching and we love caching during vacation as you get to see different types of hides and the caches are quite often hidden at interesting locations you would not have seen without a cache.

 

I do love adding further countries to my geocaching stats map. On average we've been getting about 4 new countries per year since we started caching. The recurring discussion every year is whether we should spend our vacation in a country we've already cached in or to something new (and what!). For this year we came up with Rome and Vatican State (2 new countries), Faroe Islands (new) and Turkey (just one found during a very lengthy layover).

 

Who else likes 'collecting' countries, and what are your plans for this year?

 

Mrs. terratin

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I love collecting countries; but for personal reasons I generally can not take holidays in new countries. However I sometimes get opportunities when travelling for business. But this is largely out of my control. Last year I added 7 countries this way. Some were the business destination; others layovers on the way. I don't expect to get anywhere near that this year.

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We love caching and we love caching during vacation as you get to see different types of hides and the caches are quite often hidden at interesting locations you would not have seen without a cache.

 

I do love adding further countries to my geocaching stats map. On average we've been getting about 4 new countries per year since we started caching. The recurring discussion every year is whether we should spend our vacation in a country we've already cached in or to something new (and what!). For this year we came up with Rome and Vatican State (2 new countries), Faroe Islands (new) and Turkey (just one found during a very lengthy layover).

 

Who else likes 'collecting' countries, and what are your plans for this year?

 

Mrs. terratin

 

That's one of my favorite aspects about geocaching as well. I've been caching about the same time as you and have 4 fewer countries, but I don't live in Europe where it's a bit easier to visit several countries in a short period of time. I don't have any concrete plans for other countries this year because all my international geocaching has come as a result of business related travel, and when my institutions travel budget gets tight I end up traveling less. On the other hand, some of the work I do is grant funded, and there are a couple of potential projects that have a pretty good chance of getting funded that could result in some additional travel. In fact, I've got a meeting all day today related to one of them with a potential partner on the project from Denmark so there's some potential collaboration work that could involve travel to your country and if I go to Denmark, I'd probably combine it with with a trip to Rome (one of the other partners is an organization I've worked with on several projects located in Rome). I've also geocached in Rome and the Vatican and have been there four times and always welcome a return visit. That project also has travel budget lines for workshops in five African countries and though it includes two in which I've already found caches I haven't had the opportunity to cache in the other three (though, I spent about a week in Zambia a few years ago but never got the opportunity to find the one cache within reasonable proximity to where I was staying, but I did get one in Zimbabwe that trip). The project also has the potential for travel to India and Latin America. The only confirmed travel I have in the near future is a trip out to California at the end of March for a three day meeting at Stanford University but I already have quite a few finds in California. In addition to collecting countries, living in the U.S. I can collect States as well. I've got tentative plans for vacation travel that could add two more this year and a potential business trip to add one more. Although I haven't specifically gone on a vacation to another country to find a cache, when I travel internationally I arrange my own itinerary and can sometimes find creative ways to have a layover long enough to find a cache in a country I have not yet visited and sometimes that means taking a vacation day and paying for a hotel on my own. For example, for a conference I attended in Montpellier, France I could have just flown from the U.S. to Paris, then the Montpellier but for the same cost to my institution (actually it was a bit less), I flew to Frankfurt, then to Marseille, took a train to Montpellier, then another train after the conference to Barcelona where I stayed a couple of days before flying home. It didn't cost my institution any more than if I had gone through Paris and I got to find a cache in Germany and a bunch in Barcelona.

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we actually see exactly your point :-)

caching in different contries is really alot of fun

we combine many of our hobies this way, travel and geocaching, and just see special places outdoor.

 

We have been geocaching in 10 different contries in 2012 alone,

some of them are places we have been to before.

over 25% of our total finds are from other contries.

our goal for 2013 is to see 5 new contries, two trips allready arranged and payed for :-)

We have always been traveling alot, some years we just traveled and dont even geocache.

but at the moment geocaching is very much the best we like :-)

So go for it, the futher you can go away, the more new and special you see,

also geocaching wise !

 

search the forums, many aspects of travel and geocaching has been discussed alot,

specially the language part of it, and hints, you need to dig into, depending on where you go.

Edited by OZ2CPU
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Oh man I do this too- love to travel, and the only twinge I have about the big six months gap year I did ~5 years ago is it was pre-geocaching: I've been to 51 countries in my life, but have "only" found caches in 22, so lots of places to revisit!

 

I will say, this is a sideline that has gotten WAY better to fuel since I moved to Europe ~1.5 years ago, as 11 of the countries I have finds in are from doing so, either places I hadn't been before or revisiting places I visited pre-caching. I'll be adding Spain next month for #23- going to Barcelona, first time in Catalonia- and actually just heard I'll be going to South Africa for a conference in July which is perfect as it's one of my favorite countries but I've never cached there. Conference location is actually near the border w Swaziland/Mozambique, so I'm thinking of taking a few days for the latter at least to hit up the beaches. Nabbing a cache in Mozambique will be interesting though, as so far as I can tell I may only have the opportunity for one as there just aren't that many of them there.

 

But yeah, this is certainly an aspect of the hobby that is way easier when you live in Europe and can just hop on a cheap budget flight for the weekend- one of the reasons I wanted to move to Europe is it's so easy to travel here, and when one travels geocaching really gives you a great way to find unusual spots and information about the tourist ones (hopping on the train to Cologne for the day on Saturday in a "wait, I live in Europe!" moment, and I guarantee I'll be grabbing a few caches). Love to travel, but there's definitely the voice in my head saying "I need to revisit Rome to nab Vatican City, and Copenhagen will need to be a long weekend cause I want to go to Malmo a day for a cache in Sweden..." though. :laughing:

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Oh man I do this too- love to travel, and the only twinge I have about the big six months gap year I did ~5 years ago is it was pre-geocaching: I've been to 51 countries in my life, but have "only" found caches in 22, so lots of places to revisit!

 

Oh yes, I know what you mean. My cache map would be quite a bit more complete had I started much earlier. What is also annoying: I could have added Kazakhstan to the map last year, but didn't pick up the only cache in town for various reasons. One was that my driver didn't quite understand he should stop at that particular park in the rain, not the next shopping mall :huh:

 

and Copenhagen will need to be a long weekend cause I want to go to Malmo a day for a cache in Sweden..." though. :laughing:

 

Go for it! And you're certainly welcome here in CPH. Give me a shout when you're around.

 

I'm from the US. Loved Geocaching in Ireland last May, thinking of going to the UK in July or August.

 

Be sure to hit up Scotland and not just the rest of it then- great scenery and general awesomeness aside, you can then get a "bonus" in a couple years when they split off. :laughing:

 

LOL, my thought exactly! Funny though, I've been to Scotland several times on business but I have yet to find a cache there :unsure: Oh well, next time.

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Hahaha I think everyone who cares about this statistic has a "one that got away" story or few to share, because even when you know about geocaching moments of opportunity sometimes just don't happen. Usually in airport layover situations- besides the few "too short, what a shame!" ones my worst was 5 hours in the Santiago airport as part of a research trip where there was even a cache just outside the arrivals hall... but it costs US$160 for Americans to enter Chile, and no way I'd even pretend to justify $160 for one cache even if I wasn't a student. Such is life!

 

And thanks, will let you know when I get to Copenhagen. I'm really keen to go especially as everyone says it's so similar to my current hometown of Amsterdam, which I love, but keep thinking it's a visit best suited for warmer months with longer days! 2.5 years left in my degree, though, so I'm sure I'll make it at some point.

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Oh yes, I know what you mean. My cache map would be quite a bit more complete had I started much earlier. What is also annoying: I could have added Kazakhstan to the map last year, but didn't pick up the only cache in town for various reasons. One was that my driver didn't quite understand he should stop at that particular park in the rain, not the next shopping mall :huh:

 

I did find one in Kazakhstan. But was frustrated on a trip to Ghana, so I know how you feel. The nearest cache (at the time) was ~30 miles/50 km away, and had never been found. There were a few DNF and notes which talked about being confronted by armed guards. I reluctantly decided not to try it.

 

I especially like getting finds in countries with few caches. As well as Kazakhstan I have finds in Albania and Brunei.

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I collect states (40 as of today) and countries (7 so far).

 

This past summer we traveled to Germany again, and traveled a little further afield than in the past. We grabbed Austria, Switzerland and France. We also grabbed the Czech Republic. That was the neatest of the finds, since we parked in Germany and walked the 200m into the Czech Republic!

 

My daughter is looking at studying abroad for a semester, and I told her I will come and visit only if she goes someplace new! :)

 

[edit: typo]

Edited by BBWolf+3Pigs
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I was in Costa Rica for just four days on business, three of them in San Jose and I was never able to get out for a cache in the city, but then had one day up in Guanacaste. There was one cache a couple of miles away from our hotel and I had a narrow window in the morning to get it, so I ended up dropping about US $45 on taxi rides there and back to grab one cache. Sort of silly, but still glad I did it!

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I was in Costa Rica for just four days on business, three of them in San Jose and I was never able to get out for a cache in the city, but then had one day up in Guanacaste. There was one cache a couple of miles away from our hotel and I had a narrow window in the morning to get it, so I ended up dropping about US $45 on taxi rides there and back to grab one cache. Sort of silly, but still glad I did it!

 

I would have done the same!

 

A while ago we decided to have a several day layover in Abu Dhabi. We drove to Al Ain and over the border into the Oman, which was them still possible without paperwork at one border crossing. We picked up the one cache we wanted to have, started our car... and found out it didn't start anymore. A friendly truck driver transported the car back to a garage literally a handful of meters from the border. When they could not find anything we finally called the rental company and upon the question where we were we answered "Al Buraimi" and got an angry shout back: "But that's in Oman! You're not supposed to be there". Well.. few minutes later the car started again. Turned out the rental company had put a tracker into the car and interrupted the engine at a certain distance from the border. Oopsie.. :o But we got the country and had a lot of fun :P

 

Mrs. terratin

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I could have more countries if I worked at it, but I tend to keep returning to certain countries that I enjoy. Mexico, for example.

 

As of my latest trip, I now have finds in 9 Mexican states (it'd be nice if Groundspeak kept track of this), which is more than the number of provinces where I have finds in my own country.

 

I wasn't even expecting to bring my Mexican state total up to 9. After I logged my finds in my 8th state, some of the local cacheros invited me to join them on a road trip, to a hilltop FTF above an old mining town a couple of hours distant. That was a real hoot, and a highlight of the trip. I've experienced this kind of geo-hospitality elsewhere as well, and really appreciate the chance to meet up with local cachers and swap stories in person. :)

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Hahaha I think everyone who cares about this statistic has a "one that got away" story or few to share, because even when you know about geocaching moments of opportunity sometimes just don't happen. Usually in airport layover situations- besides the few "too short, what a shame!" ones my worst was 5 hours in the Santiago airport as part of a researcch trip where there was even a cache just outside the arrivals hall... but it costs US$160 for Americans to enter Chile, and no way I'd even pretend to justify $160 for one cache even if I wasn't a student. Such is life!

 

I have a couple of those stories. I was in Zambia for a week of intensive working meetings but they made time for us one afternoon to get out and visit the local attractions and the most obvious was the nearby Victoria Falls (which didn't have the Earthcache you placed there when I visited). There was a virtual cache on the Zambia side, but because it was dry season most people I was with opted to cross the border into Zimbabwe to view the falls from the Zim side. Fortunately, there was a traditional cache located there so I was able to get a cache from Zimbabwe but don't have one for Zambia. Crossing the border did require a 1 day visa, which, if I recall cost about $35US, and with the bus, a guide, and entrance fees into Victoria Falls National Park my total costs for that day was about $75. One could say that's a lot of money for 1 cache, but Victoria Falls isn't not your typical location for a geocache (i.e. a place one might want to visit even if there wasn't a cache at that location).

 

The other instance was a cache in Ethiopia, somewhat in between the airport and where I would be staying for several days. My initial plan was to get through the airport, check into my accommodations, then hire a taxi to go and find the cache on the day I arrived. Although we were traveling separately (I had spent a couple of days in Rome for a meeting prior to flying to Addis Ababa) one of the other participants coming from Peru had some immigration issues (he assumed he could get a visa upon arrival) and we ended up spending several hours at the airport waiting for him (which was expedited by the fact that the two people that I *was* traveling with work for a U.N. organization). In any case, by the time I got to the place I was staying, work related events started so I wasn't able to get out that day to find the cache. Over the course of the next few days, I did get out of the facility where I was staying and was within 1000' of the only cache within 200 miles, but I was also in a vehicle with an official driver and several other meeting participants.

 

 

And thanks, will let you know when I get to Copenhagen. I'm really keen to go especially as everyone says it's so similar to my current hometown of Amsterdam, which I love, but keep thinking it's a visit best suited for warmer months with longer days! 2.5 years left in my degree, though, so I'm sure I'll make it at some point.

 

I had a interesting meeting yesterday with a potential partner from Copenhagen and came away with the impression (and let other know about it) that there really needs to be some face-to-face development time with that partner in and other technical partners for the project (mostly, me) so there is somewhat reasonable chance I might be traveling to Copenhagen. I also became of another project that I could conceivably be involved in with a consortium of 14 universities in the Netherlands. Do you they have pub crawls in Amsterdam? Co-host an event?

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I was in Costa Rica for just four days on business, three of them in San Jose and I was never able to get out for a cache in the city, but then had one day up in Guanacaste. There was one cache a couple of miles away from our hotel and I had a narrow window in the morning to get it, so I ended up dropping about US $45 on taxi rides there and back to grab one cache. Sort of silly, but still glad I did it!

 

I was also in Costa Rica for a couple of days on business, but added 4 days for some vacation time (unlike most business trips, I brought my family with me to Costa Rica). I didn't even try to find any caches in San Jose, because we were planning on spending some time near Arenal volcano and a couple of days in Manuel Antonio and I got a rental car at the end of my business. I didn't find a lot of caches but I did a *lot* of driving and got to see some wonderful parts of the country.

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I had a interesting meeting yesterday with a potential partner from Copenhagen and came away with the impression (and let other know about it) that there really needs to be some face-to-face development time with that partner in and other technical partners for the project (mostly, me) so there is somewhat reasonable chance I might be traveling to Copenhagen. I also became of another project that I could conceivably be involved in with a consortium of 14 universities in the Netherlands. Do you they have pub crawls in Amsterdam? Co-host an event?

 

Fingers crossed for you! I do remember hearing some serious pub crawl fun when I was studying in Amsterdam, however I don't know when and where as I'm not really into that.

 

Traveling for business is mostly technical training for me. By the look of things there's nothing really interesting this year. Just the usual trip to London, and if I'm very lucky maybe a trip to Houston. That would at least add another US state to my stats :rolleyes: Not that I'm picking training based on location :huh: ...

 

Mrs. terratin

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specially the language part of it, and hints, you need to dig into, depending on where you go.

Part of the pre-vacation fun -a very big part- is preparing caches: translate anything which needs translating, look at maps how to get somewhere, scrutinize logs to check for additional hints and general tips, etc etc etc. It can take weeks, but still, even before we found the first-cache-on-vacation I've already had so much fun!

 

Cheers,

 

Mr. Terratin

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I got 3 new countries so far this year and hope to get 4 more in October.

One of the unexpected thing I got was FTFs whilst visiting Istanbul, Cairo and Bangkok.

My one disappointment was not coloring in Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to a mixup from the hotel we were staying in at Mostar.

At the time I was there, there were no caches in Sarajevo and the one in Mostar was my only hope.

It was inside some Roman ruins and we didn’t have enough time to get there before they closed.

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I had a interesting meeting yesterday with a potential partner from Copenhagen and came away with the impression (and let other know about it) that there really needs to be some face-to-face development time with that partner in and other technical partners for the project (mostly, me) so there is somewhat reasonable chance I might be traveling to Copenhagen. I also became of another project that I could conceivably be involved in with a consortium of 14 universities in the Netherlands. Do you they have pub crawls in Amsterdam? Co-host an event?

 

Gee, if only Amsterdam was a city with some sort of party reputation... B)

 

No really sounds like a good event, let me know when you're in town and we'll work it out! (I also had no idea there were 14 universities in the Netherlands.)

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New colours on the map coming soon :lol:

In two weeks we'll add Italy and Vatican City State, in June I'll be visiting Houston (new state), August will add the Faroes to our map, and you might even be able to see them on our stats if you use a magnifying glass :P and I still have enough airmiles to cash in for flights to either Finland, one of the Baltic countries, or Poland. Lets see what we chose.

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New colours on the map coming soon :lol:

In two weeks we'll add Italy and Vatican City State, in June I'll be visiting Houston (new state), August will add the Faroes to our map, and you might even be able to see them on our stats if you use a magnifying glass :P and I still have enough airmiles to cash in for flights to either Finland, one of the Baltic countries, or Poland. Lets see what we chose.

 

While in Houston, it's less than two hours to drive to Louisiana!

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While in Houston, it's less than two hours to drive to Louisiana!

 

Well, I'm on the wrong side of Houston, unfortunately (West Side), and I'll probably be too jet lagged to drive a car. But it would have been a good opportunity, yes!

Edited by terratin
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You can use jetlag to your advantage.

 

I once had an overnight stop (flying from London) in Philadelphia, then a flight the next day to Ottawa.

Due to the time difference I woke up really early (like 4 AM). And I didn't need to be at the airport until 9 AM.

I decided to drive to Delaware that morning (not far) and find some caches there!

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I had a interesting meeting yesterday with a potential partner from Copenhagen and came away with the impression (and let other know about it) that there really needs to be some face-to-face development time with that partner in and other technical partners for the project (mostly, me) so there is somewhat reasonable chance I might be traveling to Copenhagen. I also became of another project that I could conceivably be involved in with a consortium of 14 universities in the Netherlands. Do you they have pub crawls in Amsterdam? Co-host an event?

 

Gee, if only Amsterdam was a city with some sort of party reputation... B)

 

No really sounds like a good event, let me know when you're in town and we'll work it out! (I also had no idea there were 14 universities in the Netherlands.)

 

Copenhagen is out as far as a possible trip this year. We had a face-to-face meeting in Ithaca and it's pretty clear that we won't be working together. I haven't heard anything more about the potential project in the Netherlands either. If I do get back to Amsterdam it would likely be during a layover on the way to some other place in Europe or Africa. Last weekend and a few days before I *did* add Ethiopia and Turkey to my countries list. During my visit in Ethiopia I had a meeting with someone from Jimma University and it looks like there will be a very good chance that I'll be going back to Ethiopia (to a small town called Jimma) in August. There are no caches anywhere close to Jimma (the closest is in Addis Ababa, about a six hour drive away) but depending on how I arrange my itinerary I could have a layover in a country in which I have not found a cache on the way.

 

I have travel plans finalized for a vacation to Tennessee and should be able to add that state and West Virginia to may states list at the end of August.

 

 

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You can use jetlag to your advantage.

 

I once had an overnight stop (flying from London) in Philadelphia, then a flight the next day to Ottawa.

Due to the time difference I woke up really early (like 4 AM). And I didn't need to be at the airport until 9 AM.

I decided to drive to Delaware that morning (not far) and find some caches there!

 

Congrats on that! I don't think I'll manage as I cannot sleep on planes and will be really knackered upon arrival on Saturday. And then I'll have business meetings (well, training) every weekday from 8.30-4.30 or so and leave the next Saturday again :blink: but at least I should be able to get some caches in the neighbourhood :)

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You can use jetlag to your advantage.

 

I once had an overnight stop (flying from London) in Philadelphia, then a flight the next day to Ottawa.

Due to the time difference I woke up really early (like 4 AM). And I didn't need to be at the airport until 9 AM.

I decided to drive to Delaware that morning (not far) and find some caches there!

 

Congrats on that! I don't think I'll manage as I cannot sleep on planes and will be really knackered upon arrival on Saturday. And then I'll have business meetings (well, training) every weekday from 8.30-4.30 or so and leave the next Saturday again :blink: but at least I should be able to get some caches in the neighbourhood :)

 

I don't sleep on planes either, especially on outbound flights. Quite often though I some how manage to sleep on my way home after an exhausting week of meetings, especially if I'm lucky enough to have the middle seat unoccupied (which I did for my 10.5 hour flight from Istanbul to JFK). Whenever I do travel on business I arrange my itinerary myself and always look for opportunities for a layover long enough that I can get away from the airport and do some caching. Sometimes that means an overnight stay at a hotel that I pay for myself but I prefer that to having two long flights back to back with a short layover. Even when flying domestically I might look at flying to an airport that isn't the closest to my destination and renting a car. For example, a couple of years ago I was at a meeting in Champaign, IL for a couple of days. Instead of flying directly to Champaign I flew to Indianapolis, rented a car for a few days, and was able to find caches in Indiana and Illinois instead of just Illinois during my travels between the two cities.

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Whenever I do travel on business I arrange my itinerary myself and always look for opportunities for a layover long enough that I can get away from the airport and do some caching.

 

Yes, me too, when I can.

 

Recently went to Australia via Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur). But didn't have the time to layover, and didn't get a cache in Malaysia. On the way back it turned out the flight was delayed 2 hours; but they didn't tell us until we were at the gate ready to board. If I had known of those extra 2 hours maybe I could have got out to get a cache.. but on the other hand it was the middle of the night and I was very tired...

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Whenever I do travel on business I arrange my itinerary myself and always look for opportunities for a layover long enough that I can get away from the airport and do some caching. Sometimes that means an overnight stay at a hotel that I pay for myself but I prefer that to having two long flights back to back with a short layover.

 

Not bad! For me, it usually means a lot of extra work as I need to prove that my layover is not more expensive than the direct flight. But certainly something to keep in mind, and we did that once: When we moved from Qatar back to Europe we did a small vacation in the UAE, and collected caches there and in the Oman :)

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I don't have as many opportunities to travel and cache internationally as I would like. And I don't see any opportunities to add any new states to the map this year either. All of my geotravels take me to states I have already visited.

 

Last year we planned an Alaskan cruise following the Block Party that departed from Vancouver. The geo-map showed a couple of caches near Canada Place where the cruises begin, so I was looking forward to finding a few before boarding. But we took a bus run by the cruise line from Sea-Tac and it deposited us underground, and directly in the embarkation processing lines. There was no way to make a break for it, and go up to street level for those caches. Once on board we could even spot the host from the ship (giveaway hint) only a few hundred feet away. :sad:

 

But we were able to rectify that problem by renting a car in Skagway and driving along the Klondike Highway through BC and up into the Yukon, finding caches along the way, instead of taking the tourist train ride that followed the same route. The scenery along that route was stunning, some of the most interesting of a trip full of stunning scenery.

 

Maybe next year's travels will have new horizons.

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Whenever I do travel on business I arrange my itinerary myself and always look for opportunities for a layover long enough that I can get away from the airport and do some caching. Sometimes that means an overnight stay at a hotel that I pay for myself but I prefer that to having two long flights back to back with a short layover.

 

Not bad! For me, it usually means a lot of extra work as I need to prove that my layover is not more expensive than the direct flight. But certainly something to keep in mind, and we did that once: When we moved from Qatar back to Europe we did a small vacation in the UAE, and collected caches there and in the Oman :)

 

I don't mind doing the planning and if an overnight layover *was* more expensive I don't mind paying for a hotel room out of my own pocket, especially if it in a city in another country or state in which I've never visited. It might even mean burning a vacation day but after 16 years at my current job I have plenty to burn. A layover in UAE (Dubai) is certainly a possibility if I go back to Ethiopia in August. Another less attractive option would be a layover in Cairo. My favorite creative itinerary was when I had a several day conference in Montpellier, France. The fastest route would have been from New York to Paris to Montpellier (with a return through Paris as well). I had been through Paris on a trip to Johannesburg previously and the departure/arrival times weren't particularly attractive so I found another option. I flew from NY to Frankfurt (and grabbed the virtual at the airport) then onto Marseille. Then I took a 1 hour train ride to Montpellier. After the conference I got on another train for a four hour ride along the coast to Barcelona, and paid for a hotel myself for two nights before flying home from Barcelona. The airfare + train fare was about the same as the Paris route and, yes, I had to pay for a hotel out my own pocket for two nights but I was paying for a hotel in Barcelona for two nights.

 

 

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Since I have been geocaching, I have added one country to my list and that was Canada. I am hoping that wherever we stay on my mission trip to Haiti that it is near one of the caches in Haiti. Will have to load up my handheld Garmin with the Haitian ones before I go.

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Since the last time I posted in this thread, I added Denmark and Sweden thanks to a trip a few weeks ago to Copenhagen during a few days' break here in NL. Frankly Sweden across the bridge from Copenhagen is boring as all hell, and the service was so unfriendly I never got to try a Swedish beer :mad: but hey got Sweden on my map so it's all good! Country count is now at 25.

 

Vatican City State will be added in about a month's time thanks to snagging a super cheap weekend ticket to Rome some weeks ago- I love European budget airlines! B) Already got Italy... and doing Croatia in August with my brother hopefully, with luck we will do a day trip to Montenegro/ lesser chance of Bosnia happening, but there is a chance.

 

Alas no southern Africa finds this year after all because my sister's getting married in New Hampshire too close to the conference dates for me to make it. :(

 

Beyond that, I must say the biggest help in Europe IMO is not just the distances involved but the huge amounts of vacation time you get compared to the USA combined with the idea that one should take vacations because they're good for you. Not only do I get 5 weeks a year I also get a "vacation bonus" in my June paycheck which is essentially a month's extra pay to go towards holidays, both things that I realize are completely alien to American sensibilities. But hey, such things go a long way towards explaining how on Earth European geocachers can have so many countries in their statistics!

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Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. :) And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty :P I think we qualify for a challenge with that.

 

Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible).

 

Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course.

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Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. :) And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty :P I think we qualify for a challenge with that.

 

Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible).

 

Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course.

 

Mr. Terratin solved the three mysteries in VCS, thus I'm not sure how difficult they were. They are mostly placed a bit outside the usual tourist routes. The traditional is very easy to pick up and you don't need to queue to get it as it's placed outside the State walls (still on VCS territory if I can trust google maps). On the way to it you could pick up the one about the Vatican railway. Quite funny when you realize they do actually have a railway line.

 

Need to check what the country challenge is. It's certainly in Denmark somewhere.

 

Mrs. Terratin

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Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. :) And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty :P I think we qualify for a challenge with that.

 

Congrats! I'd be interesting seeing that challenge if it exists (as IRC there are only a few countries in the world where such a feat is possible).

 

Btw I noticed while planning for my own trip that there are three mysteries and one trad for VCS- which one is the easiest to find if I may ask? Looks like one can do the puzzles pretty easily at home but geocaching probably won't be my priority if I'm only in Rome for a weekend, but I do want to mace sure I get a new country of course.

 

The traditional is fairly easy to find. I found it when there were only two caches (both traditionals) in VCS. I also solved the "Eyes Up" puzzle. It was pretty straightforward and easy. The Railway to Vatican puzzle looks pretty easy as well (it's a QR code puzzle) and the last one looks fairly straightforward but the geochecker shows a lot of incorrect guesses. The cache at the Colesseum and others nearby are fairly easy. There are also quite a few elaborate multis and puzzle caches that'll keep you busy.

 

There are quite a few other countries which have five or fewer caches but many of the countries are quite large and would take a long time to find all of the caches.

 

I added Turkey and Ethiopia to my list of countries a few weeks ago. I may be going back to Ethiopia in August and may fly through either Cairo or Dubai (or both) and both layovers would be long enough to do some caching. One of the itineraries stops in Khartoum, Sudan but not long enough to do any caching. There are only five caches in Sudan and three of them have not yet been found.

 

 

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Yiha, Italy and Vatican City State added to our country stats. :) And not only that, we found each single cache (all four of them) in VCS, making this the first country we cached empty :P I think we qualify for a challenge with that.

 

I had an FTF on the first cache ever placed on St. Kitts island . I guess you could say I had that place totally cached empty for a while.

 

Guarded in St. Kitts

Edited by cheech gang
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Going to be spitting distance from Mexico in the next 5-6 months but I do not think its safe to travel there from El Paso TX. The caches near the border do not even have 10 finds so obviously others feel the same.

 

Cuidad Juarez used to have the distinction as the most violent city the world but in a list of most violent cities in the world for 2013 it has dropped down to the 19th spot. New Orleans is ranked #17.

 

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It's funny how relative things are. I usually feel that I've traveled a lot, but seeing how many countries some of the people in this thread have been to, I feel that I've barely touched the world. ;) I've cached in 9 countries, and have been in 2 others before I started caching (well, and 2 more (other than the Americas) that I visited again after I started caching).

 

I've also cached in 30 states, even though I've visited 49. A few states I missed getting caches in after I started caching because it was in the earlier days when I didn't have good access to internet/pq's.

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It's funny how relative things are. I usually feel that I've traveled a lot, but seeing how many countries some of the people in this thread have been to, I feel that I've barely touched the world. ;) I've cached in 9 countries, and have been in 2 others before I started caching (well, and 2 more (other than the Americas) that I visited again after I started caching).

 

I've also cached in 30 states, even though I've visited 49. A few states I missed getting caches in after I started caching because it was in the earlier days when I didn't have good access to internet/pq's.

 

Often when I travel it's related to work that I do with people from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. who, based on how much they travel, makes me feel that I've barely touch the world. A couple of my FAO colleagues always seem to be traveling from one exotic place to another. You've found caches in several places that's I've never been to and would love to add to my list and there are a lot of other places I'd like to visit as well. I've never been to South America (Costa Rica was the closest) nor any islands in the Caribbean. Ironically, I've never found a cache in Canada or Mexico either (though I've been to both countries on multiple occasions before I started caching). Although I've now found caches in four different countries in Africa there are several others that I'd like to visit (Botswana, Malawi, Ghana, Senegal...).

 

I've only cached in 23 states and will probably add two more in August and possible two others. Although I've been to Washington state a few times before geocaching (and have family that live out on the Olympic peninsula) of all the places I've geocached, Seattle hasn't been one of them. I'm doing some work for a well known foundation that's located in Seattle so that may change by the end of the year.

 

 

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We love caching and we love caching during vacation as you get to see different types of hides and the caches are quite often hidden at interesting locations you would not have seen without a cache.

 

I do love adding further countries to my geocaching stats map. On average we've been getting about 4 new countries per year since we started caching. The recurring discussion every year is whether we should spend our vacation in a country we've already cached in or to something new (and what!). For this year we came up with Rome and Vatican State (2 new countries), Faroe Islands (new) and Turkey (just one found during a very lengthy layover).

 

Who else likes 'collecting' countries, and what are your plans for this year?

 

Mrs. terratin

 

When I graduated college in 2010 a part of my gift was a Mediterranean Cruise. Needless to say that when we were picking the itinerary getting the most countries was high on my motive. The only country I missed was Spain because I was short on time and took a wrong turn.....

 

I got 6 countries on that trip, and 2 more this year.

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Oh yes, a cruise! I'd love to do a Baltic country cruise as it would add up to 5 countries to our list. But what's keeping me from it is that the harbour breaks are just too short for a bit of sighseeing :( I'm just waiting for the last batch of airlines to arrive in my account and then we'll book that long weekend trip to one of the Baltics or Poland. Houston, as second US state will be on our map in just over two weeks :lol:

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It's sort of frustrating that I found caching so late - 2009. My wife and I got married in 2001 and certainly would have gotten caches in in England, Scotland and Australia -- and she solo in Japan -- since then. I've been to about 18 countries and 46 states, but have only found caches in 3 countries and 9 states. I'll pick up four more states - WY, CO, NE and UT - in July when I take my son on our annual baseball/caching trip.

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It's sort of frustrating that I found caching so late - 2009. My wife and I got married in 2001 and certainly would have gotten caches in in England, Scotland and Australia -- and she solo in Japan -- since then. I've been to about 18 countries and 46 states, but have only found caches in 3 countries and 9 states. I'll pick up four more states - WY, CO, NE and UT - in July when I take my son on our annual baseball/caching trip.

 

A geocaching/baseball trip (traveling to cities with major league ballparks and watching a game would be a lot of fun. For me, I traveled very little (other than a cross country trip when I was 3 years old) prior to when I started geocaching (in 2007). I'd only been to Canada and Mexico outside the U.S. and only a few of the western states (I grew up in California). Since moving east, and in the last 10 years or so at may current job I've been to all the states on the east coast from Maine to Florida, and have traveled to 23 different countries and have found caches in 19 of them. The coolest part is that those countries include 4 in Africa (five different trips), 5 in Asia, and 8 in Europe.

 

 

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