Create a custom map for family reunion

[+RatZelster]

I am going to take my family reunion folks for a geocaching adventure in Breckenridge, CO. There are too many of us to go in one big group and I would love to know how to break up a set of geocaches we could "share". By that I mean, we'd break into teams and try to find everything on the list before the other teams find them.

 

I'm not sure how to customize a map? Or is there a way to make a list of geocaches that they could access on their smartphones?

 

How would you do this to make it a little competitive, still loads of fun and accomodate groups of 2 or 3?

 

Thanks for your help.

[+MtnMutt-ProDuckShins]

Use Walking Tour of Breckenridge as the center of your Map/Query, then divide the list up between everyone and off they go for a day of fun..

 

You can do a print screen as a map view....

[+BCandMsKitty]

Do you have GSAK?

If so, do a PQ of the caches you want in the competition.

Print out a cache name and coordinates list for each of the teams.

Before the day, hide one of the coordinate lists for each team (could be in a cache of relatively equal distance from the start). At the start, give each team the coords to only one of the caches with the list in it. They split up and go to their (start) cache to get the cache list.

Or, if you don't want to put the coords list in a cache, hide them somewhere in a baggie and shoot the coords to give to each team.

Let them manually input the coords and roll without a map.

Hopefully there will be one person in each group that knows how to enter coords.

Edited June 29, 2015 by BC & MsKitty

[+RatZelster]

Use Walking Tour of Breckenridge as the center of your Map/Query, then divide the list up between everyone and off they go for a day of fun..

 

You can do a print screen as a map view....

 

Thanks for this idea. I think that would be fun.

[+RatZelster]

Do you have GSAK?

If so, do a PQ of the caches you want in the competition.

Print out a cache name and coordinates list for each of the teams.

Before the day, hide one of the coordinate lists for each team (could be in a cache of relatively equal distance from the start). At the start, give each team the coords to only one of the caches with the list in it. They split up and go to their (start) cache to get the cache list.

Or, if you don't want to put the coords list in a cache, hide them somewhere in a baggie and shoot the coords to give to each team.

Let them manually input the coords and roll without a map.

Hopefully there will be one person in each group that knows how to enter coords.

 

WOW...what a great response. I'm so new to geocaching that I had to look up the abreviations. That should crack you up and let you know how new I am.

 

I found the Swiss Army Knife website, but after reading it, I'm still unclear as to what it does. Is it replacement for the Geocaching app on my smartphone?

 

I also had to Google what a PQ was. Having lived in a San Diego suburb for ten years, I thought maybe you were referring to the part of North County called Penasquitos, but I didn't think that could really be it! So I figured out it was Pocket Query. I found some videos to watch about what they are and I'll be back when I finish digesting that information.

 

Once I do all that, I think the idea of hiding the list and making a start point is so much fun. What a great idea. I think that's what you meant by shoot the coordinates. I can do that with my smartphone, right? Unfortunatley I will be the most experienced geocacher....so you can only imagine how crazy this experience will be.

[+BCandMsKitty]

Ummm..

 

Sorry, I didn't look at your profile to see what experience you had before I made my suggestions.

I guess they might be a bit too advanced for you at this time.

GSAK is a basically a data base program for (as far as I know) computers. It will allow you to work with pocket queries, or other groups or geocaching data, and, for example, print out various parts of that data.

 

I'm not really sure how you will be able to have groups of folks finding geocaches in a competition if none of them know how to enter coordinates and navigate to them.

[+RatZelster]

Ummm..

 

Sorry, I didn't look at your profile to see what experience you had before I made my suggestions.

I guess they might be a bit too advanced for you at this time.

GSAK is a basically a data base program for (as far as I know) computers. It will allow you to work with pocket queries, or other groups or geocaching data, and, for example, print out various parts of that data.

 

I'm not really sure how you will be able to have groups of folks finding geocaches in a competition if none of them know how to enter coordinates and navigate to them.

 

I know it's a hurdle that we'll have to overcome. But you gave me excellent ideas. I was able to figure out how to run a pocket query with the regular website. I even figured out how to save it. I took a screenshot of the map and then all the coordinates from the pocket query list. I pasted those into a Google Doc that we can all share.

 

You got me going and I really appreciate it.

[+RatZelster]

Do you have GSAK?

If so, do a PQ of the caches you want in the competition.

Print out a cache name and coordinates list for each of the teams.

Before the day, hide one of the coordinate lists for each team (could be in a cache of relatively equal distance from the start). At the start, give each team the coords to only one of the caches with the list in it. They split up and go to their (start) cache to get the cache list.

Or, if you don't want to put the coords list in a cache, hide them somewhere in a baggie and shoot the coords to give to each team.

Let them manually input the coords and roll without a map.

Hopefully there will be one person in each group that knows how to enter coords.

 

I'm so doing this with a little variation on the theme. From someone else's suggestion, I did a pocket query of large caches within a 3 miles area of where we are staying. I will try and go out and make different starting points. But my backup plan, if I can't figure out how to do that, is this. Every cache has a different level of difficult, terrain and distance from the place we're staying. I thought I might let my family do a bit of strategizing....you get points by adding up the difficulty, terrain and distance and then everyone has to be back to a central point by a certain time. That way if you want to up into the mountain and only do one, it will gives you more points because it's further away. Or your strategy might be to do all the easy ones nearby.

 

I have two scientists, an actuary and a financial planner in my family. We're a little nerdy, but a fun loving group. So I think the mathy part of this will be fun for them and hopefully since I picked "large" for the cache size, it won't be too hard to find.

 

What do you think of that plan?

[+BCandMsKitty]

Well, good for you, and good luck.

 

A good side benefit from all this is that you will be learning a lot about your equipment, caching software, and hiding methods for whenever you decide to start hiding your own caches ... and who knows? You might spawn some caching children from exposing your family to the game.

 

Have fun.