Podcast: Play in new window | Download
On our geocaching podcast today, we have a discussion about geocache hints - the good, bad, and how you use them! We also share an FTF hunt after a dry spell, some cool new GeoArt in Poland, listener feedback, an amazing new geocaching show and much more.
Listen To The Show (38:34)
Show Discussion: Please chat about the show by commenting on this post below.
Show Images: Go to the Flickr set
Links mentioned in the show
Under the Lamppost Talk - Episode 1
THE OAKS in California (hidden 11/25/02) - is this the oldest LPC?
HQ Announces a new Event Cache type!
Camp GoLI - Long Island's Big Event - July event in New York
Camp GoLI Event Website
GeoART in Poland from Zodiak #1 Baran Aries to Zodiak # 888 Slonce Sun
SUPPORT PodCacher: Join the PodCacher Club
OWD - Travel Bug Hotel - Utah
Preventative Medicine M*A*S*H Cache - Utah
Listen to PodCacher EASILY on one of the PodCacher apps - for iOS and Android
Find MANY ways to listen to PodCacher
Follow the PodCacher Geocaching Blog
NOW OPEN: PodCacher Media Academy
Never Miss Out: Join the PodCacher Insider Mailing List
PodCacher Hotline number for your speed dial! (760) 300-3633
Call us with your rants, raves and as a roving reporter
The April Fools jokes had me thinking the whole show was going to be fake.
I am a bit behind in listening but I like to give some feedback on this interesting topic about hints. Most of all I do fully agree with your opinion on useless hints. Like “next to the tree” when you’re in the woods.
But there is another reason why I give very explicit hints as a cache owner on my caches in Amsterdam. There are more people than geocachers who love that there are hints on the geocaches and I can give you 2 categories.
First of all I would like to mention that I got approval from the authorities in Amsterdam on placing geocaches but that they have to comply with their rules. That is: a geocache should not be religious, political or commercial. Check. Then a geoacache should not be attached to ‘street furniture’ (like benches or boxes) with chains or anything. Check. Street furniture should not be changed. Check. And then they have another rule: a geocache should not lead to nuisance from a crowd. And for that I have put these explicit hints on busy places so there will be no unrest on the street when people see geocachers searching around a box and don’t know what is happening.
The second group are the neighbours next to the geocaches. I have informed them all so they know about the geocache. However, they also want no unrest so that people are looking around or searching on the street near the place where they live or own a shop and making noise or causing damage when they can’t find it. Now they see people quietly and calmly walking to that black cap or that traffic sign mentioned in the hint and take the geocache and log.
I do that explicitly on busy urban locations and from the logs I see that geocachers are happy that they have explicit hints when they go searching on a very busy place. Besides: many geocachers are tourists from abroad and they want to spend their time to look around in Amsterdam and see interesting places in the few days that they are there and not so much on searching. That is why my geocaches are locations with explicit hints so they have time left to look around on that location.
Anyway, another interesting podcast and keep on caching!