31 Days of Geocaching: Day 24

My sister gave me this awesome coin! It a treasure chest that opens to display its booty inside!

31 Days of Geocaching: Day 13

Speaking of bright & shiny (see yesterday's post), another fun aspect of Geocaching is the path tags!
Path tags are approximately the size of a quarter. Unlike geocoins (which are sent out with missions), path tags are customized collectables to keep or to trade.

Here are some recent trades. My sister's signature tag is the lower, left corner one.

Sometimes you can earn them (for completing a series of tasks) or receive them as a souvenir from an event. These tags are from this year'S Midwest Geobash. The lower left is my personal tag (gorgeous I person but hard to photograph). The lower right is my sister's 'Bash tag!

This year'S theme was Mardi GRAS

I've been very lucky - my sister is a very talented designer and designed both of mine. As they are too shiny to really photograph, I'll show you her blueprints.

My signature tag

My 2013 GeoBash tag

It's always a thrill to find one in a Geocache! You can log them online so the giver can see who has it, where they found it, and what they think of it.
So far I've collected a few....

So pretty!

Happy caching!
Elisa

31 Days of Geocaching: Day 12

It's raining today and, as I was dressed for work, I went with an easy cache.  Not too thrilling.  What excites me, though?  Trackables!

According to Groundspeak:

A Trackable is a sort of physical geocaching "game piece." You will often find them in geocaches or see them at geocaching gatherings. Each Trackable is etched with a unique code that can be used to log its movements as it travels in the real world. Some of these items have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles thanks to geocachers who move them from cache to cache!

Trackables can be geocoins or travel bugs. A cacher will purchase a trackable with a unique tracking code, often attach it to another item (called a "hitchhiker"), and drop it into a cache with a mission.  Most commonly, the mission will be "to go as far as possible".  Then, when the next cacher finds it in a cache, they will pick it up and move it along to another cache.  Because of the unique tracking code, every movement is logged online and anyone can watch the progress of the item.

This giant Peeps mission is to attend wherever cachers meet

My trackable in the Czech Republic. 

An example of a "geocoin".  Pretty, isn't it?

This is my Ginger - I released it in Canada

This moose wanted to return to Marquette, Michigan where its owner went to college

This is an example of a "travel bug" with many "hitchhikers" attached.

Beautiful geocoin from Great Britain. 

You can attach a trackable to anything

My favorite trackable.  I moved it from Michigan to Ohio for its owner.

Often, TB owners will ask you to take pictures of their trackables with local landmarks

This one has been on the move since 2007

This one wants to re-join a matching trackable released at the same time

Because coins often go missing, many people collect and don't release geocoins

Little mouse traveled from England in memory of its late owner

Some of my trackables have traveled as far as Australia, Germany, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands.  I have many trackables with over 10,000 miles on them!

It's great to know that, even as I'm tucked at home avoiding the rain, my trackables are out there exploring the world and reporting back to me!

Elisa