Those that follow me at all know that I’m a geocacher. (Geocaching 101 here). Geocaching is where some people hide caches out and about and post the coordinates on geocaching dot come and other people download those coordinates and go find the caches. There are over two million geocaches in the world now. An affiliated activity of geocaching is travel bugs. Travel bugs are tagged items, with individual tracking codes, that travel from geocache to geocache or person to person. Every time they are moved the person who does the moving logs the movement on geocaching dot com. Plus other people log a “Discover” a travelbug without actually taking it. On November 6, an American Astronaut, Rick Mastraccio, took a travel bug to the International Spache Station. (There has been a geocache on the International Space Station since 2008.)
Some travelbugs are actually coins similar to the one above. The tags and coins are called “trackables” and lots of geocachers paricipate. I don’t too much. I’ve lost too many of other people’s trackables and some people keep the trackables without sending them on. I’ve had one geocoin do pretty well though. I launched a geocoin that I named “Memories of Other Places” in August 2005 here in Tulsa.
It knocked around Oklahoma and Texas for a time and then went to Washington State and the West Coast.
And then somebody took it to Germany where it spent years with one side trip to Greece and France. It is now in the Netherlands. I’d love for it to come back to the States some time but Europeans are taking very good care of it.
All told it has travelled 16,639.7 miles and has been moved between caches or between people, or “discovered” 367 times. I think that is pretty remarkable. Many trackables disappear long before then.
I have been wanting to launch another travel bug but have been discouraged because of the high disppearance rate but I saw a product on Amazon that I just had have. It is a large travel bug tag that is magnetized so that it can be attached to a large metallic object.
So I bought one and attached it to my car, a Kia Soul. I named the travel bug “All is Well With My Soul” after my second favorite Baptist Hymn. (My most favorite is Softly and Tenderly by the way.) I was pretty excited about this. Heather is a lot more reserved in her excitement. On facebook where I first announced my new travel bug she wrote, “Eyes rolling and sighing……” I know that she will come around. At least I hope that she does before she finds out that I am preparing to turn her car into a trackable also. If she doesn’t come around I might have to ask if any of my fellow bloggers out there have an extra couch that I could borrow for a a brief time.
So Saturday I went geocaching in midtown Tulsa and at an isolated lake southeast of Tulsa. I found six total. I am not looking for any geocachers to steal my car to log the cache I’m hoping that a few geocachers spot the tag on my car and log it as a discover. We’ll just have to see what happens. So far I’ve only logged 20.5 miles on my new trackable.
What is the point of turning my car into a trackable? I don’t know its that I like connections. Who knows who’ll log it and where they are from and what they are doing.
Oh, you do have so much fun with all of this and I love it!!! Thanks for sharing it with us!! And thanks for the best giggle I’ve had in a while!!You are one of the reasons I find blogging so much fun!! Have a great week!!
Geocatching sounds like a fun hobby, Yogi. Your memory coin’s voyage has been amazing!
I love this idea and if I were a travel bug would gladly travel around the world. Hmmm…. Maybe that’s an idea.
My immediate reaction is that Yogi is “asking” for his car to be “half-inched” (pinched/stolen) but perhaps people are more honest in OK?
That coin has had amazing travels around Europe (cue for a book title?) and is obviously quite happy where it is for the time being.
Good use of a picture of a backside of a car Yogi – you know how to get this reader’s gander up. Request translation if required. Thank you for not making it larger:-)
Geocatching does sound like fun! I would like to be a travel bug. Great post, thanks for sharing.
keep us posted … don’t think i would ever do that. but it does sound interesting. ( :
i think this is a brilliant plan …
Hopefully I’ll see it, so I can log it. I’ve only seen one car TB on the road. Most have been at an event.
Fun post!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.
Fascinating post ~ looking forward to how this progresses ~ thanks, carol, xxx
A fun hobby. The connections part would be the best part for me.
I’ve done some geocaching with students and it was a lot of fun. I hadn’t heard of the travelbug though. Keep us posted of its travels, please.
You make it make sense. Geocaching is intelligent fun. Doing it has gotten me and my family out and about in places we would have overlooked–not the Grand Canyon but the beautiful places near home. It’s a great hobby. I love your posts about it. You are a great teacher!
This all sounds like so much fun. I’d be interested in seeing how far your latest travel bug goes. Now that we are in retirement, I think geocaching would be a great hobby. Thanks also for stopping by my blog. I found your comment about Heather’s cousin keeping donkies very interesting. I can just envision one chasing away a coyote. Maybe mine was practicing his herding.
Sounds like a lot of fun!
The modern day equivalent of treasure hunting. Sounds great fun.
How interesting, and it sounds like fun!
Sounds like a fun adventure to me. It’s amazing your coin has been discovered 367 times! Very cool.