Exciting TB ventures.

[TinmanJones]

After not paying much attention to where my TB's are or have traveled to, I took a few minutes today and checked on their where-a-bouts.

I'm thrilled that two of them visited GeoWoodstock earlier this year. They went there via two different directions, yet were there at the same time. Very cool if you ask me!
It's just amazing that you can place two separate TB's, in two completely different locations, at different times of the year, and they end up at the same event, on the same weekend.

My Tucan TB took the route from Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, D.C., New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, then over to GeoWoodstock.

My Pig TB took the route from Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, then up to GeoWookstock.The Pig was dropped there on 6/29 and retrieved on 7/1. The Tucan was dropped on 7/1 and retrieved on 7/2.

Ive heard some pretty sad stories of TB's going missing. I only own 4 traveling TB's and out of the 4, 3 of them are making some pretty exciting adventures. The third is lost somewhere here in Arkansas, only 87 miles from my house! LOL

My Shark TB left south Arkansas and has made its way from the beaches of South Carolina, to Florida, to Tx, to the New York Area, and is now traveling Canada. Its mission was to see the world by coast line and dog-on-it, its doing a fair job of it.

I hope that you guys/gals that have TB's are getting some good mileage out of yours too.

Im sure there are some here that have had TB's go millions of miles and around the globe.
Thanks for letting me share my little story here.

[Flyfishingcachers]

We are not having very good luck with ours right now. We have three, one of them goes wherever that cacher goes, he takes it places but never puts it in a cache. Another one made to Hawaii and back to the US only to be kept by the cacher who brought it back. The other one never got logged being taken from the second cache it was placed in. Have contacted both of the first cachers with no luck yet. We have another one to place, wonder what will happen to it?

[pshelto]

TinManJones,

I am glad you started this thread; I love trackables and they are one of the main reasons I still cache regularly (and just about the only thing I will drive out of my way to find).

My Cachepalooza Coin TB2MQKJ is over in Germany right now. I placed it in Las Cruces, NM and then it jumped to Central Park and then overseas, where it is floating all around German.

My GroundSpeak Lackey Coin TB2W65Y is somewhere in Aussia Land. It jumped around the US from Cali to Chicago and then jumped to Australia. It has over 12k miles on it.

The Travel Pirate Geocoin TB30A9F jumped west to Cali and then east to NC and now it's just up the road in Kansas.

Anyways, like I said, I think that TB and coins are really cool. I'm working on building one that utilizes a 2D data matrix type code on it that can be scanned by a smart phone and it logs it automatically. It'll probably never happen, but I am going to try my luck. If anyone would like to donate a coin, TB or one of those faux path tags, feel free to send me a message.

[Flyfishingcachers]

Well, Ron, I'm right there with you now. All I am going to say is if anyone is up to doing any island hiking that looks like quite an adventure go and find "The Sugar Loaf Island Cache" GC1ACD and retrieve our tb "Traveling Hiker" and bring it back to someplace where every geocacher has a chance to move it to another cache. There is already a tb in that cache that has been in it for a year. Just sayin......

[OldRiverRunner]

I have not had any luck with trackables. Over the time I have been a geocacher, I have released 7 travel bugs. Four have gone missing (one just in August) and the other three have been grabbed by geocachers who have not yet moved them and are unresponsive to my emails asking them to please move them along. This includes a trackable that was released last month as part of a TB race, and is still being held by the first geocacher who grabbed it (therefore, NO travel). This experience has led me to develop the following.



Old River Runner’s Rules on Trackables (Travel Bugs and Geocoins)

1. It is only a game.

2. If you release a trackable into circulation, you do so at your own risk.

3. Once you release it, consider it lost forever.

4. Be happy for any day it stays in circulation and consider it a miracle.

5. If a trackable is placed in a cache with little traffic, refer to Rule # 1.

6. If a trackable is placed in a cache and that cache is muggled, refer to Rules # 1, 2, and 3.

7. Geocachers who move your trackables for you should not be held responsible for whatever happens to your trackable in the future. They are only trying to help you out and should have your thanks, not your criticism. If they err, they do so with the best of intentions.

8. If a geocacher grabs your trackable and keeps it or does not log it, refer to Rules # 1, 2, and 3.

9. And, always, refer to Rule # 1.

[thefab5willisclan]

I have not had any luck with trackables. Over the time I have been a geocacher, I have released 7 travel bugs. Four have gone missing (one just in August) and the other three have been grabbed by geocachers who have not yet moved them and are unresponsive to my emails asking them to please move them along. This includes a trackable that was released last month as part of a TB race, and is still being held by the first geocacher who grabbed it (therefore, NO travel). This experience has led me to develop the following.



Old River Runner’s Rules on Trackables (Travel Bugs and Geocoins)

1. It is only a game.

2. If you release a trackable into circulation, you do so at your own risk.

3. Once you release it, consider it lost forever.

4. Be happy for any day it stays in circulation and consider it a miracle.

5. If a trackable is placed in a cache with little traffic, refer to Rule # 1.

6. If a trackable is placed in a cache and that cache is muggled, refer to Rules # 1, 2, and 3.

7. Geocachers who move your trackables for you should not be held responsible for whatever happens to your trackable in the future. They are only trying to help you out and should have your thanks, not your criticism. If they err, they do so with the best of intentions.

8. If a geocacher grabs your trackable and keeps it or does not log it, refer to Rules # 1, 2, and 3.

9. And, always, refer to Rule # 1.

Amen!

[rklmbl]

We imagine our stories are similar to a lot of other travel bug owners. Over the years we have released 26 bugs. Nine have gone missing. Four stopped after one or two drops. Our bug Math Teacher has traveled over 38,000 miles and is in the United Kingdom. We have found that bugs that make it to Europe and/or military zones have the best luck with constant travel. It is a sad commentary that a great percentage of our bugs that have stopped traveling still have Arkansas geocachers' fingerprints on them. But that will not keep us from releasing bugs in the future. And any that we pick up, we try to place back in what we consider safe places for quick pickups by other cachers. We have no respect for cachers who collect bugs and carry them around like trophies in bags. And, now, we will step off our soapbox for today. Thanks for listening. As ORR says, it is just a game/sport.

[OldRiverRunner]

... if anyone is up to doing any island hiking that looks like quite an adventure go and find "The Sugar Loaf Island Cache" GC1ACD and retrieve our tb "Traveling Hiker" and bring it back to someplace where every geocacher has a chance to move it to another cache. There is already a tb in that cache that has been in it for a year.......

Rhone and I braved the strong wind and cold this morning and kayaked over to Sugar Loaf Island, to find the two caches hidden there. Sadly, there were no travel bugs in either cache. My guess on your TB, Flyfishingcachers, is that it was picked up by Eosphere46. He/she was the only cacher to log a find of GC1ACD since the TB was placed there, finding it just this past Sunday. Strangely, he or she did not visit the other cache on the island, Savoy's Castaway Cache (GC1776) (http://coord.info/GC1776), which was only abut 1000 feet away with mostly level hiking!

You may want to shoot an email to Eosphere46 and ask him/her to log it out of the cache!

[Flyfishingcachers]

I had this cache on my watchlist and saw that you and Rhone went today. I am going to contact Eosphere46. However, I have a good idea what is going on with my travelbugs.

[thefab5willisclan]

Two travelbugs that I thought were lost have shown back up in just the last 2 days. We are excited for sure. One thanks to Arkfiremedic and another Thanks to an email that I sent to the holder who was just new to the sport and didn't know how to log it.

[Jffok]

When you mark a tb or coin missing and it shows back up , does it just go back in your inventory? I have a coin that is not in the cache it is logged into and people post on there that i should log it missing to get it out of inventory. Should I???

[OldRiverRunner]

When you mark a tb or coin missing and it shows back up , does it just go back in your inventory? I have a coin that is not in the cache it is logged into and people post on there that i should log it missing to get it out of inventory. Should I???

Either the cache owner or the the trackable owner should mark the trackable as missing if it is pretty clear that the trackable is no longer in the cache. I have done this myself for trackables that have gone missing from my caches, and for my own trackables that have disappeared from another's cache. If someone eventually logs the trackable again, then it will show back up in your inventory. This has happened on one of my TBs.

[dcwalker30]

Would making a habit of only placing TBs in "Member Only" caches help keep them in circulation? Or are members just as likely as non-members to keep TBs as trophies (read: steal) ? I have an idea that most go missing because newbie cachers pick them up and don't have a clue what they are. My friend has 20 something total finds to his name over the last year. A few months ago I was talking about an upcoming trip to FL and taking some TBs with me for mileage. He said, "Oh, I think I have one of those!" He went to his room and brought it back. http://coord.info/TB27FYK It hadn't been logged by anyone in over a year. He was about to take it to Canada, and it's mission was to get to Texas. He had no idea that you could track them on the website, he thought they were just for passing around. I "kindly" took the TB from him and moved it closer to it's goal (NOT CANADA). The TB owner was ecstatic to see that it had resurfaced after a year of going dark!

So moral of the story ... when introducing friends to geocaching, make sure to go over TBs with them so they don't hang on to them like idiots :)

[OldRiverRunner]

It's been out of circulation for a year now. I still have to decide whether to own up to it, or let it mysteriously pop back into the game, LOL!

Own up to it! We all make mistakes, and the TB owner will appreciate your honesty and probably get a good laugh out of your story.

Regarding whether to place TBs into Premium Members Only caches, that might solve the problem only if ALL premium members of Geocaching.com did the same! Good luck in getting that to work!

[chimps8mybaby]

I need some opinions......I just adopted a TB hotel that when it was placed, I told my wife that I bet it'll be missing within two weeks because you can see it from the interstate and a state highway. Anyway, I was wrong about that and it has lasted 2+ years. Now that I have adopted it, I looked to see how many TBs and coins had gone missing from it. Out of 97 that have been logged in, 12 have gone missing from it equalling 12.37%. That doesn't seem too good to me but I haven't compared it to any other TB hotel. Any thoughts? I have it disabled at the moment and in my living room.

[Flyfishingcachers]

Got a message this week that our Traveling Hiker was found in the Sugar Loaf Island cache. Glad it magically appeared there!!! Has been moved to the Russellville area, maybe it can keep going now.

[Coon&Bud]

Trackables...I have several stories. The first is a trackable that is stuck in a gingerrose cache by the convention center in Hot Springs. I virtually dropped it ther a few YEARS back and a gave it to a buddy at a convention. He said thanks and put it in a shaving kit of his. He has since missplace the said shaving kit...go figure.

I have a travel bug last dropped in June at a cache called On Cosby GCPB89. I have made contact with several cachers who found the cache later and it is missing. CAKnowles even helped me out! I have marked it as lost. One cacher noted that a hous eis nearby with kids. I bet my Mustang is now a new addition to somebodies collection!

Another one. My travel bug released for the great Arkansas travel bug race is doing well, over 5,000 mile and still moving. I got lucky!

I have several in mh possession currently and will drop them when I fell I can drop them in a safe cache or event. I like moving bugs.

Cardsfan55 was moving a travel bug tiki-taki-tiki or something like that I helped him out. Well later some cacher dropped it in the high desert of Utah and it is now stranded in a far distant cache. The sad thing is it travel only less than my travel bug has that is in a race. The bug could have won had it bee properly logged and the finders read the bugs page.


Lastly DO contact the finders of your bugs it does help. Most do not read the bugs page. A little nudge does help.


Coon&Bud

[apache_scout]

We have no luck with Travel Bugs and just to prove it we started a Trvel Bug race to finish (probably last) near the end of the pack.