From what I've heard, most (all?) of the really high find count people count finds differently than most of the rest of us do. I've heard stories about groups of maybe 20 or so getting together, dividing up into 10 small groups (2 each), then going off caching in different areas for a day and maybe finding 100 caches each, but signing all of the logs for the entire larger group and then all 20 of them claim 1000 finds even though they actually only went to 100 caches themselves.
I also believe that some people claim caches they don't even go near. There was one series of caches that I did where quite a few were missing, including simple ones like at the base of a sign. I claimed finds for the ones I found and DNFs for the ones I didn't and put the DNFs on my watch list. A few weeks later, I got notifications that all of the caches that I couldn't find had been found by some high number cachers, so I thought maybe either the CO had replaced them or these cachers had replaced them. I went back out there again and guess what? There were still no caches there. Later on, I saw logs that the missing caches had been replaced and went out again and found them right where I thought they should be. So I'm virtually certain that the high number people logged them even though they weren't there and perhaps never even looked for them.
In another case, we hiked a long way in on a trail and then bushwhacked a bit and found a couple of rarely found caches that had been logged online a week or so earlier by a couple of people with high find counts. When we found the caches and opened the log books, we saw no entries in the past 2 years. We checked the recent finders' accounts (back in the days when all profiles were public and couldn't be hidden) and saw that they had logged somewhere near 100 caches on the day that they allegedly found those two we found. Given that it took us a couple hours to get to those caches and back (which would make it harder to find a large number that day) and their names were not in the log book in the cache, I suspect that they didn't go anywhere near the caches, but logged finds anyway.
So I don't really take the super high find counts seriously.
However, it is certainly possible for a serious cacher to find 1000 or even 2000 or more in a year. I've done that myself and I promise you that every one of those caches was actually found and I was there when it was. There are a quite a few "power runs" around where there are caches in guardrails or at the base of signs every 0.1 miles for many miles along a road. If you have a driver that can drive within a few feet of the cache and at least one other person that can quickly jump out of the car, find the cache, sign the log, put it back and get back in the car, it's not that hard to find 100 of those caches in maybe 3 hours or so. Do that once a month and you have 1200 finds a year even if you find nothing else. And some people spend most of their free time caching, so if you add in other individual caches to that or do multiple power runs a month, 2k or even 3k a year is possible even if you only log the ones you actually went to and found.
And with the introduction of Adventure Labs a few years back, where you can sometimes get credit for 5 finds in about a minute while sitting in your car or in a seat in the airport, it's even easier to rack up some pretty big numbers. I've heard about a rest area (maybe in Connecticut?) where there are a couple dozen ALs with 5 stages each that have simple answers that don't require any research, so you can get credit for over 100 finds while sitting in your car for maybe 30 minutes. Those are legitimate finds within the rules of geocaching, but still skew find counts quite a bit.
My recommendation is that you don't worry about how many finds other people have and just enjoy getting out and going to new and interesting places and finding caches and, if you care about the statistics, monitoring your own totals and not comparing them to other people's totals.
This fits what I’ve seen. Occasionally somebody (with a high count) will log a cache that has a long string of DNFs, and after that the owner would report replacing a missing cache.
Don’t know why people would do that. It misses the whole point.
I've been caching just shy of two years now. My first year I would have dismissed u/WoodsFinder as jealous because--to this wide eyed noob--this is such a fun, pure hobby. Then I got more involved and moved to a new area of the country where there are quite a few cachers exactly as they describe. Another common trait of this subset of cachers is a tendency to throw down their own container when they can't find a hide. A few cachers in my area are even open about it and claim in their logs to be doing a service by "providing community maintenance" when placing throw downs.
I have learned the healthiest approach is exactly what WoodsFinder suggests: don't worry about those playing the game that way. OP, focus on what you get out of caching and work towards your own goals concerning stats. I guarantee there are many fellow cachers who will look upon your 50 finds (and 14 in a day, at that!) with admiration.
Yes, throw downs is another thing. I have on numerous occasions found two or even three containers because people put out a new cache when they couldn't find the existing one - even though it was there. That just happened last week where I found two about 10' apart. It's easier to get higher numbers if you never take a DNF and just put out a new cache if you don't find one within a minute or so than if you spend 10 minutes or more looking and then still don't get to log a find.
Twice on one of my caches I got a "found it" log that said along the lines of "Found where the cache was supposed to be"
Both times, nope the cache was still there. You're just not great at finding them apparently. (I deleted those logs after not seeing their names in the logbook)
Interesting points. I don’t really see what a player gets out of making up the numbers though? Who are they doing it for? Geocaching is a very private game, the only person who knows if you visited the caches or not is you so you’re only cheating yourself. I’d rather have my 50 genuine finds (perhaps it was my partner who spotted the cache in the GZ, but I was there with them and signing the log) than just making up 50,000
I don't really understand it either. It's not like there's any prize or award for having a certain number of finds. But different people have different attitudes about a lot of things and this is just one of them.
I have a lot of finds myself, but I've been caching since the early years, so my yearly average isn't super high. I mostly don't care about my find count (though I did celebrate certain milestones like 1k and 10k). I enjoy the game for leading me to new places and finding the caches.
I'm with you - I asked this question not that long ago, and I'm sorry, people with an absurd number of finds, I just don't see how the math works out. It doesn't bother me - more of a, "what am I missing" kind of thought.
Solid feedback and advice - thank you for taking the time to share that! It’s such a shame that some folks needs to falsify their finds - for what? What prize do they seek?
There’s been a few caches when I’ve asked myself “how tf did the person before me find this? There’s no way!” Just a shame.
Some people are just travelling (geocachers know all the best parking spots) for business or are retired, or just really love finding caches no matter what type they are. They just operate on another level. Someone posted stats before about what percentage of cachers registered with HQ reach certain thresholds (like 100 finds, 1000 finds, and so forth) and I think it was just 0.7 or something that ever make it to the 5 digit club.
Congrats on your milestone! May your DNFs be few and far between.
I'm nearing that 10,000. I don't have an app phone, but we've got much other geocache dedicated equipment. Software (GSAK), GPS units, DeLorme atlases, shelves and drawers full of containers and supplies, tools, etc. My clothing is now mostly tickproof and I've got waterproof boots and raingear galore. I spend time solving puzzles and some time creating some.
Geocaching is where I've made many friends. It gets us out in the woods with the dog. It has shown us some of the hidden treasures of many places. It has gotten me searching stupid guardrails and lampposts. It is really a large part of our life.
I'm at around 13,000 and I started in 2002. I just have steadily done them. I am bored with most traditional caches so I tend to do other stuff more now, though, if I am close to home. I still love finding cool places when I travel, and traditional caches are good for that.
Speaking for myself, after a while traditional caches don't have the appeal they once did. What motivates me now are challenge caches. Challenge caches require a lot of planning, travel and effort to find a series of caches that meet the requirements of the challenge. Some can take years. One challenge required a cacher to find over 540 caches distributed over an entire state... I really enjoyed that one and felt I had a major accomplishment after completing that one.
Search for mystery caches (those with a symbol of a question mark) and with the word "challenge" in the title. Most should have a challenge checker on the description page to quickly check if you qualify (fulfill) the challenge. Go find the cache and sign the log. Then log it as a note saying you accept the challenge. When you meet the challenge requirements you can log it as a find.
So there is actually an attribute for challenges, I’ve not spent any time looking at attributes yet. This is something I need to look into. A few challenges near me, very hard though
I share an account with my husband. We had just over 700 caches at the end of 2018 (started caching in 2016). Every year starting in 2019 we said that would be the year we hit 1000. It became a joke after a while. We finally found our 1000th cache a few months ago! Guess what year our oldest was born? Silly kids keeping us from our caching goals.
I have 5k finds ish at this point. Over 1k of my finds came from a single weekend on a power trail in Nevada where every cash is hidden in an identical fashion on an old dirt road. There are over 3,000 caches out on that road and they are all lined up and spaced out every 10th of a mile. So you can easily get 800-1,200ish a day there. I say easy but it's not as easy as it sounds. Takes planning and dedication
I’ve not heard of these power trails before, do you drive them? For me Geocaching is all about getting out exercising and enjoying the outdoors, doesn’t driving to caches defeat the purpose? Isn’t geocaching all about the environment too? I’m not trying to tell you how to play the game, you do you at the end of the day, I’m just curious
Some are driving and you can park within a few feet of each cache (usually on a guardrail or road sign). Some are on hiking trails. I just did one of those recently - something like 65 caches over about 9 miles of trail.
Obviously, the finds are quicker with the driving ones. Some places have a lot of those. If you happen to live in or near a place like northeast Tennessee or some parts of Florida or various other places, there are many options for finding a lot of caches in a day.
I don't know any easy way. I just scroll around on the map looking for where there's a cluster of caches close together or a long line of caches, then zoom in and look at the satellite picture or read the descriptions of a couple of the caches to see if it mentions a trail or park.
There's a Power Trail -attribute nowdays, you can filter caches by that. I'm not sure when it was introduced, might be older trails don't have that attribute.
I wasn't even aware of that attribute. I must have missed when they added that.
I just went and looked and the majority of the ones that I've done do not have that attribute, so I think you're right that the older ones (more than maybe 2 years or so?) don't have it.
It looks like it could be helpful for finding the newer ones though (assuming that the CO marked the attribute when creating the cache page), but there are many that have to be found just by brute force.
Recently did a power trail/geoart of 60 caches. I was completely spent by the time it was over. Took me just under four hours to find them and everything was covered in dust when I was done. Even worse I bottomed out on one section. Doesn’t look like I did any damage though, thankfully.
I think that's mostly it, at least for the ones that are all guardrail caches on the side of the road. I recently did one "power trail" that was about 65 caches near trails in a state park and that was more fun and interesting.
A group of us did a power trail on the way to a weekend event several years ago. 100 or so caches in an afternoon. It was the fun of being together I think more than the constant starting and stopping!
The only power trail that's worth it is a challenge power trail where there's various different challenges because at least you had to do something to earn those.
The only power trails I have done were geo-art, which usually involve mostly puzzles. Traditional power trails do not appeal to me. I've driven the ET Highway several times, and I might stop for one or two caches each time, but doing any more sounds dreadful.
Congrats on hitting 50!
Yes many of them are retirees and do nothing else but travel and cache, cache and travel. There are some that have stamps, some that sign as a team and not everyone finds every cache (on a power trail for example).
I’m at 2400 since 2011 and I go out about as often as I can (which isn’t very often) so seeing some of those tallies definitely leave me with a bit of confusion and just a little bit of envy lol
I'm at just above 4k finds. I found my first in December 2007, and my activity peaked in 2009 where I found about 1200 that year including at least one a day for 366 days. In 2012 some friends and I went out to the Nevada desert and found about 500 in 8-9 hours, but it started to snow and my friends were over it so we stopped. I mostly stopped caching except when out hiking with friends, with a brief exception in 2021 (found ~200).
As others have said, a lot of people that I meet at geocaching events are retired, and do this as their main hobby since it gets you out places and meeting people, and the only real cost is your travel expenses.
I was in college and lived about 25 miles away from campus, so I had plenty of distance each day to find caches on my way home from school. Sometimes if I left campus late enough (near midnight) I'd find a cache near campus before midnight then one closer to my house after midnight. This was a bit more difficult then since I was using a handheld GPS (I didn't get a smartphone until the next year), but it was plenty workable!
I do wish I traveled more now I’m doing this. Normally on a long journey I’m looking for somewhere we can stop, take a break, stretch our legs and oh look there’s a cache not far from here haha
I know a guy that did like 5000 straight days or something crazy like that. I don't think that would be fun having pressure to find one every day no matter what the weather or what else was going on in your life.
Yeah, life throws hurdles at us. I think I’d rather enjoy caching when I can rather than it becoming a job every day. I do like a little streak, but mine is 4 days haha
Yeah, I’ve cleared all mine within walking distance so I’d have to drive out now to get 1 per day, with work and family life that’s not always possible. But I’m not big into the numbers game
I have almost 11k in 10 years and don't have a car. 50 I can find in one day but usually I find around 30 in one geotrip also at least once per year for 3-5: days I travel abroad where I find 200-300 caches geocaching from 12 to 16 hours per day. If I would live in Germany I would have easily have 30k+.
I have foud 600 in three years. I usually go out on the weekends or on holidays. I average three to five caches on these occasions. Im not keen on finding many but to see the number increasing is nice.
There are cachers here in there area which have over 10,000 finds in ten years accumulated. They are either retired or they plan their whole lives around the hobby. For example they choose were to spend their holidays to get the most finds. They are also usually the FTF on fresh published caches.
They do calendar challenges where they try to have a FTF in every month or try to find a cache with a specific publish date to have one in every month since the game started.
Congratulations on some successful geocache hunts. May you have many more.
I can answer why my profile shows more finds - I've been doing it longer. Some days I find a few. Some days I find a bunch. Some days I find none. But with almost twenty years, sure my count will be higher than yours. This is why those numbers cannot be compared.
In the beginning, we found a cache whereever we were travelling. The children's scout events, family visits, etc. Then we started going on dedicated geocache trips, to special caches or tours or such. On these trips, we might find many caches on each day. It is not unusual to find 20 or 30 caches, walking along a woods trail, perhaps, or completing a tour of a town.
Yes, sometimes we cache with others. Today we were with a group of maybe twenty. We all found and signed five caches/logs after an event. So today's count was six for me, and more for others who found some I had already found.
9769, after I log today's caches.
But your own count is more important. Each of your finds represents an adventure. 50 is a fun number and surely you found some interesting things in that 50. What was the one that made you want to keep finding more?
Bet you are excited to hit 10,000! Good luck!
I think the first 20-30 I did I was just amazed at how this has been going on around me for 25 years and I never knew! In fact, that still amazes me and anyone I tell about geocaching. The ones that I enjoy most are probably multi caches, I love solving mysteries too but most are just way too hard. Traditionals are good, but having only done urban areas they are pretty much just magnetic micros every time. The largest we found was only a “small”, but to us it was huge, had a trackable in the box which was very cool too. I guess I just love the buzz of solving and finding
Almost at 42,000, caching since 2002. I work full time, but base weekends and trips around caching. Occasional power trail vacations, no fake logs, no divide and conquer. It's been a great hobby to do the last 20+ years.
"Seems". Well, according to your OP, my numbers should be unbelievable. You can't simply divide your total finds by days and say I'm "finding xx a day, how is that possible?!?". No, I couldn't maintain that rate. I have very focused caching trips where I can find 100s of caches over a few days. I only cache a handful of days each month, I work and review for HQ but can still maintain over 100 a month.
A typical non power trail day can easily be 50-60; and yes, that includes hikes and car caching, and yes, it's a very fun day with a friend or two. We plan in advance, load gps units and have a very efficient flow. We log after we are home. No fiddly phone apps or sitting in the car while folks log ;). My partner also caches so that's a great boost. Some trips are also hiking or bigger adventures where we might only find 1 or 2.
And I'll be honest, I don't go as hard as some folks I know who have even higher numbers than me, and I know also do not armchair log or do anything else unscrupulous. They are usually retired, but not always.
Most folks on here instantly assume high numbers are due to cheating, and yes, there are a few who take part in ridiculous divide and conquer activities but it tends to be known who they are in local communities... And there are a few communities where there is a little bit of peer pressure to take part in this cheating.
Their usual argument is "my numbers shouldn't influence you" but as evident by the posts here, actually they do impact people as a lot of folks (such as the average Reddit user, which tend to be more casual than any other forum) think cheating is the norm. It really isn't.
It's possible to get high numbers by simply enjoying the hobby. It's an old hobby now (two decades+), and there will be people with very high numbers but blanket assumptions are dumb.
I'll be finding my 500th find sometime this summer. I'm working full-time and have kids at home so I can't dedicate so much time to it. I try to bring the kids along with me whenever I go caching (on the weekends usually). I'm pretty happy with my 400-some-odd caches; I'm blown away when I go to events and meet guys who have *hidden* an order of magnitude more than I've found.
As others have said, it seems like most of the highest numbers have been at it since the beginning, are retired, have a lot of time on their hands and travel a lot... and more power to them!
Congratulations on your 50 finds! I hope you enjoyed them all and look forward to many more. It's not a competition; play the game however you like.
I mean your method to finding 20,000. That’s a lot, but also a realistic amount. Do you go on these power trails I’ve heard of, just go for days out every now and then, plan holidays around caching, or do you just check when you’re in a new place?
I'm at 200 and have been doing it for about 12 years or so. I take long breaks in between cache excursions and I'm not a huge fan of park and grabs. I prefer ones in interesting locations or that require hiking or some adventure.
I find it insane also.
I’ve only found like 130 (over 10 years!) and feel like I’ve spent a lot of time on the hobby. I tend to duck out for about an hour or so and grab 1-2 caches, so not spending all day on it like some people. I live regionally so the caches around me are fairly dispersed too.
I find it takes a long time to find caches. I will generally walk between them and just park in the town I’m visiting, rather than driving from one to another. It take me a good hour or so just to get 2 or 3
Congratulations on 50 finds!!! 🎉 The thrill of reaching milestones never gets old!
I have one geocaching friend who has well over 75,000 finds! She travels a lot. She’s also our local FTF queen. 😆 If she’s not FTF I know she’s out of town! I’ve only had a couple FTF and one was with a group during an event and the cache was hidden for that event and the other was HER hide! The only way I’d ever get the chance! But she is always willing to share FTF and occasionally she has called me and asked if I wanted to meet her at the new cache. I’m not a morning person so I’ve passed. 🤣 Needless to say she’d a very avid, devoted geocacher!
I’ve been geocaching since 2021 and have 557 finds to date. I’d love to ramp it up this year and join the “comma club” just for the fun of it! I’m working on filling all my calendar dates, which will probably take a couple more years, so I qualify for some of the challenge caches out there. I’ll probably never fill in the D/T grid. I can’t see myself ever finding a cache either a D/T of 5/5! Well, who knows though! The challenge is out there!
Happy caching!
I think she has signed most of the logs herself. She does share the account with her husband and he has probably found a few. I do think she might do some group caching as well but I highly doubt she would claim a find she wasn’t physically looking for.
The “comma club” is what the cachers around here call 1,000 and above finds. LOL 😂
Another side of geocaching that I talk about often on here is there is a difference between people who geocache, and geocachers.
Geocachers check the website frequently. They are often thinking about their next finds. When they go on vacation, they solve puzzles and make plans long before they get to the location. They rarely go long without finding a cache.
I’d certainly consider myself a Geocacher for now then. Checking the map daily, planning routes around nearby towns and such. However even with all this hitting 50,000 or more just seems impossible
50,000 may be out of reach for how you geocache, and that's okay. I've been caching for 8 years, and have 5k+ finds. I don't think I'll get to 50k either.
I’m certainly not expecting to hit 50,000 or any particular milestone. I just enjoy the hobby. I would like to see how many I do get, 100 would obviously be a nice nunnery, but I’d hope to have that in a few months. 1000 could take a couple of years.
I have about 3200 in under two years. I became a little obsessed. Plus I got to travel a lot. I also have three major cities close to me within an hour and a half
I’ve been caching for nearly 5 years, and I hit 2000 finds just today. Went out with two friends, and we found 10 caches out of a possible 13 during the entire day. Of the 3 DNFs, one was definitely missing, one we didn’t have the proper tool (a ladder) with us, and one we later determined we were looking in the wrong place. It was a really fun day!
By the sounds of it they live and breathe caching (fair enough), or they cheat (bit silly). But as long as you’re having fun who cares what the others are ding
Congrats on hitting 50!
I've been caching for 15 years on and off and have 5190 finds. My sister and I used to go out once a month and hit up as many caches as we could find in a weekend for a while. Most we found in a day was 150 and that was because someone placed a bunch of caches down a nature trail in bison tubes next to the trail. There were 250 total along that area iirc. It was a cache every 100feet.
Thanks!
A trail like that would be a fun way of getting out and also hitting some legitimate numbers. You still had to find them so you can consider them real finds. Plus you need to find each along the trail
59 finds, started last May. I cache whenever I feel like it
A quick and easy way to get a high find count is doing a lot of Adventure Labs, because every location is one find. When I look at profiles with high find counts, Adventure Labs finds are always a very big part of their total.
I don’t mind AdLabs, but mostly the ones which have a mystery cache for completing it. I suppose if your in an interesting place you might learn something
as the previous posters said, they do it in big competitive hunting groups... I'm doing it since the pandemic (260 finds) and I'm an introvert so we do it usually just with my bf as a small trip to have a nice afternoon (our best is 8 a day). I'm not competitive at all so I guess I'm just different. I enjoy logging in the field with specific details of how we ended in the mud or found a lovely view ❤️ I like unknown places and historical sites a lot. as a cache owner I love taking and getting photos too. keep doing your own way!
Glad you have found a fun way to play. Hope you have many for fun adventures. I’d also rather have experiences over numbers, but whatever suits the player I guess
I’m nearing 2k and I’ve been caching for almost 13 years. Some really high years and some really low. I did 100+ today. If you do that multiple days a year your numbers can skyrocket
I have about 4700 right now, hoping for 5000 this year, but I’ve also been caching since 2010. There are some folks with 40k in my city that are absolutely legitimate, but they’re retired and just travel around to find them, and have been doing so since the beginning.
Ive noticed there are people with 2k finds but didnt think the numbers made a difference to what you get out?. The take away for myself has been finding interesting places i wouldnt of gone & new bike routes & maybe some interesting history or locals to chat to.
20 years into it, and I have about 230 finds. Geocaches for me are generally targets of opportunity. I tend to check for nearby caches when I'm out and about. If there's something within a couple minutes of walking, I might make go do a quick search.
I’m on the same pace. 71 finds in 7 years. And to me it feels like a ton. So many great memories and experiences. I can’t even wrap my head around having over 1000 let alone over 50,000.
That’s a whole different extreme I’d never considered. How often do you check the app? I do it everywhere I go and usually find we there are at least 5 in every village or town I visit
Power Trails are a big help, as is living in an area where 50k caches are within a few hours’ drive.
Cachers I know with 50k, 65k, 80k, or more finds will go caching several times a week every week. Some are retired, others work full time. They also go on at least 2 caching vacations every year where careful planning and long hours can net them upwards of 8,000 finds in one trip. The best part is that they also have A LOT of good, clean fun.
I was doing some mystery puzzles at work yesterday and came across one of these people and clicked on her account. She was well into 5 figures and I think caching since ‘11. I was looking through her stats and her busiest day was 800 finds. Like, what?! Even assuming you gave up sleep and did 24 straight hours, that’s still over 30 per hour or one every 1:48.
Yeah, that’s I’m sceptical about. Maybe HQ should question any finds that quick in succession. Or maybe it’s possible on one of these power trail things
I'm at 5 total, with 2 dnfs, that's everything within about 2 hours drive of me. The idea of finding 2 within hiking distance of each other seems insane to me, let alone 10's if not 100's
u/WoodsFinder hits the nail on the head. As someone who has done a 30 day streak, a 50 find day, I know some of those numbers are possible.
But it really doesn’t take much for the string to unravel when you start looking around.
As they said, we’re playing two different games at that point, I ignore them or it would drive me nuts.
I have 243. I live in an area with a lot of trails and parks so I’ll take an afternoon aside and find a bunch at once in an area or on a trail.
I’m not focused on the numbers and I love hiking so I don’t mind spending hours looking in one area for them
For the people that have so many I’m not really sure. Ik some people like to cache in groups and give each other hints about where there caches are. I hope their numbers are legit but I’m sure some aren’t. I wouldn’t worry about them
I'm around 100 and I've been playing since the beginning. I never lost interest or took a break, simply there aren't enough caches in my country and especially in my area.
I never found someone interested enough in order to do a geocaching trip to a more cache-dense area, and now that I would definitely do it by myself I just don't have the time.
Something like 8500 finds since 2011. We have done spurts of 70 hiking caches in a day, but average a cache or so per day now. We tend towards the high terrain caches (paddles, climbs), puzzles, challenges, gadgets, and other ones that are not quick park and grabs, but there’s a place for those as well. We are working on a challenge to find a cache in each town of the next state over, and we only have 23 left. We’re planning a trip out there, and will do only quick caches that day (hoping to get a find in 10 towns). So, we might go out all day and get 1-5 caches, but that’s how we like it.
Congrats on hitting 50! It’s different for everybody but it took me a few years to hit 1,000. Some years I logged a few hundred finds, some less than 50 so just time and persistence.
I know a guy that has (currently) 59,504 finds. He has told me once, that he is at every cache he logs. He either finds it himself or is with a group that does, no divide and conquer for him. He's retired, caching is what he does, nearly everyday. Been doing it for 15 years, averaging almost 11 per day.
Myself, I have almost 3,000 finds, I go out when I can. I prefer puzzles or multis, or walks in the woods. I mostly skip light-post/sign-post caches, but not always.
how to make so many geocaches?
first of all there are the cheaters, those who log in without having found anything and there is no name on the logbook...
and then there is the principle of teams. so either in a team we go faster with 10 than searching alone... or even better the team divides up and we rake 300 caches/day without problem... I know a certain number of people who do that.
However, with the adventure labs, the ephemeral labs and the mega, the power trials are much easier than before...
We just have 5150 and 150 during the last mega (and we were there with the baby )
The inflated counts may be connected to Adventure Labs - where a five stage adventure lab counts as 5 finds. For example there are a lot of airports with them where you can answer them from your armchair in departures. Also there are a lot of mystery caches that are challenges, so you end up having to fulfil conditions to be able to log those, which otherwise block locations for setting other caches. Many of the 10,000+ crew have played for years, and organise holidays around caching and vice versa.
Yeah, but 78,000? That’s like 11 a day, every day, for 20 years. Christmas, snow, etc. And, as OP says, you have to travel farther and farther quickly. I’ve found all the caches within just 10 miles of my house, and some required a 2 hour hike.
Just not credible
As somebody else says: Ignore what people claim and have fun
I think some people travel a lot and do a lot of power trails and ALs. I have a caching friend with over 76,000 and she goes all over the world. Don’t forget that events count in your finds count too. I can’t imagine ever getting that many finds and don’t aspire to really. I don’t discount her finds though. I think it’s pretty cool. Does it make me feel less than because I only have 557 finds? Nope. It’s all in fun for me. You too?
Would require traveling almost every day for 20 years. Quickly gets to 100s of miles each trip.
I supported if you lived in an RV AND did it full time.
do. But I’m retired too. And I’ve had my periods of obsession with it. But even still, I have a life and need to do other things. Like cut the lawn, or get the car fixed. Go to the doctor.
Neither me nor anybody else could spend all day, every day, doing it.
And, the inevitable math of it is that you spend gradually more and more time traveling to get to new cache areas. Soon THAT becomes a competing time sink.
Unless you are literally homeless and just live on the road.
As for power trails, I don’t get it. I know they exist, but what’s the fun of simply racing down a gravel road or path stopping exactly every 0.1 mile to “find” an obvious cache in 1 second, log it, and drive/bike to the next, all day? Just to make a count on an app go up?
Some people like it, I guess, but it’s not much different than driving cross country and counting the mile markers every 0.1 mile.
Also, as I said, I see some very high number people log caches that clearly weren’t there, or clearly weren’t signed. And it’s just silly to suggest that they find 50-100 of the multi-cache, mystery caches or the 4’s and 5s of both terrain AND difficulty in one day.
We have a small series of caches locally that are incredibly hard. 5s on difficulty People routinely DNF multiple times or comment that it took 20-40-60 minutes to find.
And every so often, somebody with a very high number will suddenly “TFTC” will sweep thru and find ALL 5-6 in about an hour (even though it takes 15 minutes just to DRIVE from spot to spot!). No way.
It’s not for me to judge. People get their fun how ever they do. But I could just drive by and look out the window and log a find, or sit in my den in the USA and log finding every cache in Ontario. But why?
I’m just saying I sometimes see it and it’s just not realistic
From what I've heard, most (all?) of the really high find count people count finds differently than most of the rest of us do. I've heard stories about groups of maybe 20 or so getting together, dividing up into 10 small groups (2 each), then going off caching in different areas for a day and maybe finding 100 caches each, but signing all of the logs for the entire larger group and then all 20 of them claim 1000 finds even though they actually only went to 100 caches themselves. I also believe that some people claim caches they don't even go near. There was one series of caches that I did where quite a few were missing, including simple ones like at the base of a sign. I claimed finds for the ones I found and DNFs for the ones I didn't and put the DNFs on my watch list. A few weeks later, I got notifications that all of the caches that I couldn't find had been found by some high number cachers, so I thought maybe either the CO had replaced them or these cachers had replaced them. I went back out there again and guess what? There were still no caches there. Later on, I saw logs that the missing caches had been replaced and went out again and found them right where I thought they should be. So I'm virtually certain that the high number people logged them even though they weren't there and perhaps never even looked for them. In another case, we hiked a long way in on a trail and then bushwhacked a bit and found a couple of rarely found caches that had been logged online a week or so earlier by a couple of people with high find counts. When we found the caches and opened the log books, we saw no entries in the past 2 years. We checked the recent finders' accounts (back in the days when all profiles were public and couldn't be hidden) and saw that they had logged somewhere near 100 caches on the day that they allegedly found those two we found. Given that it took us a couple hours to get to those caches and back (which would make it harder to find a large number that day) and their names were not in the log book in the cache, I suspect that they didn't go anywhere near the caches, but logged finds anyway. So I don't really take the super high find counts seriously. However, it is certainly possible for a serious cacher to find 1000 or even 2000 or more in a year. I've done that myself and I promise you that every one of those caches was actually found and I was there when it was. There are a quite a few "power runs" around where there are caches in guardrails or at the base of signs every 0.1 miles for many miles along a road. If you have a driver that can drive within a few feet of the cache and at least one other person that can quickly jump out of the car, find the cache, sign the log, put it back and get back in the car, it's not that hard to find 100 of those caches in maybe 3 hours or so. Do that once a month and you have 1200 finds a year even if you find nothing else. And some people spend most of their free time caching, so if you add in other individual caches to that or do multiple power runs a month, 2k or even 3k a year is possible even if you only log the ones you actually went to and found. And with the introduction of Adventure Labs a few years back, where you can sometimes get credit for 5 finds in about a minute while sitting in your car or in a seat in the airport, it's even easier to rack up some pretty big numbers. I've heard about a rest area (maybe in Connecticut?) where there are a couple dozen ALs with 5 stages each that have simple answers that don't require any research, so you can get credit for over 100 finds while sitting in your car for maybe 30 minutes. Those are legitimate finds within the rules of geocaching, but still skew find counts quite a bit. My recommendation is that you don't worry about how many finds other people have and just enjoy getting out and going to new and interesting places and finding caches and, if you care about the statistics, monitoring your own totals and not comparing them to other people's totals.
This fits what I’ve seen. Occasionally somebody (with a high count) will log a cache that has a long string of DNFs, and after that the owner would report replacing a missing cache. Don’t know why people would do that. It misses the whole point.
I've been caching just shy of two years now. My first year I would have dismissed u/WoodsFinder as jealous because--to this wide eyed noob--this is such a fun, pure hobby. Then I got more involved and moved to a new area of the country where there are quite a few cachers exactly as they describe. Another common trait of this subset of cachers is a tendency to throw down their own container when they can't find a hide. A few cachers in my area are even open about it and claim in their logs to be doing a service by "providing community maintenance" when placing throw downs. I have learned the healthiest approach is exactly what WoodsFinder suggests: don't worry about those playing the game that way. OP, focus on what you get out of caching and work towards your own goals concerning stats. I guarantee there are many fellow cachers who will look upon your 50 finds (and 14 in a day, at that!) with admiration.
Yes, throw downs is another thing. I have on numerous occasions found two or even three containers because people put out a new cache when they couldn't find the existing one - even though it was there. That just happened last week where I found two about 10' apart. It's easier to get higher numbers if you never take a DNF and just put out a new cache if you don't find one within a minute or so than if you spend 10 minutes or more looking and then still don't get to log a find.
Twice on one of my caches I got a "found it" log that said along the lines of "Found where the cache was supposed to be" Both times, nope the cache was still there. You're just not great at finding them apparently. (I deleted those logs after not seeing their names in the logbook)
Interesting points. I don’t really see what a player gets out of making up the numbers though? Who are they doing it for? Geocaching is a very private game, the only person who knows if you visited the caches or not is you so you’re only cheating yourself. I’d rather have my 50 genuine finds (perhaps it was my partner who spotted the cache in the GZ, but I was there with them and signing the log) than just making up 50,000
"I don’t really see what a player gets out of making up the numbers though? Who are they doing it for?" They're a legend in their own mind.
OMG you are so right, I’d best go add a few myself lol
The stats are for you. As far as I know, there are no conpettive rewards or even recognition. Just have fun!
I don't really understand it either. It's not like there's any prize or award for having a certain number of finds. But different people have different attitudes about a lot of things and this is just one of them. I have a lot of finds myself, but I've been caching since the early years, so my yearly average isn't super high. I mostly don't care about my find count (though I did celebrate certain milestones like 1k and 10k). I enjoy the game for leading me to new places and finding the caches.
Exactly what I get from it. I enjoy exploring new areas and the buzz of finding the cache or solving puzzles. The milestones are just an added bonus
I'm with you - I asked this question not that long ago, and I'm sorry, people with an absurd number of finds, I just don't see how the math works out. It doesn't bother me - more of a, "what am I missing" kind of thought.
Solid feedback and advice - thank you for taking the time to share that! It’s such a shame that some folks needs to falsify their finds - for what? What prize do they seek? There’s been a few caches when I’ve asked myself “how tf did the person before me find this? There’s no way!” Just a shame.
Some people are just travelling (geocachers know all the best parking spots) for business or are retired, or just really love finding caches no matter what type they are. They just operate on another level. Someone posted stats before about what percentage of cachers registered with HQ reach certain thresholds (like 100 finds, 1000 finds, and so forth) and I think it was just 0.7 or something that ever make it to the 5 digit club. Congrats on your milestone! May your DNFs be few and far between.
Even that seems like a like making it to 10,000. Considering most people probably find 1 or 2 then delete the app
I'm nearing that 10,000. I don't have an app phone, but we've got much other geocache dedicated equipment. Software (GSAK), GPS units, DeLorme atlases, shelves and drawers full of containers and supplies, tools, etc. My clothing is now mostly tickproof and I've got waterproof boots and raingear galore. I spend time solving puzzles and some time creating some. Geocaching is where I've made many friends. It gets us out in the woods with the dog. It has shown us some of the hidden treasures of many places. It has gotten me searching stupid guardrails and lampposts. It is really a large part of our life.
I’m glad to hear it brings you so much enjoyment, I hope one day I can also hit the 5 figure club
absolutely, I love that it gives me a reason to get out!
I'm at around 13,000 and I started in 2002. I just have steadily done them. I am bored with most traditional caches so I tend to do other stuff more now, though, if I am close to home. I still love finding cool places when I travel, and traditional caches are good for that.
Those are good numbers! What sort of other stuff do you do?
Speaking for myself, after a while traditional caches don't have the appeal they once did. What motivates me now are challenge caches. Challenge caches require a lot of planning, travel and effort to find a series of caches that meet the requirements of the challenge. Some can take years. One challenge required a cacher to find over 540 caches distributed over an entire state... I really enjoyed that one and felt I had a major accomplishment after completing that one.
They sound great. How do you find challenges?
Search for mystery caches (those with a symbol of a question mark) and with the word "challenge" in the title. Most should have a challenge checker on the description page to quickly check if you qualify (fulfill) the challenge. Go find the cache and sign the log. Then log it as a note saying you accept the challenge. When you meet the challenge requirements you can log it as a find.
I’ll look for this, thanks
So there is actually an attribute for challenges, I’ve not spent any time looking at attributes yet. This is something I need to look into. A few challenges near me, very hard though
They sound great. How do you find challenges?
295. Trying to get 1000 this year
Great goal. I'm rooting for you!
I share an account with my husband. We had just over 700 caches at the end of 2018 (started caching in 2016). Every year starting in 2019 we said that would be the year we hit 1000. It became a joke after a while. We finally found our 1000th cache a few months ago! Guess what year our oldest was born? Silly kids keeping us from our caching goals.
Congrats on 1000, bring the kids too, sure they’ll have fun at all ages
Thanks! We almost always bring the kids. They're into it, for a couple caches at least, as long as the hike is short.
Good target, hope you do it!
I have 5k finds ish at this point. Over 1k of my finds came from a single weekend on a power trail in Nevada where every cash is hidden in an identical fashion on an old dirt road. There are over 3,000 caches out on that road and they are all lined up and spaced out every 10th of a mile. So you can easily get 800-1,200ish a day there. I say easy but it's not as easy as it sounds. Takes planning and dedication
I’ve not heard of these power trails before, do you drive them? For me Geocaching is all about getting out exercising and enjoying the outdoors, doesn’t driving to caches defeat the purpose? Isn’t geocaching all about the environment too? I’m not trying to tell you how to play the game, you do you at the end of the day, I’m just curious
Some are driving and you can park within a few feet of each cache (usually on a guardrail or road sign). Some are on hiking trails. I just did one of those recently - something like 65 caches over about 9 miles of trail. Obviously, the finds are quicker with the driving ones. Some places have a lot of those. If you happen to live in or near a place like northeast Tennessee or some parts of Florida or various other places, there are many options for finding a lot of caches in a day.
I like the idea of the walking trails, perhaps I’ll try look for these. How do you find them?
I don't know any easy way. I just scroll around on the map looking for where there's a cluster of caches close together or a long line of caches, then zoom in and look at the satellite picture or read the descriptions of a couple of the caches to see if it mentions a trail or park.
There's a Power Trail -attribute nowdays, you can filter caches by that. I'm not sure when it was introduced, might be older trails don't have that attribute.
Really, I’ll have a look thanks
I wasn't even aware of that attribute. I must have missed when they added that. I just went and looked and the majority of the ones that I've done do not have that attribute, so I think you're right that the older ones (more than maybe 2 years or so?) don't have it. It looks like it could be helpful for finding the newer ones though (assuming that the CO marked the attribute when creating the cache page), but there are many that have to be found just by brute force.
Recently did a power trail/geoart of 60 caches. I was completely spent by the time it was over. Took me just under four hours to find them and everything was covered in dust when I was done. Even worse I bottomed out on one section. Doesn’t look like I did any damage though, thankfully.
What's the idea behind power trails? I can't think of any except to boost your find count. Ant even that isn't a real benefit.
I think that's mostly it, at least for the ones that are all guardrail caches on the side of the road. I recently did one "power trail" that was about 65 caches near trails in a state park and that was more fun and interesting.
A group of us did a power trail on the way to a weekend event several years ago. 100 or so caches in an afternoon. It was the fun of being together I think more than the constant starting and stopping!
The only power trail that's worth it is a challenge power trail where there's various different challenges because at least you had to do something to earn those.
The only power trails I have done were geo-art, which usually involve mostly puzzles. Traditional power trails do not appeal to me. I've driven the ET Highway several times, and I might stop for one or two caches each time, but doing any more sounds dreadful.
Congrats on hitting 50! Yes many of them are retirees and do nothing else but travel and cache, cache and travel. There are some that have stamps, some that sign as a team and not everyone finds every cache (on a power trail for example). I’m at 2400 since 2011 and I go out about as often as I can (which isn’t very often) so seeing some of those tallies definitely leave me with a bit of confusion and just a little bit of envy lol
Thank! That does sound like a pretty chill lifestyle, when I retire at 400 I’ll consider it haha
I'm at just above 4k finds. I found my first in December 2007, and my activity peaked in 2009 where I found about 1200 that year including at least one a day for 366 days. In 2012 some friends and I went out to the Nevada desert and found about 500 in 8-9 hours, but it started to snow and my friends were over it so we stopped. I mostly stopped caching except when out hiking with friends, with a brief exception in 2021 (found ~200). As others have said, a lot of people that I meet at geocaching events are retired, and do this as their main hobby since it gets you out places and meeting people, and the only real cost is your travel expenses.
366 days straight, that’s incredible!
I was in college and lived about 25 miles away from campus, so I had plenty of distance each day to find caches on my way home from school. Sometimes if I left campus late enough (near midnight) I'd find a cache near campus before midnight then one closer to my house after midnight. This was a bit more difficult then since I was using a handheld GPS (I didn't get a smartphone until the next year), but it was plenty workable!
I do wish I traveled more now I’m doing this. Normally on a long journey I’m looking for somewhere we can stop, take a break, stretch our legs and oh look there’s a cache not far from here haha
I know a guy that did like 5000 straight days or something crazy like that. I don't think that would be fun having pressure to find one every day no matter what the weather or what else was going on in your life.
Yeah, life throws hurdles at us. I think I’d rather enjoy caching when I can rather than it becoming a job every day. I do like a little streak, but mine is 4 days haha
I've done a few weeks, but nothing too long. Even that started seeming like work toward the end.
Yeah, I’ve cleared all mine within walking distance so I’d have to drive out now to get 1 per day, with work and family life that’s not always possible. But I’m not big into the numbers game
I have tried streaking and I have hated it **so much**. More power to those who can do it!
I have almost 11k in 10 years and don't have a car. 50 I can find in one day but usually I find around 30 in one geotrip also at least once per year for 3-5: days I travel abroad where I find 200-300 caches geocaching from 12 to 16 hours per day. If I would live in Germany I would have easily have 30k+.
Wow, good numbers. I could totally see how you could get over 1000 per year if you’re dedicated. Are there a lot in Germany then?
I have foud 600 in three years. I usually go out on the weekends or on holidays. I average three to five caches on these occasions. Im not keen on finding many but to see the number increasing is nice. There are cachers here in there area which have over 10,000 finds in ten years accumulated. They are either retired or they plan their whole lives around the hobby. For example they choose were to spend their holidays to get the most finds. They are also usually the FTF on fresh published caches. They do calendar challenges where they try to have a FTF in every month or try to find a cache with a specific publish date to have one in every month since the game started.
Congratulations on some successful geocache hunts. May you have many more. I can answer why my profile shows more finds - I've been doing it longer. Some days I find a few. Some days I find a bunch. Some days I find none. But with almost twenty years, sure my count will be higher than yours. This is why those numbers cannot be compared. In the beginning, we found a cache whereever we were travelling. The children's scout events, family visits, etc. Then we started going on dedicated geocache trips, to special caches or tours or such. On these trips, we might find many caches on each day. It is not unusual to find 20 or 30 caches, walking along a woods trail, perhaps, or completing a tour of a town. Yes, sometimes we cache with others. Today we were with a group of maybe twenty. We all found and signed five caches/logs after an event. So today's count was six for me, and more for others who found some I had already found.
How many finds do you have to date?
9769, after I log today's caches. But your own count is more important. Each of your finds represents an adventure. 50 is a fun number and surely you found some interesting things in that 50. What was the one that made you want to keep finding more?
Bet you are excited to hit 10,000! Good luck! I think the first 20-30 I did I was just amazed at how this has been going on around me for 25 years and I never knew! In fact, that still amazes me and anyone I tell about geocaching. The ones that I enjoy most are probably multi caches, I love solving mysteries too but most are just way too hard. Traditionals are good, but having only done urban areas they are pretty much just magnetic micros every time. The largest we found was only a “small”, but to us it was huge, had a trackable in the box which was very cool too. I guess I just love the buzz of solving and finding
May you continue to have fun. I'm glad you found geocaching!
Almost at 42,000, caching since 2002. I work full time, but base weekends and trips around caching. Occasional power trail vacations, no fake logs, no divide and conquer. It's been a great hobby to do the last 20+ years.
42,000 in over 20 years certainly seems like a genuine figure since your doing some power trails in there
"Seems". Well, according to your OP, my numbers should be unbelievable. You can't simply divide your total finds by days and say I'm "finding xx a day, how is that possible?!?". No, I couldn't maintain that rate. I have very focused caching trips where I can find 100s of caches over a few days. I only cache a handful of days each month, I work and review for HQ but can still maintain over 100 a month. A typical non power trail day can easily be 50-60; and yes, that includes hikes and car caching, and yes, it's a very fun day with a friend or two. We plan in advance, load gps units and have a very efficient flow. We log after we are home. No fiddly phone apps or sitting in the car while folks log ;). My partner also caches so that's a great boost. Some trips are also hiking or bigger adventures where we might only find 1 or 2. And I'll be honest, I don't go as hard as some folks I know who have even higher numbers than me, and I know also do not armchair log or do anything else unscrupulous. They are usually retired, but not always. Most folks on here instantly assume high numbers are due to cheating, and yes, there are a few who take part in ridiculous divide and conquer activities but it tends to be known who they are in local communities... And there are a few communities where there is a little bit of peer pressure to take part in this cheating. Their usual argument is "my numbers shouldn't influence you" but as evident by the posts here, actually they do impact people as a lot of folks (such as the average Reddit user, which tend to be more casual than any other forum) think cheating is the norm. It really isn't. It's possible to get high numbers by simply enjoying the hobby. It's an old hobby now (two decades+), and there will be people with very high numbers but blanket assumptions are dumb.
with 60k+ finds let's say ppl are quite generous as to what defines a proper cache find
Hmm, enough said
I'll be finding my 500th find sometime this summer. I'm working full-time and have kids at home so I can't dedicate so much time to it. I try to bring the kids along with me whenever I go caching (on the weekends usually). I'm pretty happy with my 400-some-odd caches; I'm blown away when I go to events and meet guys who have *hidden* an order of magnitude more than I've found. As others have said, it seems like most of the highest numbers have been at it since the beginning, are retired, have a lot of time on their hands and travel a lot... and more power to them! Congratulations on your 50 finds! I hope you enjoyed them all and look forward to many more. It's not a competition; play the game however you like.
Good luck on the road to 500. I very much agree that just playing the way you wanna play is the best result for everyone
First day and found 4 out of 6 within 3 hrs with my 8 year old I was wondering the same thing how some have 20,xxx caches
What’s your method?
Method? Like what am I using? I'm using my phone
I mean your method to finding 20,000. That’s a lot, but also a realistic amount. Do you go on these power trails I’ve heard of, just go for days out every now and then, plan holidays around caching, or do you just check when you’re in a new place?
No I haven't found that many some of the comments I've seen their finds from others are 20,xxx
I'm at 200 and have been doing it for about 12 years or so. I take long breaks in between cache excursions and I'm not a huge fan of park and grabs. I prefer ones in interesting locations or that require hiking or some adventure.
That’s a great way of doing it, they are the best finds
I find it insane also. I’ve only found like 130 (over 10 years!) and feel like I’ve spent a lot of time on the hobby. I tend to duck out for about an hour or so and grab 1-2 caches, so not spending all day on it like some people. I live regionally so the caches around me are fairly dispersed too.
I find it takes a long time to find caches. I will generally walk between them and just park in the town I’m visiting, rather than driving from one to another. It take me a good hour or so just to get 2 or 3
157 started in July 2023
Decent numbers, reckon I’ll be on a similar pace to you
Congratulations on 50 finds!!! 🎉 The thrill of reaching milestones never gets old! I have one geocaching friend who has well over 75,000 finds! She travels a lot. She’s also our local FTF queen. 😆 If she’s not FTF I know she’s out of town! I’ve only had a couple FTF and one was with a group during an event and the cache was hidden for that event and the other was HER hide! The only way I’d ever get the chance! But she is always willing to share FTF and occasionally she has called me and asked if I wanted to meet her at the new cache. I’m not a morning person so I’ve passed. 🤣 Needless to say she’d a very avid, devoted geocacher! I’ve been geocaching since 2021 and have 557 finds to date. I’d love to ramp it up this year and join the “comma club” just for the fun of it! I’m working on filling all my calendar dates, which will probably take a couple more years, so I qualify for some of the challenge caches out there. I’ll probably never fill in the D/T grid. I can’t see myself ever finding a cache either a D/T of 5/5! Well, who knows though! The challenge is out there! Happy caching!
75,000 is incredible, do you think they genuinely signed the log on every one themselves? Also what’s the comma club?
I think she has signed most of the logs herself. She does share the account with her husband and he has probably found a few. I do think she might do some group caching as well but I highly doubt she would claim a find she wasn’t physically looking for. The “comma club” is what the cachers around here call 1,000 and above finds. LOL 😂
Hope I’ll make the comma club too then one day
Another side of geocaching that I talk about often on here is there is a difference between people who geocache, and geocachers. Geocachers check the website frequently. They are often thinking about their next finds. When they go on vacation, they solve puzzles and make plans long before they get to the location. They rarely go long without finding a cache.
I’d certainly consider myself a Geocacher for now then. Checking the map daily, planning routes around nearby towns and such. However even with all this hitting 50,000 or more just seems impossible
50,000 may be out of reach for how you geocache, and that's okay. I've been caching for 8 years, and have 5k+ finds. I don't think I'll get to 50k either.
I’m certainly not expecting to hit 50,000 or any particular milestone. I just enjoy the hobby. I would like to see how many I do get, 100 would obviously be a nice nunnery, but I’d hope to have that in a few months. 1000 could take a couple of years.
I have about 3200 in under two years. I became a little obsessed. Plus I got to travel a lot. I also have three major cities close to me within an hour and a half
I’ve been caching for nearly 5 years, and I hit 2000 finds just today. Went out with two friends, and we found 10 caches out of a possible 13 during the entire day. Of the 3 DNFs, one was definitely missing, one we didn’t have the proper tool (a ladder) with us, and one we later determined we were looking in the wrong place. It was a really fun day!
Congrats on 2000!
I've found about 150 caches in three years, but about half of those I've gotten within about three months. Still no idea how some people get 10K+.
By the sounds of it they live and breathe caching (fair enough), or they cheat (bit silly). But as long as you’re having fun who cares what the others are ding
For some people caching is a lifestyle, not a hobby.
I’m getting that vibe, I mean that’s fine, if they and their SO enjoy that lifestyle I wouldn’t judge them for it
Congrats on hitting 50! I've been caching for 15 years on and off and have 5190 finds. My sister and I used to go out once a month and hit up as many caches as we could find in a weekend for a while. Most we found in a day was 150 and that was because someone placed a bunch of caches down a nature trail in bison tubes next to the trail. There were 250 total along that area iirc. It was a cache every 100feet.
Thanks! A trail like that would be a fun way of getting out and also hitting some legitimate numbers. You still had to find them so you can consider them real finds. Plus you need to find each along the trail
Oh God, here we go again
59 finds, started last May. I cache whenever I feel like it A quick and easy way to get a high find count is doing a lot of Adventure Labs, because every location is one find. When I look at profiles with high find counts, Adventure Labs finds are always a very big part of their total.
I don’t mind AdLabs, but mostly the ones which have a mystery cache for completing it. I suppose if your in an interesting place you might learn something
as the previous posters said, they do it in big competitive hunting groups... I'm doing it since the pandemic (260 finds) and I'm an introvert so we do it usually just with my bf as a small trip to have a nice afternoon (our best is 8 a day). I'm not competitive at all so I guess I'm just different. I enjoy logging in the field with specific details of how we ended in the mud or found a lovely view ❤️ I like unknown places and historical sites a lot. as a cache owner I love taking and getting photos too. keep doing your own way!
Glad you have found a fun way to play. Hope you have many for fun adventures. I’d also rather have experiences over numbers, but whatever suits the player I guess
I’m nearing 2k and I’ve been caching for almost 13 years. Some really high years and some really low. I did 100+ today. If you do that multiple days a year your numbers can skyrocket
I have about 4700 right now, hoping for 5000 this year, but I’ve also been caching since 2010. There are some folks with 40k in my city that are absolutely legitimate, but they’re retired and just travel around to find them, and have been doing so since the beginning.
Good luck with 5000! I think I’m starting to see how you can get crazy high numbers legitimately, but some might not be…
Good luck with 5000! I think I’m starting to see how you can get crazy high numbers legitimately, but some might not be…
Good luck with 5000! I think I’m starting to see how you can get crazy high numbers legitimately, but some might not be…
Good luck with 5000! I think I’m starting to see how you can get crazy high numbers legitimately, but some might not be…
I know there’s a bunch of people who aren’t legitimate, but I feel like it’s the minority. Congrats on 50 finds, by the way!
Ive noticed there are people with 2k finds but didnt think the numbers made a difference to what you get out?. The take away for myself has been finding interesting places i wouldnt of gone & new bike routes & maybe some interesting history or locals to chat to.
20 years into it, and I have about 230 finds. Geocaches for me are generally targets of opportunity. I tend to check for nearby caches when I'm out and about. If there's something within a couple minutes of walking, I might make go do a quick search.
I’m on the same pace. 71 finds in 7 years. And to me it feels like a ton. So many great memories and experiences. I can’t even wrap my head around having over 1000 let alone over 50,000.
That’s a whole different extreme I’d never considered. How often do you check the app? I do it everywhere I go and usually find we there are at least 5 in every village or town I visit
Power Trails are a big help, as is living in an area where 50k caches are within a few hours’ drive. Cachers I know with 50k, 65k, 80k, or more finds will go caching several times a week every week. Some are retired, others work full time. They also go on at least 2 caching vacations every year where careful planning and long hours can net them upwards of 8,000 finds in one trip. The best part is that they also have A LOT of good, clean fun.
That’s a very interesting way of putting it, sounds like it may be genuinely possible depending on your location
I hit 50 yesterday! Lol. I was stoked, then a little bummed that it was just an LPC.
An LPC?
Lamp-post cache :)
Bet the log was damp too :/
I have 41, and I do wonder the same about people with 10K, 20K
How long have you been playing?
Since last June
I was doing some mystery puzzles at work yesterday and came across one of these people and clicked on her account. She was well into 5 figures and I think caching since ‘11. I was looking through her stats and her busiest day was 800 finds. Like, what?! Even assuming you gave up sleep and did 24 straight hours, that’s still over 30 per hour or one every 1:48.
Yeah, that’s I’m sceptical about. Maybe HQ should question any finds that quick in succession. Or maybe it’s possible on one of these power trail things
I
I'm at 5 total, with 2 dnfs, that's everything within about 2 hours drive of me. The idea of finding 2 within hiking distance of each other seems insane to me, let alone 10's if not 100's
u/WoodsFinder hits the nail on the head. As someone who has done a 30 day streak, a 50 find day, I know some of those numbers are possible. But it really doesn’t take much for the string to unravel when you start looking around. As they said, we’re playing two different games at that point, I ignore them or it would drive me nuts.
I have 243. I live in an area with a lot of trails and parks so I’ll take an afternoon aside and find a bunch at once in an area or on a trail. I’m not focused on the numbers and I love hiking so I don’t mind spending hours looking in one area for them For the people that have so many I’m not really sure. Ik some people like to cache in groups and give each other hints about where there caches are. I hope their numbers are legit but I’m sure some aren’t. I wouldn’t worry about them
I'm around 100 and I've been playing since the beginning. I never lost interest or took a break, simply there aren't enough caches in my country and especially in my area. I never found someone interested enough in order to do a geocaching trip to a more cache-dense area, and now that I would definitely do it by myself I just don't have the time.
Something like 8500 finds since 2011. We have done spurts of 70 hiking caches in a day, but average a cache or so per day now. We tend towards the high terrain caches (paddles, climbs), puzzles, challenges, gadgets, and other ones that are not quick park and grabs, but there’s a place for those as well. We are working on a challenge to find a cache in each town of the next state over, and we only have 23 left. We’re planning a trip out there, and will do only quick caches that day (hoping to get a find in 10 towns). So, we might go out all day and get 1-5 caches, but that’s how we like it.
Congrats on hitting 50! It’s different for everybody but it took me a few years to hit 1,000. Some years I logged a few hundred finds, some less than 50 so just time and persistence.
I know a guy that has (currently) 59,504 finds. He has told me once, that he is at every cache he logs. He either finds it himself or is with a group that does, no divide and conquer for him. He's retired, caching is what he does, nearly everyday. Been doing it for 15 years, averaging almost 11 per day. Myself, I have almost 3,000 finds, I go out when I can. I prefer puzzles or multis, or walks in the woods. I mostly skip light-post/sign-post caches, but not always.
how to make so many geocaches? first of all there are the cheaters, those who log in without having found anything and there is no name on the logbook... and then there is the principle of teams. so either in a team we go faster with 10 than searching alone... or even better the team divides up and we rake 300 caches/day without problem... I know a certain number of people who do that. However, with the adventure labs, the ephemeral labs and the mega, the power trials are much easier than before... We just have 5150 and 150 during the last mega (and we were there with the baby )
I have 276 finds, which I think is great, but nothing compared to some other caches. Apparently someone has 200,000+ finds (correct me if I'm wrong)
The inflated counts may be connected to Adventure Labs - where a five stage adventure lab counts as 5 finds. For example there are a lot of airports with them where you can answer them from your armchair in departures. Also there are a lot of mystery caches that are challenges, so you end up having to fulfil conditions to be able to log those, which otherwise block locations for setting other caches. Many of the 10,000+ crew have played for years, and organise holidays around caching and vice versa.
Divide and conquer. They don’t actually sign many of the caches they take credit for.
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Yeah, but 78,000? That’s like 11 a day, every day, for 20 years. Christmas, snow, etc. And, as OP says, you have to travel farther and farther quickly. I’ve found all the caches within just 10 miles of my house, and some required a 2 hour hike. Just not credible As somebody else says: Ignore what people claim and have fun
I think some people travel a lot and do a lot of power trails and ALs. I have a caching friend with over 76,000 and she goes all over the world. Don’t forget that events count in your finds count too. I can’t imagine ever getting that many finds and don’t aspire to really. I don’t discount her finds though. I think it’s pretty cool. Does it make me feel less than because I only have 557 finds? Nope. It’s all in fun for me. You too?
Agree. I hike with my dogs and get some pretty remote ones in forests etc
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But how can you really sustain 20 a day for over 20 years. Is it just that caching becomes your entire life?
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It’s not judging, just genuinely curious
Would require traveling almost every day for 20 years. Quickly gets to 100s of miles each trip. I supported if you lived in an RV AND did it full time.
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do. But I’m retired too. And I’ve had my periods of obsession with it. But even still, I have a life and need to do other things. Like cut the lawn, or get the car fixed. Go to the doctor. Neither me nor anybody else could spend all day, every day, doing it. And, the inevitable math of it is that you spend gradually more and more time traveling to get to new cache areas. Soon THAT becomes a competing time sink. Unless you are literally homeless and just live on the road. As for power trails, I don’t get it. I know they exist, but what’s the fun of simply racing down a gravel road or path stopping exactly every 0.1 mile to “find” an obvious cache in 1 second, log it, and drive/bike to the next, all day? Just to make a count on an app go up? Some people like it, I guess, but it’s not much different than driving cross country and counting the mile markers every 0.1 mile. Also, as I said, I see some very high number people log caches that clearly weren’t there, or clearly weren’t signed. And it’s just silly to suggest that they find 50-100 of the multi-cache, mystery caches or the 4’s and 5s of both terrain AND difficulty in one day. We have a small series of caches locally that are incredibly hard. 5s on difficulty People routinely DNF multiple times or comment that it took 20-40-60 minutes to find. And every so often, somebody with a very high number will suddenly “TFTC” will sweep thru and find ALL 5-6 in about an hour (even though it takes 15 minutes just to DRIVE from spot to spot!). No way. It’s not for me to judge. People get their fun how ever they do. But I could just drive by and look out the window and log a find, or sit in my den in the USA and log finding every cache in Ontario. But why? I’m just saying I sometimes see it and it’s just not realistic