A Roadtrip to Warren, PA: GeoWoodstock IX

4000 kilometers later, we made it.

Myself, Jim52, and dragonflys headed out to GeoWoodstock IX on June 29th. The plan was to drive from Moncton to Rhode Island on the first day; RI to Washington DC on day 2, DC to Warren, PA where GW9 was being held on day 3; spend day 4 at GW9 then head towards Vermont staying in Elmira for the night; head through Vermont to New Hampshire on day 5; and head back to Moncton on day 6. As it turned out, that was exactly what we did.

For those unfamiliar with GeoWoodstock, it is the worldest largest mega event held every year. It’s location changes each time the event is held, but the event itself is basically the same. This is the second GW I have been to and indeed it was quite different than the one I attended last year.

The “big” thing about these mega events is the sheer size of it. As of this writing, there are more than 1800 attended logs on the event itself, and I am sure there were far more than that for people there. It really is indeed the largest event held every year. As a result of that, you tend to see a lot of different people, and a lot of different things compared to local events we see here.

 

Some of the bigger things are tied to vendors. You see a LOT of vendors pitching their stuff. There were many coin and trackable vendors and even one vendor dedicated solely to walking sticks. You see a lot of different containers being sold but yet a lot of the same kind of thing being sold as well. I actually found it quite interesting to see how the same thing seems to get sold everywhere you turn.

I had the opportunity to participate as part of the final Cacher’s of the Round Table podcast which I posted here not that long ago. it gave me a chance to meet some other podcasters in the world of geocaching and also gave me (and others) the opportunity to share some opinions on how things in caching have changed.

I took 40 travel bugs to GW9 and exchanged them for 35 to bring back. Bug swapping there is a completely different animal compared to here. As you can imagine, with so many bugs coming from all over the place there would have to be some control in how they are given out. What they do is only allow people who have bugs to drop off to pick up bugs. That means that if you didn’t bring any, you don’t get to take any home. For every bug you drop, you get a ticket which you can then use to claim another bug or coin. I had 40 tickets and gave 5 away since I had my hands full of bugs to bring home.

Another cool thing to see at GW9 is the map. Attendees use a pushpin on a world map to indicate where they came from. A lot of folks were from the US but there were some people from overseas. Germany seems to be a big spot for people to travel from to GW as there were a lot of pins on that country.

A couple of lackeys from Groundspeak were there giving some lectures on the finer points of using your premium membership. There weer also seminars on a lot of different topics from Wherigo to GSAK. You definitely had to plan your time if you wanted to attend any of these. People also had the option of purchasing a meal ticket which provided an all you can eat buffet of chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, salad and drinks. It was nice to sit and have a meal while there.

All in all, it was definitely a good event to attend. I plan on going to next year’s event which is being held in Sellersburg, IN on May 26th, 2012.

Outside of GW9, we did a LOT of park and grabs mainly because we spent a lot of time on the road trying to get from one spot to another. The only real places we actually stopped were in Washington, DC where we did a pile of the historic virtuals downtown. That was pretty cool. We also stopped at a cache located just off the highway somewhere in Vermont for a cache called Belknap Falls (photo) which was one of the more scenic spots we saw. May have only been a micro cache, but the spot was awesome.

We also did a webcam cache, and attempted a Wherigo which crashed multiple times and severely upsetting myself. I was not a happy camper since it was the only Wherigo we attempted on the whole trip. Can’t win them all though.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip and if anyone here gets an opportunity to go to GW, I recommend it. It’s a great time with a lot of interesting things to see and do. And above all else, it’s very interesting to see the kinds of people that show up to these events. Geocachers really are very colorful characters.

Check out the videos below shot by dragonflys to get a feel for our entire trip.

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