The Impending Death of the Travel Bug
When I started geocaching more than six years ago, it seemed that travel bugs were a lot more popular than they are today. Oh yes, we still see them popping up from time to time and they still move along from cache to cache, but it would seem that the days of these particular traveling items may be numbered.
Now, I’m not talking about geocoins. Geocoins are going to be around for a very long time as they are a very popular item with geocachers. Whether it be moving them along, buying, trading, or discovering them, it seems geocoins are more popular than ever.
I’m referring to the fact that because most caches being hidden today are micros, the ability for travel bugs (or coins for that matter) to actually travel is becoming more and more of a problem.
In most cases, bugs are found more often at events than caches. In the last year, a whole lot more micro caches have been hidden than regular sized containers. At one time, it was fairly easy to find a container to drop a bug into and it would move along nicely. But with many geocaches now at the micro size, it’s harder and harder to find a decent location for a bug to move to.
Combine that with the fact that by far and large, most trackable items that are released get lost. Of all my items I have in the wild (couple dozen), there are only one or two that I ever see actually moving. The rest have sat in a cache or in the hands of another cacher for a long time. At one time, I used to send messages out asking people to move them along but after awhile I stopped as it seemed no one bothered. Bugs go missing because people either think they are a swag item and keep them for themselves, or the cache is muggled/destroyed with the bug inside and it’s gone forever.
These two facts lead me to believe that the actual travel bug itself is doomed to die off at some point down the road. I don’t see trackable items going anywhere as I suspect this is the largest source of income for Groundspeak. They charge $1.50 per trackable code and people are ALWAYS ordering new coins to be made and new trackables to be released. That’s a pretty endless cycle of income as long as people are interested.
But the bug itself, I think beyond bugs being passed from event to event, it’s dying. It would be nice if this cool part of geocaching lore could find a new life somehow and bring something new to the table that would allow it to survive the changes this hobby is seeing.
As I am still in my first year of geo caching I still seek out travel bugs to read about them and help them along in their journey or their mission. I have several out circulating around and other then one accidentally lost and an ammo can TB hotel cache muggled and stolen they seem to get around just fine. I am currently putting together a few to be part of a contest to see which one racks up the most mileage in the next year. Should be interesting to see what happens.
I don’t disagree with most of what you are saying, Zor. I agree there are less and less caches big enough to hold TBs now then there were even two or three years ago. I agree they do go missing. I have lost a fair amount to the wilds of the geocaching world, but most of them were Geocoins rather than TBs. This does not stop me, I enjoy watching them travel and I am sure there will always be a substantial number of Geocachers interest in the same. So, I can’t see them going the way of the Dinosaur anytime soon.
I have 210 Trackables in circulation right now. I think there are less than a half dozen that are “Missing”. At the beginning of year, I ordered Proxy coins for all those that were missing and sent them back out into the wilds. These Proxy coins have the same number as the originals, same log history and same icon. They cost me $2.85 each, but I think they went up to $3.10 now. At the time, I had 18 missing Trackables, mostly coins. I also ordered 19 Proxy coins with the same numbers as my Geocoins in my collection and set them loose.
If any of these Proxy coins go missing, I simply tell the vendor, she will make another and release it free of charge, or ship it to me to release at my cost for shipping. The company I used was Gxproxy.com, but I am looking at a way to make replacement coins locally to cut the cost of shipping.
The numbers are about $1.50 to buy so why not recycle them. After all, they are still yours even if the coin is missing. Just my two cents worth…..
As I have said often, we grab every trackable that we find and bring them on trips with us. We grab those we find on our trip and bring them here. Two years ago we brought over 50 to California and brought that many back. On our latest trip to Hawaii we dropped a number off and brought some back with us.
You are correct that there are ton of Micros out there these days but there are a lot more caches out there these days so it still possible to find larger caches. On a trip to PEI last week, we found mostly micros but we found over 250 caches so we found enough small and regular sized caches to place the TB’s we brought with us.
I only put out a few and they are all either missing in Nova Scotia or in someones hands in Arizona for almost a year now. I sent one email asking about it and no reply. I gave up on sending them out and I only buy coins from events or challenges I had some thing to do with and I keep them. I still have the copy tag for one of them and could send it back out I guess but never think of it.
I will be looking to take some to Yellowknife in 3 weeks time. Should be a good trip.
I enjoy finding them. I’ve only had 2 go missing. For some reason if they can get over to Europe they tend to last longer. One went within a week of being released. Was never logged as picked up, cache wasn’t muggled, just….poof….gone. My first few tb’s I made the mistake of attaching something really neat to them, those get grabbed as swag and go awol. It’s dollarama trinkets now for my trackables. My mother in law had one go missing, cacher joined the site on Feb 1, one find, one trackable grabbed(mother in law’s tb). Last login Feb 1. One day, one cache, one tb grabbed and it was her’s. No email back from the cacher when asked about the tb. A one day wonder and it was her tb that got hit, doh!
Like most cachers, I was into all aspects of caching, and jumped onto the TB bandwagon. The first ones I have released have all disappeared. I still have a few active ones out there. What frustrates me the most are those new cachers who pick them up and then abandon the sport, leaving the TBs in a bag never to see the light of day again. TBs only cost a person $7-$10 plus whatever trinket it is attached to, but the value to the person who owns it is usually much, much, more. Seasoned cachers understand this; new cachers do not.
I have 2-3 TB unactivated dog tags sitting in an ammo can. Now that aquakid and littlefauna have their own accounts, I am going to let them pick something to attach to the dog tag and release them for themselves, so see where they will go. I doubt I will ever buy a TB for myself again. But we shall see.