Geocaching with Woo

A new souvenir has been announce for next year - the 2024 Hider! In order to earn it, a geocache needs to be hidden or an event needs to be hosted from January 1 to December 31, 2024. So, what do you think, easy enough? I, of course, overthink things, so I'll probably push it to the last minute, but I do have some ideas...

I haven't seen it on the official blog, yet, but it was announced on Facebook yesterday that a souvenir will be awarded for the December Solstice! In order to earn it, find 12 geocaches between December 17 and 23. Happy caching!

Let's say Farewell to 2023 and Greetings from 2024! From December 24 through 31, and from January 1 through 8, if you log a find on a geocache, post an attended on an event or complete an Adventure Lab location in either (or both) time periods, you'll earn the appropriate souvenir(s). Read more about the last/first souvenirs of 2023/2024 on the official blog post .

This year celebrates the 10 th year of the Geocaching International Film Festival. GIFF events will be held from November 9 through 19, and attending one of those events will earn you a souvenir. For a more information, check out the official blog post .

Celebrate International EarthCache Day by logging an EarthCache on October 7 or 8, 2023 and earning a souvenir. Read more about it on the official blog post .

This is your reminder that CITO Season 2 2023 starts September 1 and extends through November 30 - time to help make the Earth a better place and earn a souvenir at the same time :-)

It's time for the final challenge from the Wheel of Challenges! This one is called Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, and two souvenirs can be earned from September 4 - October 1 by earning points in the following manner: Attend an Event - 75 points Attend a CITO - 75 points Find a cache with 10+ Favorite Points - 50 points Receive a Favorite Point on an owned cache - 50 points Log a Found It on any other cache type - 25 points The Easy souvenir can be earned by getting 100 points, while the Hard souvenir can be earned by getting 1000 points. Keep track of your points on the Leaderboard and good luck out there!

The next challenge on the Wheel of Challenges is Iconic Cacher ! Between August 7 and September 3, two souvenirs can be earned by logging different cache types: Easy - three cache types - Traditional, Adventure Lab, Event Hard - eight cache types - Traditional, Adventure Lab, Event, Virtual, EarthCache, Multiple, Mystery, Letterbox This challenge seems so much easier then in previous months, quality vs. quantity? There are still some that might be a little bit more difficult to get, but I'm up for the challenge :-) Read more about the challenge on the official blog post .

International Geocaching Day is fast approaching and it's time to celebrate it by logging a find on any geocache, Adventure Lab location or event and earn a cool souvenir for your profile page. This offer is available on August 19, 2023 only, so get yours while supplies last! Read the official announcement on the blog post .

Oh boy! Our next challenge has been announced , and it's Streak Star! There are three souvenirs available this month (from July 3 through August 6), and they can be earned the following ways: Easy: Complete a two day streak Medium: Complete a seven day streak Hard: Complete a 28 day streak I've been looking forward to, and dreading, this one! I have purposely been staying away from newer caches in my area so that on the four days a week that I work at both of my jobs, I can pop out at lunchtime for one, and on the other three days I won't have too far to go each day. And luckily, since the time period to earn the souvenirs is 35 days long, if I mess up early on, I still have a few days to make up for my mistakes. Good luck of becoming a Streak Star!

Another round of Virtual Rewards has been announced! This time, there isn't an opt-in or application process for the 4,000 Virtual caches that will be distributed, but there are some qualifiers: You must have a Geocaching account prior to June 13, 2023 You need to publish a non-event cache in 2023 that receives at least four favorite points by December 31, 2023 Your chances are slightly improved if you opted-in for Virtual Rewards 2.0 and 3.0, but did not receive a Virtual cache at that time As for me, I was planning on hiding a cache some time this year, so this makes me want to get a move on and do it sooner than later! Read a little bit more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the official post .

A new souvenir is being offered to celebrate the solstice - the "longest," or "shortest," day of the year, depending on which hemisphere you live in. In order to earn this unique souvenir, 21 geocaches, events or Adventure Lab Locations must be logged from June 18 - 24, 2023. Read the blog post for more information on the solstice.

The Wheel of Challenges has spoken for a third time, and the next challenge is - Out and About! Between June 5 and July 2, go out and find caches on individual days. The souvenirs are earned in this way: Easy - log a find on five (5) different days Medium - log a find on ten (10) different days Hard - log a find on twenty (20) different days This challenge came from the car icon, so I guess that my Road Trip idea wasn't quite right. Good luck out there!

A new souvenir will be available from June 13-July 3, 2023 for events celebrating Maker Magic! In order to earn this souvenir, an attended must be logged on an event that is a registered Magic Maker event. These events are meant to highlight cache quality and/or creation. Some things that might be featured at these events might be: Educational workshops Building caches Highlighting quality local caches Read more about these events on the official blog post .

The next challenge chosen by the Wheel of Challenges is Favorite Fan! Points can be earned from May 1 - June 4 in the following manner: Find a cache with 10+ favorite points - 20 points Receive a favorite point on an owned cache - 50 points Log a found it on any other cache, including Adventure Lab locations - 10 points 100 points are needed to get the Easy souvenir, while the Hard souvenir needs 1000 points - keep track of points earned in this challenge on the Leaderboard . Good luck!

It's time to celebrate Blue Switch Day! Earn you souvenir by attending an event or finding a geocache or Adventure Lab location from May 1 through May 3. For more information, visit the blog post , where you can also read about one of the pioneers of GPS technology.

Geocaching has spun the Wheel of Challenges and for the month of April, the challenge is Seeking Smileys. From April 3 through April 30, three souvenirs of differing difficulty levels can be earned by logging finds: Easy - 5 finds Medium - 10 finds Hard - 100 finds You can watch the video of the wheel spin here . Now it's time for some speculation. The icons shown on the wheel are making me think about what the challenges might be. There's a Star, a Question Mark, a Heart, a Smiley Face, a Car and People. We now know that the Smiley Face represents finding caches, any caches. The Heart probably represents highly favorited caches - so finding caches with 10+ favorite points or cumulative favorite points on caches found. The Question Mark might be finding Mystery (Unknown) caches and the People could be attending Events. More than likely, the Star is a streak of some duration. The hardest to figure out is the Car. I'm thinking that it might mean the distance of c...

The next geocaching campaign has been introduced - the Wheel of Challenges! Beginning on the first Monday of the month for the next six months (April 3, May 1, June 5, July 3, August 7, and September 4), a new challenge will be introduced. The Tuesday before the official start of each monthly challenge, Geocaching will "spin the wheel of challenges" and announce the next challenge in a blog post. Each challenge will have either two or three souvenirs available to earn; one presumably for an easy version of the challenge and one for completing the whole challenge, then maybe one for a mid-point for the more difficult challenges. This is pure conjecture, of course, but it seems logical. I'm always up for a good souvenir campaign, but I'm just hoping that certain challenges, like the streak challenge, don't occur in May, August or September, when I'll be spending a week of vacation in places that have limited to no access to caches (on a cruise ship in the ...

Pretty soon CITO Season 1 for 2023 will begin! March 1 through May 31 we will have the opportunity to beautify the areas that we geocache in, and earn a souvenir while doing it.

Signal's final challenge is upon us - the lair of a hungry, fire-breathing dragon! Beginning February 6, earn 50 points to enter the dragon's lair and 500 points to escape it. The point values for each cache type are as follows: Found an Adventure Lab Cache (Adventure Location) - 10 points Found a Multi-Cache - 35 points Found a Mystery Cache - 30 points Attended an Event - 25 points Found a cache with 10+ Favorite points - 20 points Found a Signal’s Labyrinth item (ham) - 50 points Found it - 15 points We have until April 3 to complete this challenge, and if you've earned all of the Signal's Labyrinth souvenirs to date, completion of this challenge will earn you the "You brought Signal back to HQ" meta-souvenir. Keep track of your progress on your leaderboard and learn more about the next labyrinth in the blog post .

For me, this year of geocaching was mainly about the fulfillment of souvenir requirements. Aside from a trip to Washington state for the 20 th Anniversary Celebration, where we were able to complete the Trifecta and punch a few GeoTour tickets, most of what we did was local. On top of that, previously found caches in the Caribbean warranted the receipt of a few new country souvenirs, which were released in 2022. The graphic show below summarizes all that we accomplished. In addition to earning all of the souvenirs offered by Geocaching in 2022, I was quite pleased to complete many goals that have been on my list for several years - all due to the trip to Washington. Now, I only have two outstanding goals - the completion of the Experience Tioga County and the Berkeley Gadgets GeoTours, and I do need to work on the Find Your Chesapeake GeoTour . Now I need to come up with some new goals! The last time I checked, I have an Adventure Lab credit, so I'll try to put one of t...