Travel Bugs, Geocoins, and other geocaching trackable items.

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Techie Toys'n'Games
• Date: May 1,2008

Geocaching is a great hobby for Techie’s, Families, animals … I guess what i’m saying, is that it’s a game that everyone can enjoy for one reason or another. Travelbugs and geocoins are items that are trackable via the geocaching.com website and add an interesting twist to the game. If you have no clue what geocaching is, read this article.

People buy geocoins or travelbugs, and then assign some sort of a mission to them. It could be something like “I want this item to travel to lots of cache’s” or “I want this travelbug to make it to a cache in France where my friend will retrieve it” or “I wanna go to every country in the world” etc etc etc … The item gets placed in a cache, and from then on your track it online. Each item has a unique trackable code on it, so when someone picks up one of your travelbugs or geocoins in a cache, they go to the geocaching website and log that they picked up the item. At the same time the person gets to read about it’s mission, where it has been already, and the notes that everyone that found it before you left. After the item has been found and logged, the item must be put back into another cache within a week or so hopefully helping it along with it’s mission.

Travelbugs :

A travel bug is usually a dog tag, with a geocaching symbol on it and it’s tracking code. The Travelbug can be attached to any item which will then travel with it. SO, you can attach a travel bug to some object, ask people to take pictures, and have it travel the world and get pictures of people with your travel bug and object.

Geocoins :

Geocoins are typically oversized coins with some sort of logo on them and it’s tracking code. Sometimes they are in fancy shapes. My favorite geocoin that I came across was in the shape of a gingerbread man. I have one in front of me now that is in the shape of a leaf. Geocoins are built to last and are hard to damage by accident.

Other Trackable Items :

Over the years geocaching.com and fellow geocachers have developed other trackable items that don’t really fit into the category of a Travelbug or geocoin, however they generally all have the same basic principle : There’s a code on the item that proves you found it and can be tracked via geocaching.com

Since all these things cost money, and techienation always has a “on the cheap” way of doing things, you can also make your own FREE trackable item. However it’s not trackable on geocaching.com, you need to go to another website to track it. Check it out here ! Make your own trackable items for FREE !

When I first started geocaching it was a lot of fun to come across a travel bug or a geocoin that I could take home and show my friends before placing it in another cache. I went out of my way to go find cache’s that had geocoins or travel bugs in them.