Travel Bugs

[Esper Ranger]

So does anyone have any Travel Bugs out traveling around the world? I've got a couple though one stays with me just to count how many miles I've traveled in all my caching. It's name is Esper Ranger's Dog Tags. So far we have traveled over 62,000 miles with several trips to Japan and back. http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=71268

My other travel bug is Kansai Kuma. It made it all the way from Kentucky to the Shibuya ward of Tokyo before it went missing. Some left it outside the cache box since the box was too small. Luckily someone found it in a hole nearby yesterday after it was listed as missing for over a year. Once he gets cleaned up it will be back on the caching trail. http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=138674  

[lightning_fall]

I just aquired my first Travel bug from a door prize at a CITO event (also my first event- but that's another story)
We plan to send it out at the beginning of may, have it travel to the east coast (of Canada) and pick it up when my family and I fly out there this summer. If all goes well, I was thinking about sending it out a few months before other vacations we take in Canada or the U.S.
What do other people think of this idea?  

[Esper Ranger]

Not bad though the best laid TB plans seem to go awry. You can hope it goes where you want it, but sometimes people move them the opposite direction before they read the TB page. Mine was supposed to stay in Japan but someone brought it back to America and it is still waiting to go back.

While in Japan it got lost for a year when someone left it outside a cache that was too small for it and it fell down a hole under a tree root where no one could see it. Finally someone did, washed it up and put it back on the road.

In short, don't expect to get them back. Just have fun watching their travels.  

[lightning_fall]

Esper Ranger

You can hope it goes where you want it, but sometimes people move them the opposite direction before they read the TB page.

I thought of this, and taped it's goal to the back of the object it's attached to ^^  

[Esper Ranger]

While I was in Japan last month I dropped off the Marcy's Moose TB in a cache in the mountains above Kobe. It got some serious mileage there and even a quick visit to Himeji castle. I still need to post a pic of that.

Marcy's Moose
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?guid=8eb79517-c29e-4f19-b6b3-06fbcbc9ca11

Waterfall of Nunobiki cache
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=e54da75a-7650-4cb3-b912-9fc1d94f5bf0  

[7raindrops]

so is a travel bug a token that you take with you on a long trip, leave it there and then when you go back to the location you try to see if it is still in the area? haha  

[Esper Ranger]

No a Travel Bug is an item with a unique ID code on a dog tag. You "release" it into a cache and log online that it is there using the code. Someone else visiting the cache can pick it up and log that they have it. Then they drop it in another cache and log it again. Everyone using the secret code.

The Geocaching (or Groundspeak) site then starts tracking the Travel Bug on a map and counting the miles it travels between geocaches. Some bugs travel often. Some sit for years, like one that I found in Japan and then got stuck in a cache on the side of glacier in Norway, before moving on.

There are also "Geocoins" that behave the same way as Travel Bugs. Besides their TB functionality they tend to become collectors items.

In another post I'll discuss "Pathtags".  

[7raindrops]

Wow, that sounds awesome. Its great that you have one in Japan!!! This sounds like something that I totally want to do!!! hahaha well, once I have my geocaching legs under me  

[DenvoPryde]

I recently let loose a Travel Bug called I Miss New England http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=2470875 as the description says it is a tribute to my old Geocaching account and also to New England were I started to Cache.
I will probably be setting a new one off soon, having a REI store near my house is dangerous. Cachers should not have a store near them that actually sells Geocaching supplies.  

[7raindrops]

I am going to put my first travel bug out. I don't have a name for it yet, but it is going to be connected to a bird cage with a little bird in it. I got it at a craft store I think it's suppoesed to get on a necklace but not to this cacher haha. I'm pretty sure everything I buy will have to be doubled as something that would have to erlate to geocaching.  

[Esper Ranger]

Someone has been holding on to my Kansai Kuma TB again, or else they've place it in a cache and forgotten to log it. I just sent them an email to check. I'd like it to move back to Japan again.  

[WiFiDucky]

i just put this in cb but!!!!

so i have a TB out and it just made it to japan!!! im so happy
heres a like to Confisker the steampunk geofishy TB

its on its way to russia and im so freaked out its getting there so fast 5 caches and its in japan o.o  

[Esper Ranger]

Kewl beans! I hope my Kansai Kuma TB can make it back to Japan again soon.  

[Esper Ranger]

WOOT! Speak of the devil... no sooner had I made the previous post then I got a notification that he was back in Japan at a cache near the Makuhari Messe.

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=138674