Aside

Help With Mystery Caches

Sunday, January 29th is #NationalPuzzleDay Help With Mystery Caches Do you typically avoid those blue circles with question marks on the map? You may be missing a lot of fun solving the puzzles so here are a few tips that may assist you. If you can identify the type of puzzle, then “GeocachingToolbox.com. All geocaching tools a geocacher needs in one box.” can be a big help. For example, “what3words” is common in mysteries. This tool enables users to enter the 3 words that define the co-ordinates – and it even shows the location on a map. GC8MVT7 uses this … Continue reading


Geocaching.com Drops Benchmarking

Geocaching.com Drops Benchmarking Geocaching HQ made an announcement on October 17, 2022 that they will be dropping Benchmarking from the website. As part of their page updates, all logs will be removed. Owners who wish to save this information should do so as soon as possible. In addition, all challenge caches that require benchmark finds will be archived. Benchmark finds will stay in user statistics, so that others can know that you logged some before they were gone. The official announcement was hidden in the release notes within the forums. You can read it it here. Geocaching HQ is recommending … Continue reading

Aside

Getting Permissions to Place Caches: Be a Good Neighbor

Getting Permissions to Place Caches Be a Good Neighbor #NationalGoodNeighborDay (September 28) Did you know that one of the missions of the Northern Virginia Geocaching Organization is to promote local land use policies when placing their geocaches? Our local reviewers, YetAnotherReviewer and CardinalReviewer, help maintain a geocaching wiki page where you can find many of Virginia’s localities and their policies. Remember to always seek out permission when placing your caches. You can find that link here: https://wiki.groundspeak.com/display/GEO/Virginia


Adventure Labs Now Have Themes

Spooky or Science… Education or Exercise… Adventure Labs® Now Have Themes Geocaching HQ has updated Adventure Lab® to give creators/owners the ability to select “themes” for their labs. There are 31 themes and owners can select up to three. Owners of Adventure Labs® should have received an e-mail letting them know how they can add these to their labs. Those who are just creating their labs, will be required to select at least one theme when they are first setting up their lab. These themes are meant to help adventurers find something to meet their mood. Want to avoid bad … Continue reading

Upgrade available for cachetur.no

Introducing cache-turminator.no Cachetur.no is a powerful trip-routing tool that has taken off in the caching world. However once all those caches are loaded up the challenge can be having enough time to stop and find them. Problem solved: announcing cache-turminator.no! With cache-turminator, load up all the caches on your route as usual, and then hop in the car. Cache-turminator will *automatically* log caches for you as you drive by! Using a comprehensive data catalog of cache details gleaned from a platoon of log-reading web robots, an advanced log-writing algorithm will piece together and post clever no-signature found-it logs at a … Continue reading

Local Geocachers Attend Class About Cachetur.no

March 10, 2018 – Over 24 geocachers descended upon the Thomas Jefferson Library to attend a class titled Let’s take a cachetur.  Cachetur.no is the hottest new geocaching application around that lets you plan private trips, group trips and public trips that are open for all.  Current NoVAGO President Platoaddict was the mastermind behind this class came prepared with slides and some cool cachetur.co swag for the attendees.  While developing this class the developers of cachetur.no reached out to NoVAGO and offered to help in anyway they could.  Attendees seemed very pleased with the information from the class. “I’m sure I … Continue reading

First Class of 2018 Kicks Off NoVAGO’s New Direction of Hosting Educational Events

On Saturday February 3, 2018 thirty geocachers piled into a classroom for Awesnap’s Planning a Geocaching Road Trip Class. Our new President, platoaddict , want’s 2018 to be the year NoVAGO host’s more educational events.  On the horizon there are plans to host classes on a variety of subjects including GSAK, puzzle solving, cachetur.no, earthcaching 101, and a basic cache page creation class. The Geocaching Road Trip class was held in Prince William County at the Chinn Library.  Awesnap’s presentation covered the basics of distance caching, selecting target geocaches, routing, project.gc, and a quick introduction to cachetur.no. JPWAVE wrote in his … Continue reading

Class is in Session

With laptops, paper, and pens in hand it looked more like a university setting than a geocaching event.  On October 15th geocachers gathered at Bull Run Regional Library and sat at the ready to learn the basics of geocaching puzzle solving.  Since 2011 Two000miler has held 8 puzzle caching workshops throughout the Northern Virginia area.  His class today touched on substitution, playfair, bacon, vigenère, and other cyphers as well as understanding where a puzzle creator can hide clues on a cache page.  His most important advice he gives on solving puzzles is “Read the entire cache page, write down what … Continue reading

Puzzled? Don’t Fret… Help is on the Way

NoVAGO Puzzle Cache Workshop Sunday, October 15, 2017 (1:00-4:00 p.m.) Bull Run Regional Library 8051 Ashton Avenue Manassas, VA 20109 Having trouble with puzzle caches? There are a lot of them out there. These pesky little devils seem to get filed in one of two places by most cachers. There are them that loves ’em and them that hates ’em. If you are in the latter category (or in the former and just want to practice), this may be the event for you. This event will be geared toward beginning puzzlers. There will be a session later in the year … Continue reading

How NoVAGO uses its budget – By Hooclass2002

Have you ever wondered what we do with 50/50 proceeds? Or how the fall silent auction turns into caching goodness? Well, wonder no more – in an effort to be transparent the NoVAGO board wanted to share some highlights of how NoVAGO’s funds are used – both now and in the future. First – NoVAGO currently has about $2,000 in its coffers. Our account stays relatively stable – keeping about the same amount of funding – having expended roughly $200 more than we’ve taken in so far in 2016 (given that the fall is our big fundraiser, this is expected). … Continue reading