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By Lasse Pere,
(aka Divine)
Geocaching, the worldwide game of “hide and seek,” matures daily with international intrigue. The hobby involves all kinds of people from the far reaches of the world; some travel to distant countries to hide or find caches. Others invent their own, sophisticated, global twists to the game. One such idea was recently generated by a Canadian geocacher.
Several months ago, Canadazuuk, BC, Canada, contacted me through Geocaching.com and asked if I would be interested in exchanging geocaches with him. The idea was for each of us to prepare, and exchange new, ready-made geocaches. The caches would be filled with items from our individual localities.
I’m supposed to hide canadazuuk’s cache here in Finland, and my container will be hidden in Canada. The cache designer gets to name the cache; the hider finds the appropriate place for it.
I’ve planned a cache called Divine Intervention for a long time, but never found a good place for one with that name. But now I’m kind of intervening to the Canadian geocaching scene, eh? So I made a custom cache report with the name Divine Intervention and snail-mailed the whole thing to Canada.
The cache name was three words. Every word was Finnish, but they didn’t make any sense.One day I got an email from canadazuuk, explaining his cache. The cache name was three words. It looked like Finnish. Actually every word was Finnish, but they didn’t make any sense. It was all gibberish. Translated back to English it would be something like “Hardly Slope Simmer!”
After a while I realised that my Canadian counterpart had probably used some kind of translating software in the web. I found similar software, and I figured that the name of his cache might be “If Mountains Could Sing.” He later confirmed that as correct.
One of the first things upon which to agree with your exchange partner, besides the schedule, is the value of the cache contents. You don’t want to prepare a $3.12 cache when you’re going to receive tens of dollars worth stuff from your partner, right? It doesn’t need to be more expensive than any of your local caches, but better talk it straight before sending anything.
A good idea for the swag is to use some items that are typical for your country or area. About everything in my exchange cache including the container is made in and about Finland: There are couple of Moomin toys, some postcards, a set of Finnish Euro coins, some small Finnish design souvenirs, and couple of mystical items from Lapland, the very northern part of Finland.
Sending my package from Finland to Canada cost about... $13.00If you’re not in a hurry, sending your package by surface helps reduce cost. You can also send only the contents to keep a tight rein on the expenses, but the original idea was to trade a complete geocache container with all the contents, because the container itself can be interesting too; maybe a camo-painted or a home made one.
When mailing the package it’s good to take into account that the customs policies can vary a lot in different countries. Make sure you are allowed to send those certain items to that certain country, and probably the best advice is to be very detailed on the contents of your package.
Also remember to state in the invoice the contents are a gift and not for re-sale. Better also pack your cache well before sending it. You don’t want your neat trading items to shatter in the post system.
Sending my package from Finland to Canada cost 10,50 €, (less than 17 CAD or about 13 USD.) I chose the cheapest, and probably, the slowest option.
A few days after I sent my exchange geocache on its way towards “the land of the red maple leaf,” I got an email from canadazuuk, that he had also sent his cache. Some of the contents are said to be a surprise, but at least there should be Bob and Doug's Great White North Album, Canadian Tire stuff and Canadian geocoins. I can hardly wait!
Although the USA has almost three quarters of the world’s geocaches, there’s at least one cache in nearly every country. Usually, there is more than one. Geocaching has become popular on the old continent too. While the numbers of international cachers has steadily increased, many have found their way, (they’re geocachers, they do find things!,) to the geocachers’ forums on the Internet.
When canadazuuk published his idea in the Geocaching.com forums, it was received quite well. Some forum readers volunteered to exchange caches with overseas people, and probably some people are planning their cache trading right now as I’m writing this.
The forum and chat board discussions and dealings between cachers from different countries have led to international meetings and exchanging of stuff. (I sent some Finnish stamps to a Californian caching couple, and got a big package of Kool-Aid in return.) New friendships and cultural exchanges may even provide some positive eye opening about different countries and people.
The (exchange) can make people far away become interested in your country and area- but you’d better beware of those web translators!To me the global nature of geocaching has always been one of the most important aspects of the hobby. The international geocache exchange is a great way to promote it, and it can make people far away become interested in your country and area- but you’d better beware of those web translators!
Editor's note: At this time there are at least two other exchange caches in the works!
