Travel Bugs - YFTB Kickoff Announced

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Program Will Begin This Summer

By Jamie Sheffield , aka NFA

In a surprise announcement this week, geocaching.com and the Banana Advisory Board of America (BABA) introduced the geocaching world to the newest promotion that will be sweeping caches across the world this summer ... The Yellow Fruit Travel Bug Contest!

Geocaching.com will start shipping bananas equipped with special edition travel bug tags this June. The YFTBs will ship both individually and in bunches to geocaching organizations and interested geocachers all over the world. Following up on the huge popularity of the YJTB promotion, making use of miniature Jeeps with tracking tags, this contest is expected to provide tons of beneficial exposure to both geocaching.com and BABA (and their European counterpart BABE).

Although the rules of the contest have not yet been finalized, Today’s Cacher has been given the following preliminary information:

Geocachers will be expected to move the YFTBs from cache to cache, logging their adventures as they travel around the world.

Every time a geocacher finds and logs a YFTB, they will be eligible to enter a photo and/or essay that highlights the positive interaction between, and synergistic effects of, geocaching and bananas (BABA has asked that geocachers not submit pictures and/or essays involving people slipping on banana peels ... they are interested in dispelling this age old misperception, and are hoping this contest/program helps in their efforts).

Geocachers are asked to not eat the YFTBs, as they are the property of BABA for the duration of the contest.

typical cache with YFTB “Bananas and geocaching are a great combination, and we’re really looking forward to wonderful success with this program!” said Fitzhume Wallace, CEO of BABA. “Beef Jerky and Lil’ Debbies are no match for bananas when it comes to providing geo-fuel for cachers on the go; and we’re hoping to shine a light on this fact throughout the contest.”

According to geocaching.com’s Jeremy Irish, the contest is scheduled to run until the fruit component of the YFTBs has completely rotted away. Irish specified by adding, “When the Special Edition TB tag comes away from a brownish mess of goo and fruit flies, it is time to retire that particular YFTB.” Obviously, this will happen sooner in some parts of the world than other, but Irish and Wallace feel that this will only help to highlight regional distinctions in the geocaching world.

The URL and email for the YFTB contest/program will be released in mid-April, and the first bunches of YFTBs should ship by mid-May.

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