I'm what you might call a social cacher. A great many of my finds are logged on the way to, while attending, and on the way home from geocaching events. I also spend a lot of my free time in various geocaching-related forums.

Early on I began to form an idea of how I like to play "the game." It was based on my personal experiences as much as it was influenced by what I read in the forums. While event discussions rarely get heated, some of the forum discussions turned into the equivalent of a shouting match over what seemed to me to be trivial things, but later I began to see how this could happen.

Geocaching as an activity is easy to explain: hide/cache page, GPSr, coords, location/maps, search, (hint) find/container, sign log, trade, rehide. (Forgive the brevity here. The rest is pretty long.)

Geocaching as a hobby/sport/game/all-consuming obsession is much harder to pin down, because each person experiences it differently and it’s those differences that can lead to some heated exchanges.

Early in my geocaching career I gave a name to a practice that had begun to occur with travel bugs. I called it “counting coup” after the American Indian practice of a warrior hitting an enemy with a stick, in battle, to claim a kill without actually killing the enemy. I thought it might be a solution to travel bugs getting held too long if more people would do it.

I posted a poll to see how well received it would be. The voting was in favor of the practice, (many more people voted than responded) but the responses were terribly interesting. I got positive feedback, indifferent feedback, negative feedback, and outright insulted. I was even accused of destroying the “spirit” of geocaching at one point for the mere suggestion that it would be OK to “count coup.” It was really interesting how strongly some folks felt about a relatively small facet of geocaching at the time. From that forum experience, I came up with a saying that still rings true today:

"Everyone plays their own game. There is no sense in trying to police another's mindset as long as it falls within the general parameters of the game."

So many threads get posted by one cacher shaking their finger at other cachers for the way they play "The Game" and many of the discussions at geocaching events occur along the same lines.

In many cases these finger wagglers just haven't taken the time to try to see how someone who plays the game a bit differently can find it fun. There are quite a few facets of geocaching with wagons circled on either side of the fence and neither side willing to budge an inch. (e.g. Virtual/locationless Caches and the ever popular micro cache debate.)

It is evident from all the talk at events, in the numerous national and regional geocaching forums, and the fact that spin offs of geocaching.com occur with greater frequency, that each person views the game/activity differently.

Here is a rough picture of my game:

Snoogans' Game Philosophy

I'm more of a hider than a finder in the long run and a great log on one of my caches can really make my day. I try to place caches that will generate good logs.

Priority #1 for my hides: Most of my hidden caches must be above par in at least some aspect, or for me, what's the point? You don't see too many TNLNTFTC finds on my caches. All it takes is a little thought in hiding and folks will want to talk about it.

Conversely, a cache is a cache to me. I don't feel others need to uphold my personal set of standards in their hides for me to enjoy them. In many cases I don't really enjoy them, but I try to always remember to say thanks. I know that it's MY responsibility to have fun. It's NOT the hider's responsibility to show me a great time, in the safest of conditions, with adequate parking and restrooms, while being kid friendly, clever, giving just the perfect hint and whatever else it takes to please me on that particular day.

I don’t require people to stick to the theme on my theme caches, but it is nice when they do. If someone cheats on my puzzle caches, I don’t care. I just don’t have control issues about small stuff and frankly, cheating to get coords on a puzzle is a part of the game whether people want to admit it or not. Whether it’s by email, under the table, or just hooking up with someone who has already done the work, if you go to the cache and sign the log it’s still a find.

When I post an event, I get a hide stat, but I also post an “attended” for my own events. It's hard work hosting an event and I feel that I deserve the find as well.

Attending events is my absolute favorite part of geocaching. When I discovered geocaching, it felt like I had found “My People.” I have attended a total of 47 geocaching events and 3 non-official GC.com events in 5 states. (Texas, California, New Mexico, Florida, and Colorado.)

I like talking about geocaching, so I guess that’s why I spend so much time in the forums between events.

Hunting caches is usually an opportunistic venture for me. I tend to WANT to hunt caches when I am traveling. I take the ones at home for granted. The nearest unfound cache to my house is less than 2 miles away. There are several caches within an easy walk from my job. One is just a couple hundred yards away. I haven't bothered to find any of them.

When I choose to hunt a cache, at home, it's because the word of mouth on it is such that a great hunt is almost assured.

I like a regular cache as much as the next guy, virtual and locationless caches and I’m not repulsed by micros.

I think puzzle caches are cool. I don’t possess the skills or equipment (e.g. Sextant, sighting compass) to do many of the ones in my area, but maybe one day I’ll take a stab at them. Heck, it might be fun to team up with someone to tackle them. I certainly don't resent a cache being posted that I can't find.

FTF is not my drug of choice although it is quite good when I get one. I'd rather look at the logs and see if a cache is worth my time.

Sometimes I'm a lazy logger. I have well over 100 caches found (possibly as many as 200) that I still haven't bothered to log. I’ve got about 15 caches from 2004 and most of the caches I’ve hit since May left to log. I also have a half dozen caches hidden that I haven’t bothered to post either.

I post all of my DNFs immediately. I feel that it is important to let the owner and other potential hunters know my experience when I can’t find a cache.

I couldn’t care less what’s in a cache, but I usually make a trade if there’s anything at all there. Signature items are what I look for and all I really care about other than travel bugs. I especially like anything that is handmade.

I very rarely do more than sign my name in a log book and unless the weather is great and the bugs absent and I rarely take the time to read one. I’d rather cover it all online. In my online logs I almost never post what I trade. I have a habit of cramming a cache that I enjoyed full of decent stuff and I just don’t feel like listing it all. If all I say is thanks, then you can bet it wasn’t a stellar experience, but I at least appreciate a hider’s effort and don’t waste my time pondering their motivation for placing a cache.

I think travel bugs are just plain cool as my TB stats will show. I try to log and move TBs as quickly as possible, but I’m no TB saint. I’ve lost, misplaced, forgotten, and held bugs too long. It happens.

I advocate counting coup on TBs even though I rarely do it. To me, travel bugs are a game within the game. In my TB game, a travel bug is a game piece. Just like caches, I want to find as many as I can. I must at least touch a travel bug to get credit for it unless it’s a virtual bug. I get around, so I like to move bugs to rack up mileage and that’s the only reason that I hardly ever count coup.

I have 113 travel bug tags of my own. About half of those are activated and of those only about a dozen or so have been released. I don’t have unrealistic expectations for my TBs. I accept responsibility that I released an item into the world and whatever happens to it is just fine by me regardless if whether it stays on mission or not.

I participate at least in some way on many other geocaching/geocaching related sites. A geocache is a geocache is a geocache to me and I really don’t understand the political nature of why some people refuse to consider using alternative cache listing sites. There are more than one lane on the geocaching highway.

Regardless of whether you agree with my game philosophy or not, that’s how I choose to play it. Others are going to play in their own way. Maybe there would be fewer complaint threads in the forums if more people just took the time to see it the other guy's way before passing judgment.

Totem Lake coined a favorite quote of mine about geocaching and fun:

"Failure is a hard pill to swallow until you realize the only failure you can really have in this sport is the failure to enjoy yourself."

It’s all the different ways to experience the game that make geocaching so appealing to a wide audience. If the guidelines were more rigid, far fewer people would want to participate.