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BugznElm'r
5th January 2004, 12:22 PM
Hi all!
We were just wondering what tips and tricks others use to help keep their travel bugs in circulation. We do the normal things like make sure it is well marked and has a goal and sometimes drop finders a note thanking them for picking it up/dropping it off.
However, we were wondering if there is more than can be done?
Does anyone else thing that, with Europe being a short jump away, that the note cards might be better in French/German too?
Does anyone else think that there is a correlation between a bug being placed in an old cache more likely to get lost (because all the experienced cachers have already visited it)?
Or, is loss, to quote Agent Smith "inevitable". :(

The Wombles
5th January 2004, 06:38 PM
I'm afraid it is inevitable.

Whilst your strategies can certainly prolong the inevitable, sooner or later it will fall foul of a cacher who either isn't careful or simply looses interest in caching. Whilst mailing said cacher may help in the former case, and sometimes bugs can reappear after a ridiculously long (and random) disappearance, eventually they all get unlucky.

We have released 8 bugs and they have lasted (so far):
18 months and counting
10 months and lost in Europe in the care of an experienced cacher
4 months and lost in the US (inexperienced cacher)
6 months and counting
12 months and lost in the US along with the whole cache
11 months and lost in Saudi Arabia (inexperienced cacher?)
2 months and counting
9 months and counting

Only one of these went missing in Europe whilst in the care of a cacher who posted it and seemed to understand what a travel bug is, so alternative languages would not have helped here.

One strategy we have adopted is using the copy tag to "restart" a tag after the original was lost. This does at least double it's average life....

The Wobbly Club
6th January 2004, 03:56 PM
Hi we have had two of our travel bugs go missing from the outset.
Greased Lightning went from Monumental Journey and Scooby-Doo from They Came they saw they conkered.
Maybe some day they will reappear.

Colin & Daphne aka The Wobbly Club