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thomfre Geocacher since: January 3rd 2012 User on cachetur.no since: December 9th 2012 Caches found: 19 378 Number of trips: 459 Number of trip templates: 39 Favorite cache type: Virtual Favorite print template: Detailed, left aligned – default Home region: Rogaland, Norway |
Tell us about your last trip
Our last trip was our annual US road trip. A four week long trip, where the main goal was to finish the two last states and the requirements for the Visit Utah GeoTour. We managed both without any problems! 😀
We found well over 1000 caches during this trip, and had great help from cachetur.no both during the planning and the execution of the trip.
You can read more about this trip on our blog 🙂
Why do you use cachetur.no?
Cachetur.no gives us a unique overview and control of the caches we want to find. And helps ensure that we stay updated along the way. Much of the work we normally would have to do manually, have been automated. And much of what could potentially cause a lot of discomfort during our travels (like looking for a place to park, I really hate that), are eliminated by including enough information in our plan. Cachetur.no easily allows us to do just that.
Do things always go as planned?
No. Of course not. Our plan is nothing but a nice overview of everything we want to do. The plan is a tool. Not the law. A tool to help us achieve our goals, and do the things we want to.
Our plan is also a tool to help us when things happen. And that is why we often include a lot of extra, but still relevant, information. Like alternate routes, alternate caches (for counties, etc) and what we can skip if we have to.
How long time does it take to implement a new idea?
It can take anywhere from just a couple minutes, to several years. Cachetur.no has a long, and steadily growing, list of suggestions for improvements and new features.
Sometimes the ideas just need to mature a bit, other times they require so much work or are so tailored to a specific need, that we need a lot more time to implement it. Ideas that several users submit, will get higher priority (which is why it is important that you tell us what you want!).
Sometimes the idea can be so good, or tempting, that I can’t wait. Or it could be a critical error. Then I just have to find a place to sit down, and start working – no matter if it’s in the middle of an airport, in the car on the way to a caching trail or in a very old Nevada motel room.
How has cachetur.no helped you plan trips together with other people?
I plan most my trips together with Heltinnen, and sometimes with more people. So the ability to put everything into a trip, and then share it is very important to me. It allows every participant to easily see everything that’s planned, the information we have been able to dig up and what remains to be done (thanks to the todo-list).
We use the comment section a lot when gathering relevant information, on everything from the trip itself to caches and cache solutions.
How much time do you use on cachetur.no, and what is your motivation for using so much time?
I probably use a lot more time than I dare to admit for Heltinnen. We do have slower times of the year, like when we’re out traveling, but mainly it’s somewhere between 1 and 3-4 hours each day.
I can’t hide the fact that a major motivation factor is our own use of cachetur.no. But the site is so complex now, that this alone isn’t worth all the time I use – I could have made a very nice plan in Excel with all this time 😉
The main motivation factor is happy users, and people that believe enough in us to support us financially. I don’t personally make any money on this project, at all. But the feeling I get when people support the tool I’ve put so much time and soul in, is worth a lot! Positive feedback, and just watching people talk about cachetur.no (in a positive way) is also a great motivational factor!
How did the cachetur.no app help you on your last trip?
Both calculation of ETA and the app is new this year. Calculation of arrival time would have been useful anyway, but the app added a whole new dimension with its real time updates. We had full control, at all times, and knew exactly how much time we had to find bonus caches (caches not on the plan), or how far behind we were.
Those that know us, knows that we like to find bonus caches. So this feature was worth its weight in gold to us (and then some, since apps doesn’t really weigh that much).
The app also helped make the plan more available to us, so that we didn’t have to look at the physical plan all the time (the physical printout still has a lot of other uses to us). This paired with the new export file for Garmin automotive GPSrs made a lot of things a lot easier!
On average, the ETA didn’t have more than +/- 30 minutes error at the end of the day. That’s not bad for a four week long trip, with 12+ hours every day! Several days were even spot on, or very close to spot on.
This post is also available in: Norsk bokmål (Norwegian Bokmål) Deutsch (German)