It doesn’t take long for a geocacher “new to the game” to stumble across a trackable and wonder what on earth they have found. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and although these game pieces are often unique, it is not immediately clear as a new geocacher, what you are suppose to do with them.

With the Whittlesea Mega only a few weeks away (which is a great place to discover or move on a trackable), I thought it would be great to get further insight into what these game pieces are all about. To help shine a light on the life of a trackable, I spoke to Pinkpiggy7 aka Bert, Danielle and Adam recently to hear their thoughts on what they were all about.

Thanks so much Pinkpiggy7 for your time, firstly can you share with us when you started Geocaching and what got you into this crazy hobby we love?

We are Pinkpiggy7, being Bert (Dad) and the now young adults Danielle and Adam, at anytime we could be out caching as the 3 of us, or just one of us.

In January 2014 the 3 of us went on a family holiday to Merimbula, one night at the accommodation, there was a fire on one of the power poles out the front, and while waiting for the fire brigade, we got chatting to the owner, and they mentioned this game that they occasionally play. The next day using Danielle’s smart phone (I still had an old not so smart phone), we found our first cache at the nearby airport, and a few more in the area. That started our crazy obsession. Which has taken us to places we would have otherwise just driven past.

Can you explain what a trackable or TB is?

A trackable is a game piece which has a unique tracking code on it, which once enabled on Geocaching.com and released into the wild, can be picked up and moved around by players to different caches. They can also stay with their owner to be discovered at events. When looking at a trackable page, look at the map, it can really show some interesting travels. PP7 Map example

There are 4 basic things you can do if you find one: –

• Retrieve – Which means you take it from the cache, and log that it is now in your possession, to take it on its travels, be it to the next cache down the road, or on a longer journey to help it fulfil its mission.
• Discover – This just allows you to make an electronic log to indicate that you have seen the trackable on your travels, it may be in a cache, in the hands of the owner or maybe at an event.
• Grab it – This can be used if you pick up the trackable from somewhere besides where the website thinks it is. As an example, we have found one in a totally different cache than listed, or at an event someone has given it to us to help it’s on its journey. This moves it into your possession.
• Write note – Often used to send a note to the trackable owner, it could be that it is missing from the listed cache or some other random note.

Are there different types? Are they different to geocoins?

Yes there are many different types of trackable items, the most basic is a dog tag style with a tracking code, which is often attached to some other random item, i.e. we have them attached to key tags, old USB sticks, toy animals, etc. Often the mission is based around the object you attach.

Then there are many other types, as an example we have T shirts which are trackable that we wear to events, Sully our car has a trackable code on it, I have even seen people with a trackable tattoo (that’s crazy), if you can put a tracking code on it, it can be done.

There are also Geocoin’s which have tracking numbers, but these are rarely let loose into the wild due to their value and are mostly retained by the owner more to commemorate special events. As an example, we just purchased one to mark our 8000 find, and will keep that in our display. We also collect Geocoins from the Mega’s we have attended.

If a new geocacher wanted to have a go at releasing a trackable, how do they do it?

First buy a trackable from a Geocaching store, maybe start with a cheap dog tag. We tend to attach some random object, which relates to its mission.

Head over to the Activate Trackable page on Geocaching.com

Here you need to enter the unique code on the trackable, and an activation code. Give it a unique name, describe what mission you would like it to complete (ie. Visit random caches, visit as many zoo’s as possible).

This will then activate it, and you can go and drop it in a cache to begin it’s travels.

Here is a picture of one we have setup just for this blog post. (TB7FKB2) Travel Bug Dog Tag – Beginner Blog Trackable (geocaching.com) Feel free to look at it’s mission and travels to date.

How many do you have? Have they travelled far?

We currently own 43 trackables, some have gone AWOL after travelling zero km’s, others have travelled well over 50,000 km’s all over the world.

We also have a trackable on our car, which gets logged when we go on trips, Casper our first Geomobile clocked up over 33,000 km’s, and Sully is currently up to 7000 km’s, in his 2 years with us, noting that our caching has being severely curtailed in that period.

Our trackable which has travelled the furthest is Oink ( (TB6CJGD) Travel Bug Dog Tag – Oink! (geocaching.com) ) which has over 154,000 km’s.

We have a personal trackable which we try to log into every cache on our travels, it has travelled over 130,000 km’s of cache-to-cache distance, are we addicted? No way.

Am I right in saying that you can set missions for your trackables?

Yes, when first setting up a trackable the owner can set a mission on the page, doing this doesn’t guarantee that finders will help it on it’s mission, but it is a guide rather than a must do.

We have 5 which their mission was to complete a race to 2 other continents, then come back to Australia, only one ever completed the mission, but it was fun watching them.

Once when visiting QLD we had 10 minutes to spare before the plane was due to leave, so we went and found a cache (as you do), it had a trackable, but we didn’t have time to check it’s mission, but took it anyhow. When we checked it at home, it’s mission was to go only 20 km’s down the road from us, so the next day we dropped it off.

Anything else that a beginner should know about trackables?

Trackables are a side game to Geocaching, if you don’t want to participate, there is no requirement to log or take the trackable from a cache. Our game is a fun game, where we all tend to play it slightly differently so don’t feel compelled to take part.

Never publish a photo of the number on the trackable to social media, a cache log or anywhere else, there are people out there who find these numbers and log them as found, they even publish lists of the numbers, and the owner gets spurious logs because some people just want to spoil it for everyone.

Playing trackables can be a fun or frustrating part of the game, some of ours have gone missing within days of being released, others have travelled thousands of kilometres, don’t get to attached to the items you send into the wild, just make it a fun thing and enjoy.

Enjoy our addiction!!!

Thanks so much Pinkpiggy7, you have given us great insight into the world of trackables and even cleverly inserted your own to be discovered within this blog. What a creative idea and a journey I would be interested to follow.

For those of you that are keen to learn more about trackables you can read more at geocaching.com/track

– heymissjo