By Bill Van Couwenberghe (AlaskaVans)

We went with our church (St. Benedict’s) on a pilgrimage to Europe. There were 35 of us on the trip. We traveled to Belgium, Germany, Austria and Czechia. Along the way, during our free time, we were able to do some Geocaching. Since we were on a group tour, we could only find caches that were within walking distance of where we were at. Below are some of the highlights of the caching portion of the trip.

The two best finds were when we were in Brugge, Belgium. The first one was GC4XMCM RV 5.08 : Brugge. It had over 7,200 favorite points when we found it. Two weeks later, it has over 7,300 favorite points. It was featured as a cache of the week back in February 2019 (RV 5.08 : Brugge — Geocache of the Week – Official Blog). After finding it, I now know why. The second one was GC7B940 ♥ Pont d’Amour ♥ (point of love). They note in the cache page that “If you kiss your beloved one on this bridge, you’ll stay together forever!” My eldest daughter received a marriage proposal on the bridge. She said yes!

In Cologne (Köln), Germany, we did a virtual that was created by Moun10Bike, GC5B4A Portal to the Past (Köln). Moun10Bike is a lackey that has classic geocoins (see the Treasures – Classic trackables). So finding one if his caches was great.

While we were in Munich, Germany, in one of the squares, there was a webcam: GCHNBF The heart of munich. We were gathering to take a group picture. I happened to look to see what was nearby and saw the webcam. It made it easy for me to identify where I was in the picture of the square.

While in Mariazell, Austria, I finally was able to locate a 25 to use for the Where’s 25? Locationless Cache (GCA2025). I was doing some souvenir shopping in the town near a Benedictine Abbey and saw the sign. I remembered that I hadn’t done this cache yet. So I snapped a couple of pictures and logged the find.

In Prague, Czechia, there were two caches next to each other that were fun to do: a traditional cache that was in a visitor center, GC7V42P PRAGUE TOURIST TOUR: Staromestske namesti, and a virtual cache, GC89130 Pražský orloj / Prague Astronomical Clock – VR2.0!. The traditional cache has over 4,150 favorite points. The virtual was an Astronomical clock that we were able to watch it at the top of an hour.

By: Louise Kempker (freeweez)  

This story began in August of 2023, when a group of geocachers from Germany descended on Alaska. Through a comedy of errors (it’s a long story!), Dogliest and I ended up driving 6 of them: Ralf, Uve, George, Volker, Chris, and Volkmar –to various caches in Anchorage after their event in the evening. It seems that when German cachers come to visit our city, they take public transportation instead of renting a vehicle. They politely asked if we could take all of them to the oldest cache in Anchorage 2 days later. Dogliest and I cleared our calendar and picked them up on a Friday morning.

We headed to Kincaid Park aiming for GCA4D – Cooks Nook, placed in 2001. (Please read their logs on this cache dated 8-18-2023)! The trek was definitely a long hike, and a couple in our group of 8 headed a different direction, thinking the route to GZ would be shorter. After they all excitedly signed the log and took photos, we headed to a local place for dinner. It was during dinner that Ralf suggested that he and I partner and create an ‘Exchange Cache’.

Well folks—that has been almost 2 years in the making—but it has finally happened! There are 2 Exchange Caches—one from Anchorage – Cologne – Anchorage……and another from Cologne- Anchorage – Cologne. Here are the GC codes for each: GCAGN3J…..and GCA5XZA. There is a bit of adding and subtracting involved…but you can do it! The stages here in Anchorage are easily approachable. Please check them out—there are quite a few German cachers who are anxious and eager to partner with a ‘local’ to complete the Exchange Caches. This only one of the German logs from Cooks Nook:

“We are a group of 12 German Geocachers on our Tour “Wild West and Alaska” and log as WW2023. After our tour to Ukpiaġvik/Barrow we returned back to Anchorage and today once again our new friends freeweez and Dogliest took us on a fantastic tour through the western part of Anchorage. We enjoyed it so much and we had the best possible caching experience at this last day of our 2 weeks travel in the United States! Definitely this oldie was the highlight of the day! Not an easy one – I would say D 2.5 or higher, depending on the condions of moisture and the season – please be careful if you are not prepared! The path was quite steep and the vegetation made it difficult to walk. Ater more than 30 minutes of hiking we were very happy to find this oldest cache of Alaska in good condition – Geoklatti could find the box and log for our entire group., Thank you very much for the fun with this great cache, Captain Cook, says Seidenflamingo from Potsdam, Germany.”

Upcoming Events

June 30 – GCB8C6K Parking Lot Party  (Sitka)

June 30 – GCB8HHW Meet, Greet, and Check out the GCAK! Mobile Store  (Anchorage)

July 4 – GCB8F3P Happy Birthday USA (Anchorage)

July 4 – GCB8JX7 Independence Day Coffee Cheers from Arizona! (Sitka)

July 6 – GCB91TJ How About An Event In Skagway Alaska? (Skagway)

July 7 – GCB6NXN Teamwork Required: Montague Island (CITO Event) (Montague Island)

July 8 – GCATMC3 2025 Community Celebration Event  (Anchorage)

July 14 – GCB7CG9 Cornhusker’s visit Alaska (Ketchikan)

July 16 – GCB8HK4 Coffee, Donuts, Meet, and Greet (Hoonah)

July 30 – GCB8GCE Mr. Smith goes to Alaska (Denali) 

Upcoming Souvenirs:

Celebrating 25 Years: no time limit

     (Find all 5 treasures in “Celebrating 25 Years” Treasures collection to qualify)

International Geocaching Day – August 16

Cache In Trash Out® (CITO) 2025 – Season  September 1 – November 30 

September Equinox: September 19-22

For a full list of upcoming souvenirs, visit: 2025 Confirmed Souvenirs on the Geocaching Blog

By Emily Accipiter Stewart  (eaccipi)

Cheerio from the beautiful Welsh countryside! Rstewar and I are on a 10 day holiday along the Mon & Brec canals in southern Wales. We’re spending a week on a 45’ long narrowboat moving around 2 mph through 30 miles of canals. It is incredibly slow paced, and lends a lot of time for chatting, reading, checking out all of the pubs, and geocaching.

Amazingly, there are over 100 geocaches hidden along the tow path (trail) beside the canal. Several beautiful series, hidden by CanalCruisers, line the area, which was a pleasant surprise when were getting into the planning stages of this adventure. Overall, I found about 50 caches over our week on the water – some of them clever, some of them convenient, and all of them well maintained. 

One of the funniest parts, and that shows me what a small world we live in – is that I saw fellow Alaskan geocacher AlaskaTim had found several of the caches in the area where we were going!

I love traveling, and getting to geocache in a new place often adds a layer of exploration for me. Since caches have to be hidden by locals, I’m often taken to places off the beaten path, or through parks I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I’ve been fortunate to cache in 17 countries and each time, my family has agreed that we’ve found cooler spots because of where geocaching takes us.

Something incredibly special about Alaska and Alaskan Geocachers is I think we do the same thing. We’ve got one of the highest concentrations of caches in our cities, and offer a variety of terrain, difficulty, and urban/wild opportunities to find. Caching in other places always reminds me of what we’ve got and how special it is.

Tourist season is in full swing here in Alaska, and, with everything going on, it looks like there will be fewer visitors to our state – both national and international. Let’s use this as a chance to discover new things in our own backyard. Place geocaches in interesting spots that you want to share. Highlight a trail or viewpoint you love. Include a story of why you hid the cache there in the description. Include parking waypoints for those who aren’t familiar with the area. Write logs on caches you find that tell about the day, the adventure, the find. 

Enjoy the journey this month!

Yours,

Emily Accipiter Stewart | eaccipi

GeocacheAlaska! President