By Mackenna Handeland (BirkenstockReport)
In 2004, Jeep became the first business to partner with Groundspeak on a trackable campaign. They released 4,000 matchbox-style yellow Jeep Wranglers with custom TB dog tags into the wild. The campaign was so successful that it was followed up in 2005 with 5,000 white Wrangler Rubicons, in 2006 with 6,000 Green Jeep Rescues, and in 2007 with 8,000 red Jeep Commanders. The 2004 jeeps were delineated simply with numbers; the 2005 jeeps were given first names; the 2006 were all named after mountain peaks in the United States, and the 2007 jeeps were labeled with north american rivers. Many of these travel bugs are still in circulation today– a few with the original Matchbox cars, a few with replacement cars or tags, and a few full-on proxies or replacement jeeps.
When they were first published, they all had the same goal, which was simply to move around to caches and meet as many cachers as possible. Of course, some of them were instantly taken and saved for personal collections; some disappeared through normal travel bug attrition, and as they became rarer to find in the wild, some were straight up “stolen” and placed for sale on eBay, with sales topping out over $100 for some. Many folks fought back against this with Jeep TB recovery missions– rescuing them from archived or lonely caches, reaching out to people no longer in the game who had logged them, and helping maintain them in various ways. It’s probably one of those good samaritans who found TB1NN9Y and refurbished it. It still has the original jeep and dog tag, but and they added a laminated card and gave it a mission: to go back to its namesake river, the Situk.
I was in Iowa in June of 2025 and had only been caching for a little over a month when I saw a “TB Hotel” on the map, GC2G63Z “Rose’s Travel Bug Bed and Breakfast.” Intrigued, I drove over to a neighborhood not far from my hotel and was delighted to find a very large tote next to someone’s front porch. Inside were three very nicely labeled and large pelican cases, the biggest of which was for trackables. I didn’t know much about trackables yet at that point, and hadn’t picked up many, but when I saw that this one wanted to go to Alaska, I snagged it quickly. This was good because in that moment a huge midwestern storm opened up overhead and we went from dry pavement to full hail in the time it took me to close the case up and jog back down the driveway to my car.
I logged the TB as removed and explored the page a little. What was a Jeep Travel bug? Why was it named after a river in Alaska it had never been to before? I eventually learned what it was and took it with me on the remaining adventures in Iowa and then brought it back to my home in Eagle River. I asked around with other geocachers and even messaged some cache owners for caches in Yakutat, but no one had plans to go anytime soon. So I put it in a little baggy to keep it safe and carried it in my backpack from cache to cache for eleven months. Then, in May, Isaw a heck of a mileage sale through Alaska Airlines and determined that I could get to Yakutat and back in one day for 8,000 miles. I asked my boyfriend Kody if he wanted to join and he said, “of course.” Yakutat is a fisherman’s paradise, well known for its steelhead run among other fish, and Kody is one of those fishing fools. So we booked it, and one year to the day that I had picked it up in Iowa, we were on our way to Yakutat. Kody is about two steps away from being a full muggle, but acquiesced to my request log all the caches he has found while with me after this trip. You’ll see him in logs as Maurice the Manpanion, but call him the Manpanion to his face and I will be in trouble.
We took off from Anchorage at 7 am, and changed planes quickly in Juneau, arriving in Yakutat just after 10 am. Getting upgraded for the 38-minute hop from Juneau wasn’t too wild, as they didn’t have drink service, so we arrived in Yakutat sober and ready for adventure.
Our first stop was to pick up the rental car, which we got from Economy Rentals for $70 for the day. The GMC was probably as old as the travel bug with us, and had an actual light switch controlling the driver’s side window, but it was the perfect car for getting around the village. We then swung back to the airport for our first cache of the day, GC3XRFK “Warbird,” hidden by Bearbait Bob in 2012. It was a quick find before we headed down towards the main part of town and picked up coffee from Yakutat Coffee Co and snacks at the AC.
Then we hit the road to head to Mile 9 Campground, which is nine miles up Dangerous River Road and features a boat launch and several quiet campsites. When we arrived, the whole place was gloriously empty and pristine. With in a few moments, GC5YA2T, Situk Shenanigans, hidden by TundraTim in 2015 was in hand. I dipped the TB in the cache, and then sprinted across the campground to baptize the Jeep in the cool, swift waters of the Situk River!
With the mission accomplished, we decided to spend the rest of the day exploring Dangerous River Road and the rest of the land around Yakutat. We drove another 18 miles out to the end of the road, where it crosses the Dangerous River and dead ends next to an airstrip. The river starts just north of the bridge at Harlequinn Lake, a glacial lake dotted with ice that was slowly migrating down the river. We paused to enjoy the view and learn about the public use cabins nearby, which we are 100% sure we will stay in next year, then hiked around and hid a new cache. GCBRQ13 “Danger is My First Name” is located near the sign welcoming people to the junction in the trail. North to the lake, south to one of the public use cabins! On the way back, we placed a letterbox across the river from Mile 9 Campground and then circled back into town, where “Welcome to Yakutat,” was placed with permission of the land owners, who make a great cup of coffee 🙂 We also DNF’d a cache at Glacier Bear lodge, but I don’t mind having something to redeem on my next trip to Yakutat.
We ended the day by driving out onto the peninsula and exploring the cemetery and the beach, before heading back to the airport around 4 pm. We got there about 40 minutes before takeoff (the rental car company said “just leave the keys in the cupholder at the airport, we’ll take care of gas– how far could you have gone?”), but TSA wasn’t ready for us, so we were kindly directed to the bar that shares the diminutive parking lot with the Alaska Air terminal. We had some quick beers while watching our plane change out cargo 30 feet away and then boarded.
We were upgraded again, and this time the flight attendant was ready to keep the party going with an almost excessive drink service on the 37 minutes back to Juneau. We landed in juneau about 1.5 sheets to the wind with a four hour layover, so we hopped in an uber to downtown and had dinner on the warf and then wandered down the road to find a few more caches, including GC3MM5T, “Working in a Gold Mine,” hidden by AlaskanSailors in 2012, which required a little more dexterity to crawl around a very short mine shaft than I expected. Kody has been instructed to delete all photos from that event, but an artist’s approximation is below:
After finding a gold mine, we wandered back through the capitol enjoying some sights as I pointed
out previous finds to Kody. We saw GC84EMM “Capitol Stones- Juneau Earthcache #44” and checked on GCGAQ1 “Museum Trading Post” and GC10PK7 “House on the Hill” before wandering down the steps to the lower grounds and calling another uber to meet us at the bottom.
We tumbled back to the airport and headed home, arriving in Anchorage around 10:30 pm under the midnight sun. We will be back very soon to enjoy more of Yakutat, which still has three FTFs waiting for the next brave traveler.
As for the jeep, I’m not sure what is next for it. Should I release it into a cache with a new laminated goal and hope no one steals him? Should I display him in my own porch cache, which was 100% inspired by the porch cache I originally found it in? Should I bring it to events for discovery? I think the only sure plan is to not sell it on eBay. Let me know what you think by messaging me on the app!