Munzee Post-Holiday Blues

First of all, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year! I know a lot of my caching friends have resolutions and goals about caches or munzees, but mine are pretty modest. I would like to find caches in a few more states, and perhaps a new country this year (I currently have five of each). I’d also like to find more caches than last year (382), since this was my lowest total of the 3+ years I have been caching. My find total was lower this year because of Munzee, no doubt about it. I have very limited time for my geo-hobbies, and sometimes going after that special icon takes precedence over finding a few LPCs in town. 

9/12 icons (top three rows)

First ever Christmas Badge!

Speaking of special icons, I wound up capturing nine out of twelve of the Munzee 12 Days of Christmas icons. This was good enough to earn the Christmas 2013 badge, but I was disappointed at not coming away with the whole set. Honestly, though, it is pretty tough here in San Diego. On the one hand, the number of Munzee players is much less than the number of geocachers, so going after the special icons is usually not a FTF-like race at all hours of the night. That said, since I have deployed a high percentage of the San Diego munzees, the odds are high that specials will fall on my own munzee (which I can’t cap). On average, I would say that one or two specials would appear in the greater San Diego area each day, and if they happened to fall on a munzee I knew was still there (always a concern), was not too far of a drive, and was an icon I needed, then I tried to cap it. I missed out on a few that appeared in the middle of the night or were not close enough to go after, so it was theoretically possible to get the whole set, but I was still pretty happy with what I got. I think this was one of the most entertaining programs Munzee has done, because even after a month I was still checking the map every few hours to see if any icons had popped up. I’m sure next year I’ll be complaining that I can’t get the icons because there are too many players going after them!