Geocaching as a travel tool
Posted: 13 October 10 10:13 pm
I'm running geo-scout on my PDA which allows me to download Google maps of anywhere at various scales and of Map, Terrain and Satellite views which are then cached on the device itself so I have local maps at my fingertips in foreign countries without needing that uber-expensive data connection.
We recently visited Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia and, yes, we did some geocaching...but the big and unexpected surprise for me was that travelling around by taxi and having ready access to a map with my current position available really helped get my bearings in unfamiliar places. I learned how to say "turn left, right, go straight, turn around" in Vietnamese and taxi drivers were very surprised that a tourist could guide them around.
Having a GPS was also very handy in keeping the taxis honest. There are taxis over there that have very dodgy meters. One taxi meter reckoned we had travelled 9.5km...I showed him that we had only travelled 2.2km, told him to stop and got out of the cab (he was trying to take us a long way on top of that also...horrible little man)
I was able to guide a Cambodian cabbie to our Quad Bike adventure tour which I think he knew where it was...but because the operation wasn't run by local Khmer people - he refused to acknowledge that such a place existed...but I had the map...turn right, turn left...down here...ah...here's the place!!!
We recently visited Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia and, yes, we did some geocaching...but the big and unexpected surprise for me was that travelling around by taxi and having ready access to a map with my current position available really helped get my bearings in unfamiliar places. I learned how to say "turn left, right, go straight, turn around" in Vietnamese and taxi drivers were very surprised that a tourist could guide them around.
Having a GPS was also very handy in keeping the taxis honest. There are taxis over there that have very dodgy meters. One taxi meter reckoned we had travelled 9.5km...I showed him that we had only travelled 2.2km, told him to stop and got out of the cab (he was trying to take us a long way on top of that also...horrible little man)
I was able to guide a Cambodian cabbie to our Quad Bike adventure tour which I think he knew where it was...but because the operation wasn't run by local Khmer people - he refused to acknowledge that such a place existed...but I had the map...turn right, turn left...down here...ah...here's the place!!!