Travel Bug

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A travel bug from Germany

A Travel Bug is a registered trademark of Groundspeak Inc used to describe a dogtag used in Geocaching. It is moved from cache to cache, and its travels can be logged on a website. Each travel bug tag is printed with a unique number, which is needed to post a log online.

Travel bugs are tracked on the Groundspeak-owned website Geocaching.com, but there are a number of other tracking sites such as Geotag Tracker or Traveler Tags that log other trackable items.

Some travel bugs have missions to travel to a specific cache, location or a certain type of location. Other travel bugs simply have the goal of traveling as far and widely as possible. Similar to a travel bug, a geocoin is a coin printed with a tracking number, to allow its movement to be logged online.

Unlike Geocoins, which for the most part have separate icons to reflect the different styles and series of coin, travel bugs are normally represented by a generic travel bug icon (though the attached items are unique, the travel bug dog tags are all nearly identical in appearance).

From 2004 to 2006, Jeep ran contests featuring three series of 5,000 special Jeep travel bugs. The bugs were released throughout the United States with no specific mission in mind, but every finder was entered into a drawing for a new Jeep. There was a separate contest for photo entries for each Jeep travel bug series. [1]

In late 2006, to promote diabetes awareness and to gather support for a United Nations resolution, the International Diabetes Federation disseminated 20,000 "Unite for Diabetes" travel bugs to be released by volunteers throughout the world. Unlike the Jeep travel bugs, each Unite for Diabetes travel bug has a specific mission. Every individual bug is assigned a target city (for example, Guben, Germany). The bug's mission is to travel to, then around, its target city, collecting geocaching logs and photos along the way. Like the Jeep series, the Unite for Diabetes series is tied to a contest. [2]

[edit] Travel Bug Races

Some owners of travel bugs compete with each other, sending their bugs on specific missions or races.

[edit] See also

ToyVoyagers

[edit] External links

Geocaching Travel bug page

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This article has been tagged since December 2006.