What are souvenirs?

Tennessee Souvenir

Souvenirs are digital or virtual pieces of art that you can discover and display on your profile page. Usually a souvenir is one of the “Lackey’s” artistic creation representing a geographic location, a period of time, an event, a task, or all of the above.

After you have accomplished the goal required to receive a souvenir, logged it on geocaching.com, an icon will be added to your profile page.  By clicking on the icon, you will be presented with the lackey’s art and a short paragraph describing the art and what you did to earn it.

There are geographical souvenirs for each of the fifty United States, the European Countries, the Australian and Canadian Provinces, the German Bundesländer, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, and Thailand.

Each year there are as many as a dozen or more given for special dates, actions or events.  The possibilities are endless!

How are souvenirs earned?

There are three ways to earned a souvenir to be placed on your geocaching profile page.

The first is to log a geocache within a souvenir zone, such as a state or country. For instance, if you logged a geocache in the state of Tennessee in the United States, you would receive a Tennessee State souvenir. Above is an example of that souvenir artwork.

The second is to log a geocache within a predetermined time frame, such as a special day or weekend. For instance, if you logged a earthcache on the October 9, 2016, you’d earn the International Earthcache Day souvenir.

The third is what I would call a combo.  This would include souvenirs for performing a certain action, such as finding a multi-cache during a specific time period.  For instance, if you had found a multi-cache on August 13 – 14, 2016,  you would have earned the “One Cache Is Not Enough” souvenir which was part of the “Mission GC” promotion for the month of August.

Why should you earn souvenirs?

Well, this is where your geocaching journey becomes your own.  Every geocacher’s journey is different.

Some just like finding hidden objects that most people have never seen. Its kind of like you are a secret agent, living a hidden life, saving the world one geocache at a time.  They are geocaching for the fun of it and that’s okay.  You will still earn some souvenirs just by default.  This geocacher will definitely earn a geographical souvenir for the very first cache they find.

Others are in it for the stats and want to show off their achievements on their profile.  What better way to do that than have tons of souvenirs on you profile page.

Regardless, of which type of geocacher you are, souvenirs are fun to look at and reflect on the moment in time you earned it or what you were doing or who you were with at the time.  Mostly, it’s about making memories that will last forever. (Well, at least in the virtual world)

What was your favorite or most memorable souvenir?  What adventures did you have getting it?  Tell us about it in the comments.