Now that I’ve actually completed some Adventure Labs (four at Aberdeen and one at GCF) I’ve got some more comments.

I actually quite liked them - it’s great how they can lead you on a tour around somewhere. The app works very well. I really like the sense of achievement after completing each one (e.g. the stars displaying on the screen, which is a nice touch).

They seem to have really caught on - in Aberdeenshire, people (including myself) were spending an afternoon completing them rather than finding a ‘proper’ series of caches elsewhere. There are lots more on the app now, and people are travelling to complete them just as they’d travel to find a ‘proper’ cache.

So, I do think they have a place in geocaching.

But Lab caches still need to be taken more seriously if this is going to work long-term.

I spoke to several others at GCF who agreed that Adventure Labs should have D/T ratings, size, and integration with the geocaching website and app (i.e. the starting Lab appearing on the map). Project-GC don’t include Lab caches where they would be appropriate (e.g. number of finds per month, per year, etc.) which is really annoying as GC.com says August 2019 was my best month but Project-GC doesn’t. Apparently Project-GC do include Labs if you’re a paying member... but with Adventure Labs possibly being permanent, and lots more around, people’s Lab cache counts are increasing fast and I really think they should be included on Project-GC just like any other cache type... they’re no longer one-off caches available for Mega and Giga events.