Travel Bugs and Geocoins

Another fun aspect of geocaching is finding travel bugs and geocoins. These items are known as trackables and are intednded to travel from cache to cache. It is up to us to help them move around complete their missions. Unlike trading for SWAG, you do not have to leave anything in the cache when you take a trackable. 
A travel bug (TB) is basically a dog tag like item with a tracking number etched in it. Often a TB is attached to some sort of "token" like a toy car, a small doll, key chain, or just about anything. Often TB's have a misson. The TB in the photo has a mission to find other TB's from the same animated series. 

The travel bug is technically the metal dog tag on the right. I removed the tracking number.

Geocoins are the same basic idea, but they are not attached to anything. As with TB's, geocoins have a tracking number etched into them. Many geocoins have some sort of theme and can sometimes be customized. 

Front of a geocoin. I removed the tracking number

The back of the above geocoin

What seems to be the most confusing thing for cachers is how to accurately log trackables. I'll try to lay this out in a very basic way:

1. Take the TB from the cache.
2. Go to Geocaching.com and click "Trackables" on the left.
3. In the "Enter the Tracking Code of the Item:" area, input the TB/geocoin tracking number and click "Track"
4. In the upper right of the screen, click: "Found it? Log it!" 
5. Select the type of log. If the person before you did this right, you should be able to select that you retrieved it from the cache it was in. 
6. Input the tracking number again.
7. Add a comment.
8. Click "Submit Log Entry"

Now the TB/geocoin will be in your inventory. If you go to your profile, you will see all of the trackables listed in the lower right side. 

1. Once you decide to place the trackable in another cache, you will need to log that you did so. This will allow the next person to "retrieve it" and keep the process going. 
2. Place the trackable in a cache.
3. Go to geocaching.com and log the cache like you normally would.
4. BEFORE SUBMITTING THE LOG, scroll down and find the trackable you dropped off.
5. To the right, select "Dropped Off" and then submit the log. 

Great job!