Ready to transform your travels by gamifying your experiences? Promise us that you'll stick through this episode and we guarantee that by the end of it, you'll not only learn about the fascinating world of Adventure Labs but also how it can provide an immersive guide to any unique location. We've got two masterminds behind this innovative location-based game, our guests from Germany, Daniel Pflieger (Cacher Reisen) and Eric Straub (Karls).
Together, we embark on an adventure to unravel the transformation of Karl's, a humble strawberry farm that bloomed into a bustling theme park with seven locations. Eric and Daniel share their captivating journey of integrating Adventure Labs into their ventures, enhancing visitor experiences, and fueling creativity. We also address the future of Adventure Labs, hinting at more creative adventures waiting on the horizon.
Lastly, we traverse the groundbreaking Erie Canal Adventure Lab Trail, a marvel stretching 363 miles across New York State. Nancy, our guest from the Deadliest Cachers, highlights the trail's impact on gamifying travel and fostering creativity. So, are you eager to unlock the world in a whole new light? Join us as we navigate the game of adventurous travels, and location-based gaming. Tune in and discover how Adventure Labs can redefine your travels and open up a world of opportunities.
Adventure Lab App - Apple
Adventure Lab App - Google Play
Erik Straube from Karls
Daniel Pflieger - Cacher Reisen
Karls Adventure Labs
St Wendal Video
Strawberry Stand Escape Geocache
Karls Adventure Lab Video
Erie Canal and other AL’s
Josh’s Groundhog Day Video
Ready to transform your travels by gamifying your experiences? Promise us that you'll stick through this episode and we guarantee that by the end of it, you'll not only learn about the fascinating world of Adventure Labs but also how it can provide an immersive guide to any unique location. We've got two masterminds behind this innovative location-based game, our guests from Germany, Daniel Pflieger (Cacher Reisen) and Eric Straub (Karls).
Together, we embark on an adventure to unravel the transformation of Karl's, a humble strawberry farm that bloomed into a bustling theme park with seven locations. Eric and Daniel share their captivating journey of integrating Adventure Labs into their ventures, enhancing visitor experiences, and fueling creativity. We also address the future of Adventure Labs, hinting at more creative adventures waiting on the horizon.
Lastly, we traverse the groundbreaking Erie Canal Adventure Lab Trail, a marvel stretching 363 miles across New York State. Nancy, our guest from the Deadliest Cachers, highlights the trail's impact on gamifying travel and fostering creativity. So, are you eager to unlock the world in a whole new light? Join us as we navigate the game of adventurous travels, and location-based gaming. Tune in and discover how Adventure Labs can redefine your travels and open up a world of opportunities.
Adventure Lab App - Apple
Adventure Lab App - Google Play
Erik Straube from Karls
Daniel Pflieger - Cacher Reisen
Karls Adventure Labs
St Wendal Video
Strawberry Stand Escape Geocache
Karls Adventure Lab Video
Erie Canal and other AL’s
Josh’s Groundhog Day Video
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I said that too. I said that too loud or you bring them both your work, wise and Tammy. Yes perfect.
Speaker 1:I'm the work wife now. I like it.
Speaker 3:Do you love the outdoors? Do you love to travel? Do you love finding hidden treasures and talents all over the USA?
Speaker 1:Hi, I'm Joshua and I'm Craig, and welcome to Treasures of our Town, the podcast that takes you on a journey to explore the unique and charming towns scattered throughout the United States.
Speaker 3:Join us as we venture into some of the country's most intriguing destinations, uncovering hidden gems and secrets along the way, josh.
Speaker 1:on today's episode we're gonna chat to some very clever, clever Germans and how they use adventure labs to create wonderful experiences for their guests.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited about that and you might be noticing that our voices are extra low.
Speaker 1:Yours is probably more so than mine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you've probably been up a bit. Yeah, I'm looking through your blinds right now and I see light. Yes, I'm looking through my blinds and I see darkness. And it's not even winter time, because it is 6 am here. Yeah, and 7 am here on the east coast, because, you know, we wanted to make it convenient for our German friends.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is what we do for our guests Exactly what we do for our guests. So, josh, today we're talking about adventure labs. Now for those who don't know what an adventure lab is. Would you like to explain it? Sure.
Speaker 3:So adventure labs are another location-based game that is connected to geocaching, and basically it often is virtual locations, not like physical geocaching containers, and it usually takes you on some sort of multi-stage adventure where the person that hit it can tell a story or tell about the history of that location. Yeah, and it's simply a separate app on your smartphone. It is free. There are five locations, sometimes 10 locations, and what we love about them, craig, is that they guide our travel. They're like little tour guides in a game, and so today we're talking about gamifying your travel, exactly.
Speaker 1:And they could even be our personal app, josh, because they're treasures of our town. That's what we do. We use location-based games to guide our travel, and that's what this does too. So it's a separate app itself, and some people are geocaches Predominantly geocaches use this app, but you don't have to be a geocache to use the app, josh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I really think this is a great entry point into location-based gaming for people who maybe have never experienced geocaching or Pokemon Go or Munze or anything like that. This is very accessible If you want to go to an area and see some of the cool spots that maybe people don't know about, or a historical spot and actually learn about it. It is like an actual tour guide. Sometimes they unlock videos. Like you get to location and it shows a video about the location, like it is a really cool tool to enhance your travel.
Speaker 1:And let's be honest too, there are variances because these are all done by other players of the game. They're not done by a professional company. It's all done by other players of the game. So there's variances in terms of quality, variances in terms of what you like and how you like to play. I mean, there's something out there, josh, that you just literally sit in a parking lot, a car park, and just go tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, and those sort of ones. To me they're more on the lower end of the scale, but then you've got the higher end ones, as you said, josh, that take you to places that you ordinarily go to, or they show you videos of locations as well, and we'll get to those too, after we speak to Eric and Daniel. We'll get to our favorite ones after we speak to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds great, and so we are going to now speak to my friend Daniel Fleger, who is from Hanover, germany who has? Several geocaching companies and we're going to talk to one of his partners, eric, who is involved with an amusement park in Germany called Carl's, and how they have used Inventure Labs to enhance their guest experience.
Speaker 1:And we put a disclaimer on this too, josh, because we are a pretty much an American based podcast. We are talking to two Germans that are in Germany and have done this in Germany, but this is, it's available in the USA. For those who don't know, this is fully available and, and let's be honest, josh too, it is thriving in the USA at the moment, and we again we'll get to that at the end of the show as well in terms of which ones are our favorites, which ones we like to do. Different ones, josh. There's this series out there, too, and there's plenty of series, more than just one or two, there's. There's like a few, a few hundred different series out there as well.
Speaker 3:All right, we are here with my two friends. I'm going to call them my two friends, daniel Fleger and Eric. Eric, how do you pronounce your last name? Straub Straub.
Speaker 4:It's. I'm privileged to hear my name in English, so please do it. However. You want American, I guess, so this is an English podcast.
Speaker 3:So we have Daniel Fleger, who is I would I don't even know what I would have your title be. I don't even know your title, Daniel. You are a geocaching extraordinaire. And we have Eric from the Carl's Amusement Park. But, Daniel, for those that don't know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, yeah, my name is Daniel. As you mentioned before, I'm 39 years old. I don't need an e-bike yet, but I don't judge a lot. I'm doing geocaching since 15 years now and I do it on a professional base since 13 years. I run a geocaching based company. We do geocaching based team events, incentives and stuff. We have a geocaching travel agency, kesher Eisen, and we have a geocaching marketing agency where we build geocaches, geotours and adventure labs for customers like, for example, cities or stores or amusement parks like Carl's, which is the best amusement park in the world as far as I can tell.
Speaker 3:It is pretty fantastic. I have been there as well. And, speaking of Carl's, we have Eric with us. Eric, what is your role at Carl's?
Speaker 4:Hello, I'm Eric from Rövershagen, so my role at Carl's? I'm an assistant to our CEO, Robert Dahl. It's also the founder of the amusement parks and I'm also a project manager for special projects, for little projects, big projects. I'm an app development supervisor here for Carl's and a special project. For example, I got last year the update about our gamification and geocoin adventure and all the adventure labs with a nice meeting from Daniel.
Speaker 1:Now, as always, josh as well, people you do want to see this visually, you can right, josh, you've got videos from when you actually went to Carl's. Yes, I mean, do you have?
Speaker 3:I visited two locations of the Carl's and Eric. What could you remind us? What's the location that you're located at?
Speaker 4:So our main office. It's also the place where our strawberry fields are, because we are also the biggest strawberry produce produce and I'm sorry I'm not getting it so good for whole Germany. So we are here at the Baltic Sea. It's Rövershagen, near Rostock, so we also have a big harbor and you have two locations of geocaching. At the moment it's Rövershagen. Here it's our main park, but it's not the biggest one. The biggest one is near Berlin and our smallest one is also getting a really nice geocaching adventure. I think it's like the biggest visible and visitable geocacheter in northern Germany. It's in Warnstorf, near Lübeck or Travemünde.
Speaker 3:Nice, and for those Americans that are listening that do not know their German geography, you are up, and when you say Baltic Sea, you are up in the north part of Germany. So you spoke of the gamification of Carl's, and I just would like to ask Daniel a little bit about his impressions on the Adventure Lab format. Why is it great for what you do, daniel, and how have you been utilizing this gamification?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really glad about the geo-caching Adventure Lab development because it gives us a lot of opportunities. We are doing, we are creating marketing geo-caches for years now and Adventure Labs actually allow us to go inside buildings or inside company grounds, which is as any geo-cache I might know. Normally in the regular traditional geo-caching it's not possible because it would affect the commercial guideline. But with Adventure Labs we can't pass this, which is really great because it gives us a lot of opportunities, especially at the place like Carl's, where they are open for so many things and actually love details and are a very playable and enjoyable place to be even before we got there Now a little bit more enjoyable for geo-caches, I would say.
Speaker 2:But with Adventure Labs we can pretty much do everything, even stuff that would not be possible in the traditional geo-caching world. For example, we built that geo-caching arcade game. It's placed inside. That would not be possible with regular geo-cache. You have to insert a coin, a Carl's Tyler, which would also not be publishable if it would be a regular geo-cache. So it gives us a lot of more opportunities. We make sure that we use these opportunities a lot.
Speaker 1:I did see that one as well. You can play that one virtually on your phone too.
Speaker 4:Josh mentioned as well which?
Speaker 3:is pretty cool, which was much more difficult it really was, because I tried it.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I tried it when I was sitting here watching Josh's video. I tried it. But, eric, how long have you had these Adventure Labs in your stores now? What sort of visitors or what sort of increase in foot traffic have you got from them?
Speaker 4:So we started with I think it was end of March this year. So we are now operating them for April, may, june, july, august, for like five months. So we just have a little bit of statistics. But we will wait for six months because it's also our main season in the summer. So Daniel has set a task to do it at the starting of October or starting of November we will see how it was running Also to decide if we want to have more in our other locations, because we have seven locations in all of Germany and next year we'll open the next amusement park in Saxony, in Dürbeln.
Speaker 4:So there are much more possibilities. And I'm also very interested, not only Adventure Labs, also in the geo-tours, because I'm training of a geo tour of all over Germany with all the store where we have farms, so. But we already get feedback of the guests. So we see they're playing, we see they're asking questions.
Speaker 4:Sometimes something is missing, sometimes somebody is cleaning something and they're missing a sign. So, for example, our monster coin was missing a few days now and we take it down and we make it a few fresh paint, for example. So it's a privilege and it's very nice. Sometimes people come in and speak English, for example. We have guests from Denmark, from Poland, for example, so it's a nice additional and you don't need any space, for example. So it's an additional play for our fans. I really want to know how many players here are like first Adventure Lab gear, so how many people see it at our place and then downloading the geo-caching at the Adventure Lab app. This will be very interesting. So I'm very open and waiting for Daniel's statistics in two months to see what was happening in the last six months or seven months.
Speaker 2:I just took a quick look in these statistics and it's quite easy to figure that out. In one store we had by now 538 players, which is a smaller park. I would have thought that the Adventure Labs at the bigger park at the Riverside and get way more played, but they have only 400 players each, which is also an amazing number. But the smaller park has even more visitors.
Speaker 1:But Josh, I was thinking as well that as these people are playing inside your store, they're spending longer, longer time in the store as well while they're playing, especially if the things are hard to look for. There was one stage where I was editing one of Josh's videos. There was one stage where he didn't actually find the name or whatever it was the clue before he had to ask someone. He told me later, but I saw it in the video and I zoomed in on it for him. He's like oh, that's where it was, I didn't even see it. So people actually can spend longer time in the store. Therefore, obviously for better business as well. But that's amazing, stat Daniel, Very good.
Speaker 4:What's one difficult for us as well. One challenge, because we have very empty times and very crowded times. So that was also a very big task to make it like playable enough for both time zones, for example, to don't change it in the year, and we also develop it especially for our guests here for multiple days. So we have multiple day guests. We have a first hotel, we have some guest rooms, for example. So and it's like a reverse hug, or main facilities, also like our rehearsal room, because our biggest facility in Elstal is getting bigger and two years we will open their first hotel. So we always trying to do what our boundaries, what we can do, how big can we go? So it's also like for us a test of adventure labs and I think there will be more.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I really enjoyed to figure that out and to work with cars is really nice to. Yeah, I love to work with customers, with clients. We have great openness for creativity and this is absolutely the case at cars. That's why I'm really looking forward to do more at the other parts, would be great to say.
Speaker 3:That's what was so amazing about the Carls Adventure Lab experience and GeoTour is it's just a location just filled with fun and opportunities and opportunities for creativity, which was just my mind was blown, and one of the things that listeners need to be aware of is that the Adventure Lab format if they're out there playing in the world most are virtual stages. There's nothing physical necessary. Well, there's something physical, but it's something that's already been established. But what's so amazing about what you have done, daniel and Eric, is you guys have created physical, some physical stages that are actually designed for the adventure, and so I would just love for you to talk about some examples, some of your favorite things that you have put into Carls, some of the creative ideas that you have created through the Adventure Lab format.
Speaker 2:Eric, would you like to start which are your most favorite stages on the Adventure Labs? I?
Speaker 4:really love. I think it's important to explain that we have two ones in Rivershagen, our main facility, because one is completely free and one is paid. Because we have attractions, we have to pay it and so they're inside of attractions. So it's a little bit. We played with the rules, so it's like when you want to have to play it, there's a disclaimer, and so we also make one totally free, because we also amusement park with no entry. We are open for every family, so we have no entry. We are completely free to visit. So this is really important to know. And so in one of the paid ones we have, it's too like, because it's also one of my most beloved places. It's one of the aquarium. We have an aquarium all about the Baltic Sea and the rivers, and there is one room with a sunken truck, a car, so, and there we put on a sign. What's the name of the car sign?
Speaker 4:So I don't know what's the English word for it A license plate, a license plate, yes, and this is a special code for the geocaches, for example, and it's also a joke to our history of Carls, for example, and we are honoring a former member of the Carls family with it, for example. So, and the double one is it's a signal in a very special kind of frozen water. So we have, we had an ice world here with it's minus 10 degree, and we have a special code there also in the adventure lab to collect, and it's a fishing signal in a fairy tale, waiting for the princess to come to kiss him and make him to a princess at a sequence.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like. For those that for those that don't know who Signal is, because some of the people that listen to this podcast are geocachers. He is the mascot for geocaching and it was. It's amazing. You can see it on the video, it's. I was blown away when I saw Signal in ice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for those Americans, for those Americans listening as well, eric just said minus 10 degrees. He was talking Celsius, which is actually 14 Fahrenheit. So there you go.
Speaker 2:That's pretty damn cold there. Yeah, it's ice road.
Speaker 3:It's funny, though, daniel. It's ice road. Daniel, in the video there's coats that you can wear to go in there, and he was like you need a coat. And I was like Daniel, you don't understand where I'm from. That 14 is. Degrees is nothing.
Speaker 1:And again, josh, when I, when I edit this video, I always, I always talk to Josh, daniel, I don't I think this is the first time we've actually spoken like it, yeah, yeah. So when I was talking to Josh about the, the edit, and I saw that part and it's your dry humor for me that really gets me and really tickles my fancy, like when Josh said like you know, I don't need it from Minnesota. You just turn around just plainly and say to him something like you know, oh, that's okay, I'll just take your camera when you die, that's not a problem.
Speaker 2:When you, when you freeze it, I'll take your camera.
Speaker 4:I have a hot wine for you, so there's something coming for you.
Speaker 1:Yes. So, daniel, what's what's your favorite thing in in, in, in Cal.
Speaker 2:I wanted to mention the sunken truck too, because the way this license plate was attached to the truck, that was really special because they have their own diver at Cal's and the guy went downstairs in the water and I I pictured it how, how we made it, and it was so amazing to see how that worked. Wow, yeah, that was pretty special. I never saw a geocaching stage anywhere attached like this. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yes, and Daniel has sent me the video of that. Craig, you haven't even seen it.
Speaker 1:No, no, I didn't send it to you.
Speaker 3:I saw the video of the guy scuba diving setting up that stage and I think what would be nice if if I could get Daniel's permission, I think it'd be awesome to show that to our patrons.
Speaker 2:I guess. So yeah Of of is that okay? And the scuba diver. I asked him to if that would be okay to for him to be on a video. He said yes. So I think. So, josh, would that would that be? Would that be?
Speaker 1:a, an underwater. It's an underwater stage that you don't. You can actually still breathe.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:There you go, If you talk about, because there are geocaches and there are stages underwater this would be an underwater stage?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't know. Yeah, and what I also like in in the main shopping area there's a like a small railroad going upstairs in the ceiling and there are all these signs with what is manufactured at Carl's and we attached a special sign with with the solution. On it it says geocaching um man manufacturing something like that, and you just have to stand there and wait until it appears and that's so cool. I really liked that stage too, a lot of, and I like the. Uh, carl's has its own radio station, broadcast station.
Speaker 2:They have it in in the park and they have a host. Um, I think Eric is sitting there right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this is, this is the host, this is, uh, this is so called Veta.
Speaker 2:Werner, whether Werner, uh, this is uh artist's name and uh, we made a minifigure of him and you can call him. You should call him Um, and he will tell you the solution for the adventure lab. On the phone it's in um, uh, I'm with Banfota, uh, uh, answer answering machine. Yeah, this is also really cool because, uh, a lot of players can actually see uh, the, uh, the radio station host doing his work, because the studio is built in in the park, in the shop, and it has um, yeah, there you can see.
Speaker 3:Eric's sitting in it, so this is the uh audio audio podcast so uh, Eric is in an official. Studio radio studio and there's a window and there's customers watching him right now I'm sure thinking that he's probably on Carl's radio, when he's in fact on our podcast.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and he's, he's, he's microphone actually plugged in. I'm not even sure like, but Eric, are you getting people walking past you now waving or knocking on the window at all like yeah?
Speaker 4:Germans are respectful. I don't know what's what's happening in America, just like sitting there and they're just walking by.
Speaker 4:Sometimes they're taking pictures, of course, but sometimes they have like fans or they have questions, but I closed the door. I locked the door also, so it's okay. So, but I know for better, better that sometimes people so there are also people coming into when he making interviews or podcasts or so. So it happening everything, but the most cases he is a low but still not alone, because there it's a classroom door that's really big one, so and it's catching at the station. So come by.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was thinking before when you were talking about their favorite adventure labs. Now, I can, I can live. I live through Josh, like with his videos, you see, so I can actually really visualize what what we're talking about here. And, daniel, when you say things like you know where you literally stand, that you don't know what you're waiting for. You know and you standing there in the middle and this, this merry go round, is going around your head, basically, and it's and when it's with a merry go round, I'm talking, it's a large conveyor belt style thing, that's that shows signs above your head.
Speaker 1:You're just standing there waiting and you don't know what you're waiting for and then all of a sudden the penny drops because you see it, and there it is in Sam you like all that's what I'm waiting for. Thank you very much. So, yeah, I love those sort of styles as well, where you don't know, you don't know what you're looking for, there's no actual question to be had. You know that's and that's what I enjoy as well. So there's that one there and there's, I think, there's another one very similar to it as well, where it's something all when you go up the lift, that that, that ride, and you're shooting things.
Speaker 1:You're shooting things, josh. I remember that with what was that girls name again Teddy, teddy, yes, and you see, teddy, you're shooting, rise, left, right and center. And your face, josh, I'm telling you now people didn't see it all. I saw all the video because I edited Most of your faces, like what the?
Speaker 1:hell am I looking for like and you're looking around and you're, you're, you're, bemused, your face is like all, questionable, and then all of a sudden, you see it, you see in your eyes before you actually say it and you, there it is. Yes, same sort of thing. I like those sort of styles as well, daniel. Have you got any? When you talk about more coming up, have you got more ideas coming up like that sort of style, or you're going a different route, or which which way you're going?
Speaker 2:I don't know yet. I think we have to visit the other parts, because we usually that's our working model we go to a place, get inspired by what is taking place there already, what is already installed, what is the the essence, the character of the place, and then we Try to come up with stages that fit into that surrounding. That's the way we operate, but there are plenty of ideas stored in our Creativity pool and also in our storage, like actually build things, and we have. We have some ideas. Cause also has a nice hotel. We had the idea of making one room maybe to a geocaching or escape type of hotel room. That would be amazing. So there, wow, yeah, there would. There are so many possibilities and I'm pretty sure it will be Really creative again.
Speaker 1:Well, just touching on that, with escape rooms as well, you kind of did make an escape room in one of them, in the actual. There's a big strawberry, josh, that I saw you in, yes, and you in there with Daniel, and each time you solved one of the spots you got a free strawberry. Well, you didn't you paid for them, but you got fed.
Speaker 3:You got fed from Tamia strawberry, I think that only happened because I was a special guest. I don't think that that's a. That was a unique experience, just unique to me, I believe. But one of the most amazing things about Carl's is that every location is is pretty different actually, which is very different than per se Disneyland, where you Disney World six yeah, six flags where they just kind of duplicate everything over and over again, and the amount of creativity that goes into just Carl's, the theme park in itself.
Speaker 3:I'm really curious, eric, I think for our listeners because this is a travel podcast Could you tell us just a brief history of Carl's and how, what it was you mentioned it's? It started as a strawberry sort of farm, but it produces lots of strawberry products for the whole country, maybe even Europe. Carl Eric, could you just tell me a little bit, us, a little bit more about Carl's in itself?
Speaker 4:Yes, of course I tried to make it short as possible so we have our sign signature logo. We have Carl's 1921, so this was the first harvest of open Quent quent for the calls. So the grandfather of a robot doll is named Carl and he has the first potatoes here in a Rostock and he was a potato and veggie farmer. Then we moved a few times through Germany so we have different locations of because of the family history. And robot founded his own strawberry farm in 1993 so 30 years ago now, in the river side by Rostock, near Rostock, and he was before he was in Poland to learn Polish, for Polish, for example. So and he started to have his own story farm and he quote because he was a risky guy sometimes and he started to sell some strawberries directly on the farm. He made a play ground for kids, he sells some strawberry cake. So it's getting better, bigger and bigger than he met. His wife, stephanie, is also part of the Carl's family and she had expertise in marketing and in shopping. So there's that like a farmer's shop here also and it's getting better than the open hold the whole year and 30 years later this place is a music park because sometimes some in some kind of history.
Speaker 4:He discovered in the newspaper a picture of a tractor ride in a family park in Austria and they are directly visited take. Two days later he was in Austria visitors and he just come by the street and he was. I wanted, I want, it's not expensive. Before this and before this, everything was completely free, also the playgrounds, and this was the first right to cost two years provider. So like on a on a, on a on a expo or what you call it, in a state fair, at a state fair, for example, two years for the ride and it was totally okay because the entry was free.
Speaker 4:We have great breakouts and we try to have this feeling until now. So we are a music park and the biggest facilities at Salina Berlin. So I hope you have a geocache is also there next year. I press my and so it's a family adventure place and we try to make some history of the locations, because we have now seven locations and a phone is coming here and so we have special attraction every place. For example, in Elstal we tell the story about the first potatoes from like 100 years ago, because there we have a Typical German potato roller coaster and you are the potato and you're writing a wall of Mr and discover all the history of the family family Dal, yes, so this is the story of.
Speaker 4:Getting from a potato to strawberry farm, to a music park, with now a 13 operating wall, of course, in all locations, for example 13.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, eric, you said 1993 and for those of us, most of us, listening especially, you know that was not far ago. Then you say 30 years ago, 30 years. But, eric, what I, what I love as well, is how you not just you, don't just sell strawberries as just to be for you, sell different strawberry products. Now I, for one, I love my be an untapped and you will have a strawberry be.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's so good to add a couple.
Speaker 4:Different kinds and we are with a special company we are on a mixed shot to make with our strawberries will be about. It's not really be in Germany, because you have this, I know this world. So we have different kinds of beer, with a sweet beer, with dark beer, with brown beer, for example. So we have different kinds of strawberry beer because Germany, it's difficult to call it. But there's also one adventure lab station about Future calls beer. So there's also some jokes in the adventure lab about our products and, yes, we have over 10,000 products and over 100 1000 of them are with calls strawberry ingredients.
Speaker 1:Yes, Wow, wow. So, josh, you said you put you part, took in in a be what else. What other products did you have, josh, when you're there?
Speaker 3:Oh, I saw the jam. Jam was so good I had, so, as you saw in the video, I had so many strawberries. But to be honest with you, like I was so busy having fun with all the adventure labs there are so many stages there that I obviously did not have a lot of time to eat, but they had an incredible Eric treated us to an incredible breakfast at the eggs, yeah, and pancakes, don't forget pancakes yes, pancakes, yeah, their breakfast, oh so, so good.
Speaker 3:I mean, this place really has, it has everything. It's really an experience. If you go to Carl's, you need to spend the whole day there. It's not. It's not that you could drop in, but there's so much to experience, so much to see, especially at that, the larger location where Eric is right now with the DJ studio.
Speaker 1:You can go and see, see Eric in in. Now you won't be able to see Eric. He doesn't do normally DJ.
Speaker 4:Normally we see a better one out if you've his own station, but I'm just one corner around and the office and the office building. But yes, you can see here how our jam is made. We make chocolate here, we are burning coffee, so we're making, and I would say, but it's a bonbon sports English for Bocelli, so candy is making ice cream here by ourselves. So it's a family one, wow, wow it is.
Speaker 3:It's like a Willy Wonka strawberry factory strawberry. I know we're bouncing around here, but I was just I, since we do have Daniel on here and you know we're talking about adventure labs, gamifying your travel. Daniel, could you share with us some of the other projects? You know you've worked with different cities, some of the different other kinds of adventure labs that you've put together and some of those you and me.
Speaker 2:We did quite a few of them so far. We had an amazing tour. What was it? Was it April this year? Yeah, we were mostly in south of Germany and that we had one geo tour it called discover your district. That was the Wingsburg tour, with all the castles and the the lake where one of us unfortunately had to jump in to figure out the solution. That was fun.
Speaker 3:Very cold, but yeah, I lost that was an excuse anyway.
Speaker 2:Then we had the one geo tour in this bar for the water company and it was about water education and the circle of drinking water, which was also really interesting In my opinion. Then we last year we have been to Prima Hafen. There is a tour about All Helga. Yeah, algae, algae, algae algae, algae, algae algae in Australia.
Speaker 2:So there's a whole adventure about the use of algae or seaweed, which is very educational. So if different kind of approaches from our customers. Some of them just want to attract people. Just I just want to attract geocaches to come there, spend some time there, maybe spend some money there, which might be mostly the case for our customer, globe drifter, which is a huge Outdoor supplier here in Germany, the biggest one, and we equipped all of their stores 20 by now with geocaching adventure labs, which is a perfect fit, because the geocaches love everything that you can buy there tracking shoes, flashlights, tents, stuff like that and and we bring geocaches there and they spend an average like two hours on their store and barely Anyone of them leaves the store without buying anything. Plus, there's a deal coin if you purchase for more than 100 euro, it's a free geocoin and which is only way level there, so that's a great set.
Speaker 1:I did see that video of yours, josh, as well, but but going back to Daniel, is it St Vendell, st?
Speaker 4:Vendell that and then oh yeah For me, and and watching Josh's video as well.
Speaker 1:You even organize for for the local media.
Speaker 1:Like this is how much they, the, the towns, love Adventure labs and they love you and they love the tourism is that they organize the you or you organize the local media itself. We're talking media. We're talking television. We're talking print media. We're talking, yeah, photography. We're talking all different types of media, and I still remember seeing a few videos and snippets of Josh there and, and he had an interpreter and everything as well, so it was great. So tell us about that, like in terms of St Vendell, especially because I find that they Got only going through Josh's eyes. I find that St Vendell really, really did encompass what adventure labs do for the, the actual town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when it was really special, because that's a small town in the State of the Zahland, which is one of the smallest states of Germany. So small town in a small state, and they didn't have enough space To create the minimum amount of geocaches you need to build a geo tour. So what we did is we created an adventure lab, which is really special because the adventure lab is a wagon and you pull it through the city from statue to statue and from monument to monument and the monument Inter Interfers, inter. Yeah, you have to, yeah, you have to interact. That's the question. You have to Bring the wagon there and then you can only solve the next task, if you know, again, interact the wagon with the, with the monument, which is really special. And I think this is now the most Visible Sightseeing thing in the city because it also creates a lot of noise.
Speaker 3:Because there's cobblestone streets that you're pulling this thing on. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So people are there now pulling that cart through the streets for more than a year now and I think they pretty much annoyed everyone who lives there but at the same time, amazed them because they see how many people go there on a daily basis and it's such a big thing for them that they Organized the biggest press conference I have ever taken. It was.
Speaker 3:It was fascinating meaning their mayor, the mayor of st Vendell, great guy, and and Craig, you know what makes him so great? Hmm, the mayor of st Vendell, what that? He spoke to you? He's just proud of his town. No, he's proud of his town and he's proud of his geocache.
Speaker 1:Daniel, if you, and Eric, if you don't know. Josh must say that in every single episode at some point. It's a it's a it's a it's a movie term, movie quote that he really enjoys. So yeah, but, daniel, we're going back to. Where's the quote from planes?
Speaker 3:trains and automobiles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, movie planes, trains, automobiles and now carts as well. So when you this cart thing that you're talking about, daniel, you do have to Make an appointment to do it, because there's only one car. So you do have to make an appointment but if you pay extra, can they have you as the the pulling of the cart? Like Josh did see when watching the video, you were pulling the cart pretty much everywhere and Josh was just doing his video thing the whole time.
Speaker 2:You know, so can I hire you personally? It's because of my physical appearance Specialized me to to fulfill this task. Yeah, yeah, it was typical separation of work. Everyone has had his task everybody has their skills, yeah. Yeah, all right, I'm more, I'm more like the car puller.
Speaker 3:All right, I want to go back to Eric. Eric, what I learned about you is that you love roller coasters and this podcast is about. You know, location-based games guiding our travel, but roller coasters actually guide your travel. So I thought it would be interesting for our listeners to know a little bit about your roller coaster travels. Like geocachers, you know, we check off boxes like found that cash, found that geocache, found that adventure like lab, but you check off roller coasters that you have ridden. So I would love to hear a little bit about maybe, your favorite roller coasters or your favorite places that roller coasters have brought you.
Speaker 4:So what's really important for me? I don't have one favorite roller coaster because I written too much and it's depends on my. Sometimes I want to have really big fruits and sometimes it's a family coaster, like a Disney world or something like this. So at the moment, just to give you a listen as a feeling, I wrote 1391 different roller coasters, 23 countries and 377 parks. So what?
Speaker 1:yes, it's like you're kissing, he's got. It is an app. There's an app for for how many roller coasters?
Speaker 3:is that Eric? Is there an app?
Speaker 1:for it. Yeah, look, he's showing us an app. Wow, for the actual rollercoaster.
Speaker 3:Unbelievable there's an app for everything.
Speaker 1:Eric, have you done any in Six Flags? And I say that because I'm, you know, my wife. She works with Six Flags, so is there any?
Speaker 4:This is my America card, do you see it? Oh, it's difficult for the podcast people.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry, look at that, josh, there's a map so you can see. I traveled four times to America I make one once, wow. Two times in the middle of America, once from Texas to North, one from Chicago, one I was in California and once to New York, boston, washington, this corner. So a fifth time I was at Florida, of course, theme park capital, of course to visit Universal. So there's no special rollercoaster, but there are so many great out there. I also enjoyed the small ones.
Speaker 4:And what I really love about my hobby because it's my hobby and now also my passion for my working here it's that you really really see the world, because parks are not on big cities not sometimes, of course, but you have to go into the land, for example. For example, I had my best meet in Texas when we had our parks in Texas, for example, the food was so good, I was so impressed and used to also visit the space center, for example. So I love to discover rollercoasters all over the world because you come to corners where real people living there's no other people making holidays. You're staying in normal hotels for business people, for example, so I can see the world, for example, my next trip is going to Ecuador and Colombia, for example. After it I'm going to Indonesia and to Taiwan. So it's just a perfect hobby to make visiting the world, discover new places and have goals. So they have a goal to go somewhere.
Speaker 1:So, josh, I'm just thinking, eric, you utilize your travels for these rollercoasters really for business purposes, because you're bringing back the ideas. So are they business trips for you? Like they're actually tax write offs, josh, that's not a bad idea. I'm getting some ideas now. No, Eric, very good, Just to let listeners know as well. Eric showed a phone screen before.
Speaker 1:Now if you're a geocaster adventure player. Whatever he on this screen itself is on this app is a map, an actual real map, and they had pinpoints on the map, Josh, of each roller coaster, and then obviously they change color when he actually ticks them off, and he does them as well. So it's like, again, it's a different gamify of travels yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3:Gamify as his travel yeah, I can show you some part of America.
Speaker 4:You know, this is the place with open credits and the black ones are counts. I don't count because they're roller coasters that I don't classify as roller coasters, so they are creasones, for example. So, to explain, I have just now a map of America, so there are blue points for these I visited already and there are places with new coasters. So yeah, and just travel and discover the world and ride roller coasters. They're making fun, they are open your bones, they are good for your heart and for your and for your hormones.
Speaker 1:So very good, all right, just wrapping this up. In that case, then, daniel, let you go first. Let us know how can people contact you. If they need to contact you for business purposes, etc. Or if they want, when you said your cash horizon as well, how can they actually go ahead and contact you from here?
Speaker 2:We're pretty much present on all social media. You can reach us on Instagram, most and foremost. We are on Tik Tok, we are on Facebook, I am on LinkedIn, whatever you prefer. You look for Gaheimpunkt, gaheimpunkt, or you look for cash horizon, or you just look for my name, which is Daniel Flieger, which might be a little bit hard to pronounce or to spell for American folks, but I'm pretty sure you will find me and I think we can include some links in the show notes, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I was going to say that because I say that every time as well. Links in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there will be links in the show notes. Sorry to take this from you.
Speaker 1:And Eric, what about yourself? Any final words about your farms and your parks, et cetera.
Speaker 4:So I just hope that we will have the chance to make more adventure laps and geocaches in our places, Because I think it's really good also for businesses to increase your visitors, for example, and just speak to different I want to say nerdy coupe sometimes because I also, of course, a nerd, for example so it's a great opportunity. I just want to say personal. I just traveled the world. So if you come to Germany, try to make one day free for one of our locations.
Speaker 4:We are now in like. We have like three, so we are on one third of the country, so there's a good chance. You can visit us in the near of Berlin and you can always combine your visit with our place with other geocaches all over the world, Because Daniel told me that Germany is like the biggest geocaching community of the world, so I think you have found everywhere something to cash and to collect and just have a good time at Karl's. And, of course, in the show notes you will get some links to our YouTube channel, to all the, to our sites. But yes, I'm happy to, and you, I can see you. I invite you because it's free entry.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and because it's free entry as well, I did see, just going back quickly on Josh's video, that you can actually host a geocaching event in your store, eatery, etc. I still saw that as well. Yeah, Josh, you had an event inside Karl's. Yeah, we had an event. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:It was a great time. Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it and I'm excited again to visit Germany. Daniel, maybe for the fifth time. So I can visit, so I can visit more of Karl's amusement parks.
Speaker 1:And me for the first. I haven't been to Germany yet. Yeah, I haven't been to Germany. And Craig could come too.
Speaker 3:Come over, then you can, I could bring Craig instead of my wife this next yes yes, I said that too loud.
Speaker 2:Or you bring them both your work wife and Tammy. Yes, Perfect.
Speaker 3:I'm the work wife now. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Thanks again.
Speaker 3:guys, those are some fun dudes to hang out with. I'm your work wife.
Speaker 1:Can you believe that? I guess?
Speaker 3:according to Daniel, you might be. Who knows?
Speaker 1:Who knows? Who knows, josh, who knows? Oh man, I tell you what I would love to go over to Germany someday, 100% Like you know, seeing watching your videos, josh, and then listening to Daniel and to Eric as well, and how they are proud of their. But they're so. You know, daniel especially, he loves it. Yeah, he really loves what he does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's really. He has a great imagination and he also has just a great team of people putting this together. Like you know, daniel's the mover and the shaker. He makes things happen, but he has a team of people that make this happen and create some of these amazing adventure lab geocaches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, and as rightly so as well, anyone out there who's a good manager of people and has good ideas. If they have a team of good people underneath them, then of course they're going to build a great empire, and that's what he's doing. So, yes, good work Daniel, good work mate. But Josh, let's get back to these adventure labs.
Speaker 3:Yes, because they truly are a tour guide for you and they're all over the world I don't know how many there are, I mean, it's in the hundreds of thousands, I believe of different stages, different locations that these things are. They're in small towns, they're in big towns, they're in medium sized towns. Anywhere where there's something interesting to see, they're there. So we have found some together. Yes, we have.
Speaker 3:We remember when we found the one that was in Abraham Lincoln's birthplace in that town that town right outside his birthplace and we learned a lot more about Abraham Lincoln, and that was actually a surprise. We didn't plan that, but when we got in that town we were like we need to get something to eat and we're like there's an adventure lab here with a cool statue and a lot to learn about Abraham Lincoln that I didn't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, we went around that. We call them roundabouts, I think you call them traffic circles here. Yes, we went around that roundabout there and there was the big monument in the middle of it with him sitting on the big chair, and yeah, that was. And again, that's one of those things, josh, this show is all about, and that is the small towns of the US and that's their highlight. You know, like, let's be honest, that town wasn't very big at all. Oh no, that was the major intersection of that town and there was one intersection in the town, no traffic lights at all. And yet here is this big statue, monument of Abraham Lincoln, right in the middle, with American flags on each side and you know the bald eagle, you know portraits around. It was really cool.
Speaker 3:I recall that I don't think we would have stopped there unless we saw that there was an adventure lab there. True. True, we were making decisions because we were like, should we just go back into Louisville, where there would have been a lot of options to eat? But we're like, no, let's try, let's check out this adventure lab. And I think we actually then did spend some time there, exactly right, and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:So that's what this shows all about, but what other ones have you done personally, though, that you've actually quite enjoyed? Is there been a few that stand out in your?
Speaker 3:mind. Yeah, one of my favorite ones was in Woodstock, illinois, and that is the shooting location for the movie Groundhog Day. Oh, yes, groundhog.
Speaker 1:Day, you did a video on that one as well. Yes, it's like, oh my gosh, it's got to go on the show notes.
Speaker 3:It is 100%. That's a good video. It's one of my better videos. Yes, because if you and you edited it yourself, I did, and the thing that's so good is that it's very much Groundhog Day movie themed, and that's the things. I'll just say this I end up doing that adventure lab many, many, many, many, many times over.
Speaker 1:Although in real life, let's be honest you can only do an adventure lab once. Right, you can't do it more than once.
Speaker 3:Unless you get stuck in a time loop.
Speaker 1:It's not Munzie Josh, you can't keep capping the same ones all the time, so that's really cool yeah.
Speaker 3:So the Groundhog Day, there's several movie locations, so there's a five-stage that has a real cash at the end. And then I decided I got an adventure lab credit because Geocachers I don't know we didn't talk about this we can. They are the ones that are creating these. So I created another stage with five more movie locations of Groundhog Day to add on to the five that were already there. Oh, that's cool, that's really cool. So it's. I just love movie locations, it's so fun. So that was some perfect one for an adventure lab.
Speaker 1:I did say in the beginning, I did say in the beginning of the podcast, josh, I said about these adventure labs are placed not by a business. They're placed by other players. Yeah, so, and that's why some are not so Like, some are okay, but some are really really good. So they all vary.
Speaker 3:We didn't mention that in the interview, but, like Daniel, daniel has special sponsored adventure labs that allow him to be able to put them in businesses. He has a financial relationship with geocaching and HQ to make that happen, so, and that also includes being able to have physical stages. So, and that's what makes those so special and that's why we wanted to talk to him. But usually they're already established locations that you just get the information from At the average geocachal hide.
Speaker 1:you myself, we can't do those sort of adventure labs. You know, they're not allowed. But there are rules and regulations. What about you, craig? What was one of yours? Well, one of mine I actually really enjoy is actually one of mine as well. So, in New Jersey, here along the Jersey Shore now, we all know the Jersey Shore.
Speaker 1:Well, all Americans should know the Jersey Shore, like that TV show back in the day, back in the 90s, and so what I've done, though because these are all actual video locations, yes, but the locations that put you in I have a video of exactly what was filmed at Location so you can watch the video and then look up from your phone and see the buildings that it's in front of and behind. You know that sort of thing. That's so cool. And then, after you watch the, the video, you have to answer a question about the video. So it might say you know what is what does Snooki say when she picks up the phone, or whatever. You know that's so and yeah, so that's all things. So, yeah, it's it's. It's got mixed reviews, josh, it's got mixed reviews. Some people love it because they love the idea behind it, but a lot of the actual New Jersey players don't like it because they hate Jersey sure, and that you know that's and that's really interesting.
Speaker 3:There's so many different kinds of adventure labs. That's really interesting. With that you're utilizing video and for those that not a familiar with adventure labs. You know what? What makes it possible to answer the question is that you have to actually be there because, because you know you can open it up and watch a video, right, but you can't answer it unless you're there unless you're there, cation-based game.
Speaker 1:That's right, and that's called geo fencing. Yes, well, that's, they've named it, geo fencing, and and geo fences can be Quite large or quaint. They can be quite small. They've reduced them down recently. I remember what about the, the airports. There's a lot of adventure labs in airports, josh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we've got to talk about those, and I was. I was so with the, with the new thing, with HQ, they've said to reduce them all down in the terms of the size. Now I've got an airport set right in standing, miami, miami Airport, and so I've got, oh no, after reducing, so I moved all the pins to the, the front area, near the, near the customs, you know. So you can get it from either side, but you have to be near the customs either way, and I reduced all the fencing down. Well, I did that on them, on my own back, so I wouldn't get, you know, dismissed or wouldn't be removed from HQ. Then headquarters turned around and said, oh, we're gonna leave the ones that already there, like they are.
Speaker 1:After I moved them, so they changed it, they sort of grandfathered them in for the those geo fences.
Speaker 3:So I was like no so yeah, there is some controversy because you know a lot of the airport ones, you can answer just from the plane because the fence, the geo fence, is so huge and you know. Usually it's like information about what is the name of their sports teams and stuff like that. Yeah, and I think those are great, for this is my personal opinion I think those are great for geocachers to give them something to do when they're in an airport right and they can't yeah, you know, get out, especially on the layover.
Speaker 3:But to me, when it comes to this topic, especially of gamifying your travel, it isn't really the spirit of the game, meaning that you have. I, I do like the idea of Going to an actual location and getting the information at the location. You don't really learn anything by just, you know, answering the multiple choice, answering the question. But so if I'm, if I'm a person that just loves the enjoyment of the locations, I, I would be really confused by an airport one. I'm like what's the point? What's the point?
Speaker 1:of that, and that's the thing as well. If you're only playing adventure labs, you don't really, you know, have the statistics, the numbers up. You know that that more relates to geocachers, exactly, you know, because it's on your geocaching account. So in that's the case as well, we can talk about the ones that are actually in. They call them like adventure lab art or geo art. Yeah, you know those ones where there's, you know, a whole pile of them, and there's ones here in New Jersey as well, and there's a whole pile of them. I'm talking, you know, maybe 50 sets of five each. So there's 250, 250 and you can find them all in one location. You can park your car at the rest stop and just answer, answer, answer and just do it quickly. You don't even have to read it, just click next, next, next, and just you're just guessing multiple choice the whole time through. You can get 250 funds within an hour. Yeah, okay, within an hour, and that's say to me that's not really yeah.
Speaker 3:But again, that's for geocachers if you're in your person that does this because Does the adventure labs, because they want to learn something or gamify their travel, then that's probably not going to be very appealing, especially if they're located out in the middle of a field or something exactly.
Speaker 1:It's not appealing at all. However, did I still do them?
Speaker 3:Yes, I did because you're a gym guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no sauce as well. What other ones have you have you got another set out at all?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually have the very first one ever placed in Minnesota. I was the first person in my state other than the ones that were like temporary ones at events before this, before they released it I got the very first credit in Minnesota and I, when I was thinking, okay, minnesota, I could do anything, right. Hmm, I thought like I just like what is Minnesota known for, and I thought first thing I thought of was Prince oh, the artist formerly known as Prince.
Speaker 3:Probably known as Prince, yeah, but yeah, he changed it back to Prince. But yeah, if you don't know from Minneapolis, prince is from here. This is his hometown, or was his hometown before he passed, and there's lots of beautiful murals of him. His home is here after he passed. There was just the kind of like.
Speaker 1:It's not coming up on that audio though.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna put my phone in Airplane mode just in case that's right. Okay, I'll start over. You go there's lots of it, okay, I Can say. After he died, you said, yeah, there's lots of public art of him, and Actually this was before that you couldn't put physical stages. The whole thing ends With one of the stages. It ends with a purple animal can with Prince's logo on the front.
Speaker 1:Is that your mic? Yeah, it's fine, actually Minnesota boy.
Speaker 3:Tim actually painted it, so oh, that's really cool. And it's still out there. It's awesome. But yeah, prince is a big deal and I did the same thing. I, because you could utilize video. After somebody answered the question correctly, it took you of a video of me that I actually shot and edited and it took me to another part of town that was like miles and miles away to share another Prince location, because I only had five stages.
Speaker 3:So I wanted there were much more Prince locations throughout town, so I the video unlocked when they answered it and it took you to another part of town that was not as close as like where his house was. So I thought, I did a great job. Some people think it's one of the better ones they found.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, no wonder you got so excited in one of our previous episodes. And the, the, the school of, not school of, rockwood, the Rockwell Hall of Fame. When you saw Prince there I didn't realize it was so connected.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's a legend. Yeah, he's a legend anywhere.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. That's really cool. What about you? Um, well, I just did.
Speaker 1:I recently did a new one, or new for me in Times Square, new York, and Again, it's one of those ones, though, where you can literally stand in one spot and answer five questions and then multiple choice. But okay, what I like about those sort of style is that you're in the middle of New York City, yeah, so your GPS is gonna be bouncing around left, right and center, so you know you can't Literally be in one place and next minute, on the pin on the map, it shows you in the next street sometimes. You know that's what happens with, with, with big, tall buildings around GPS locations and cities. So this one here had a nice wide, open fencing, so I managed to sit there and I went through my, actually read through them as well. It was actually quite informational about the Times Square itself.
Speaker 1:But while I was there, you know I had the entertainment around me. You know I had this one guy there and one massive, big gorilla suit. You know you're all getting photos. I had the, the Marvel comics there, or whatever. I even had the fake monks walking past me offering me beads. I'm like no, no, no, and like there's a things. So yeah, for me that sort of thing there. It made me stop. You know what I mean. It made me actually stop and look down and then do what I had to do. At the same time, I was, you know, immersed in the atmosphere of Times Square, so that was a new one for me, that's you make an interesting point, because a Lot of these adventure labs are places that you're gonna visit anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're going to a city, they're usually always at locations that people want to visit, like when we went to Cleveland is the Christmas story house, for example. Like, yeah, you want to go there anywhere and then it's just a bonus that there's some fun game to play while you're there.
Speaker 1:Exactly and if you do learn something from it. I mean, I can't remember exactly now because there's a lot happened between them and now, but but like it told me, even like the weight of the ball, you know the big ball as it comes down, every new, every new years, you know it tells me different interesting facts about the different times and locations and dates and places. It's pretty cool you still to learn things. Not that I remember them, but anyway you can still learn things from the, from the adventure labs themselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and speaking of learning to think about things, in Memphis, tennessee, I did a really awesome one. It was at the National Civil Rights Museum on the outside of it and I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but the outside of it is the rain hotel where MLK was assassinated and you can on the outside. The outside of it is just so historic because there's a line on the ground of that follows the path of the bullet and Just all this like history and information. On the outside. You're walking around that whole block and it's just like history about assassination and how it, like that, all played out and it's just fascinating. It was really, really neat.
Speaker 1:I think you brought that up in episode three or four when we spoke about the places to go during spring break.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's right. So you gotta see how's that? From memory, so good. If you want to hear more about that, you can go back to that episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. Well, josh, any others that you have at all that you can think of.
Speaker 3:I really enjoyed the one at Lambeau Field, which is the home of the Green Bay Packers. There's some amazing statues on the outside of it, the Lambeau Field. They have tours daily and it's just a really fascinating stadium to tour. There's just Green Bay. It's a small town with a big time team and people. Really, you know, there's people from all over the world that just love the Green Bay Packers Because you know they're kind of like I don't know. It's controversial. I was going to say they're America's team, but isn't that the Dallas Cowboys?
Speaker 1:That's the Cowboys. You asked my father-in-law? That's the Cowboys, but the Midwest, you know.
Speaker 3:I'm speaking kind of sacrilege because I'm in Minnesota Viking country, I am a Vikings fan, but Lambeau Field is epic and there was an adventure lab there, of course. And then, moving on, this is really amazing. Our friend Scott was organizing, I believe, hundreds of adventure lab stages on Route 66. Yes, yes, and someday, craig, we need to well first travel some of Route 66. I've been on some of it.
Speaker 1:I've done a few of those already. Oh, you have. Yeah, yeah, I've done a few, like in New Mexico. It was, yes, I still remember doing those in New Mexico itself. There was a few of those on Route 66. Well, speaking of Route 66, because you're talking about them being a, what would you class it as, like a series?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a series of adventure labs. You could go weeks and travel Route 66 and just do one of these after another and learn probably a lot and see a lot of fun things, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of those routes or those you know, adventure lab tours. Nancy from the Deadliest Cache remember we spoke about her last episode? Yes, she packed the snacks.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's the one. She packed the snacks so I didn't star them when the internet went down.
Speaker 3:That's the one.
Speaker 1:Well, she said it's an email.
Speaker 3:George, after listening to our last episode, Well, you remember, craig, we were like please write us. And she did, she took us up on it. She did please, somebody did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not going to read out the whole email because it is a lengthy email, and thank you so much, nancy, for writing that, because I've spoken to Josh. I've told Josh all the email. Well, he's got a copy of it as well. So some great information. But, josh, I didn't even know this until she sent the email, and I don't think you do as well. But there's a place called the Erie Canal Adventure Lab Trail Wow, so it's another, another trail, exactly like Route 66. And it talks about the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal Adventure Lab Trail is created in 2021. It spans 363 miles, which is the length of the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Albany. There are 69 uniquely designed adventure labs created by 51 storytellers, so 51 people placed 69 adventure lab series through there, so 69 times five locations each.
Speaker 3:So that's a lot of locations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I didn't realize that the Erie Canal itself is very historic waterway and and it spans like across the New York state itself, was built in 1817 and in 1825 to create a navigable water route from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and upon the Canal's completion it was hailed as the greatest engineering accomplishment of its time, back in the time 1825. So there you go, it's another one we have to visit. Yeah, so she also sent me a link. She's got a. She's got a web page, josh, which would be the link that for this web page is going to be in the show.
Speaker 3:There's gonna be a lot of show notes for this. There is, there is, there is there is there, always is there.
Speaker 1:And look, let's be honest, the more links in the show notes a bit up, because I use the show link show notes links myself in other podcasts. So, but she was telling me on her other, on her web page, because she's got a blog as well. There's other adventure lab series out there.
Speaker 3:These, these are all just great opportunities for road trips.
Speaker 1:Exactly right Lincoln Highway, the Trans Canada Highway, the John Hunt Morgan Trail in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, the John Merway in Scotland, US 395 and the Freedom Trail Adventure in Boston itself. Wow.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of trails out there there's a lot of trails out there now, which is I find that the trails would be a lot better use of the adventure labs than what you see, the artwork. You know what I mean. So I think, yeah, I like these are, these are the trails. So again, thank you so much to Nancy for reaching out to us and thanks for that information, and the link to her web page will be in the show notes.
Speaker 3:Awesome, that's really cool. So to wrap up this conversation about gamifying your travel, it's just it's. It can add to your travel, it can guide your travel, and adventure labs are just a really interesting resource for you to check out.
Speaker 3:So if you're listening to this and you're like gosh, these guys talk about geocaching a lot, I tried geocaching. I'm not really into it. Yeah, maybe you need to check out. It's called the adventures app. So I think if you search in your app store adventures, geocaching or adventures, I think you're going to find it. Are you ready, josh Sure.
Speaker 1:Links for those Apple Apple Maps, Apple Maps for Apple and Google are in the show notes, so links for for the for the apps are in the show notes too. So we've already done that.
Speaker 3:Craig, we need to talk about our patrons, the people that keep this thing, going and we just really, boy, do we appreciate them and yeah, we do. We thank everyone that has decided to support this podcast. It is a young podcast. What is this episode? 13. Lucky, 13. Lucky, 13. Exactly, and we've just got a great group. We have over 13 patrons. That's pretty cool. We should try to keep our patrons number, like our growth should be. We should always have more patrons than we have episodes.
Speaker 1:Yes, that would be a good goal. That would be really really cool, that would be really good.
Speaker 3:So if you are enjoying this podcast, we would really appreciate your support, and by supporting us, you're helping us create even better content. Keep it free and keep it going, so please consider joining our Patreon at patreoncom. Backslash treasures of our town.
Speaker 1:So, josh, next episode. We've already got it in, not in the bag yet, but ready to go. We're actually going to find out some secrets, some secrets about Iowa. We chat to a local author in Iowa, and so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:I'm really excited about this because guess what, craig, what's that? I was born in Iowa. That's right, you would too. Iowa boy, iowa corn fed boy. I'm excited to talk to her. I just going to say a little preview. She's into roadside attractions and big things as well.
Speaker 4:Yes, we love this so we're excited.
Speaker 1:So how can people find and reach out to us? Just like Nancy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, feel free to reach out to us at treasures of our town podcast at gmailcom, or you can follow us on Facebook, instagram, twitter and, of course, all our episodes are uploaded to YouTube.
Speaker 1:So that's our show for today. Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcasting app.
Speaker 3:And, as always, Josh may your travels always lead you to the most unexpected and amazing hidden gems around the world, in Germany and beyond. We'll see you next time in Iowa. Bye, bye, bye.