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+2 votes
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For the "Most countries in a day" statistic on the Project-GC profile, can anyone help me out on a few details involving time zones and what actually might constitute the "same day"?

I'm planning to leave Rome (UCT+1) early morning and bag both Italy and Vatican City around 8AM before leaving.  Flight connections in Germany and USA before arriving home in Cayman Islands on the same day around 9:30PM (UTC-5).  So, according to local time, each cache will be logged on the same day.

There will be a total time difference between first and last cache of approx 20hrs given the six hour time difference but I wondered if for some reason that would fall into two separate dates if the stats are based on UTC equivalents?

Any thoughts?

I'm not likely to change the travel plans, it's enough effort to do the trip in itself, but if I can get 5 countries in a day, that's a nice little earner too.  I guess I'll find out when I'm back and all logs are in anyway.

in Support and help by Geo_Bro (310 points)
This may work indeed but I am not sure really. What I would expect to help is the total time difference is only 20 hrs. Staying in Europe, however, it should be easy to grab 5 or 6 (CH - F- LUX- B - NL - D) countries in a single day if you don't mind some driving.
Just for my curiosity, have you been able to do your trip, and has it worked? All the best for the end of the year, have a good start into 2020!
Hi!
Yes, it did seem to work and my stats show the most countries in one day as these particular five which I thought was a good achievement given the distances involved and the time / travel constraints I had!

1 Answer

0 votes
I'm sure the "Most countries in a day" stat is based on the date the cache is logged. In fact, the logs don't have any details about time, just the date. If you feel comfortable with using the local date for logging (some people may not), it should show up on that statistic.
by sumbloke (Expert) (35.1k points)
I would expect the logs still have the time included as well, it is just hidden, and not visible. If several people log a cache the same day, logs are shown in the correct order (when entered into the GPS, that means.) Until a few years ago I also saw the time when writing my log which was helpful to check I had the right photo attached (as this also showed the time).
Logs are ordered by day, but within the same day by the time the log is written. (Even if you indicate the time you found the cache in the text, this is not taken into consideration, nor is there any other possibility to indicate the time.) In addition, it’s the person writing the log who chooses the date, and surprisingly many people do not even bother to choose the correct date in their logs. (Which, BTW, can be very annoying e.g. when it comes to "found it" logs in a row of DNFs. Or simply strange when you see attended logs on an event which took place days before.) Having said that it is up to you to decide how you define a "day" for yourself, i.e. wether you use always the time/date of your home base or whether you use local day/time. (I personally always use the local time.) So, if you log the the five countries with the same date, they will be used for qualifying for the challenge, irrespective of when you write the log (or when you find them, for that matter; the system will never know whether anybody is cheating with regards to the date.)
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