Travel Bug - Promotional Travel Bugs

Promotional Travel Bugs

Each year from 2004 to 2007, Jeep had sponsored a contest, the Jeep 4×4 Geocaching Challenge, featuring a different series of special Jeep travel bugs. The travel bugs are released throughout the United States with no specific mission in mind, but every finder was entered into a drawing for a new Jeep and other prizes. There is a separate contest for photo entries for each Jeep travel bug series. In 2004, five thousand yellow Jeep Wrangler travel bugs were released, followed by five thousand white Jeep Wrangler Rubicon travel bugs in 2005, six thousand green Jeep Rescue concept vehicle travel bugs in 2006, and eight thousand red Jeep Commander travel bugs in 2007. An advertising campaigned promoting the travel bugs with adverts in such magazines as Women's Health. Each year, the Jeep travel bugs have followed a different naming convention. The first series of yellow Jeeps were simply numbered, and the 2005 white Jeeps were given first names. 2006 Jeeps were named after different peaks in the United States, and 2007 Jeeps were named after different rivers in the United States.

In late 2006, to promote diabetes awareness and to gather support for a United Nations resolution, the International Diabetes Federation disseminated "Unite for Diabetes" travel bugs to be released by volunteers around the world. Unlike the Jeep travel bugs, each Unite for Diabetes travel bug has a specific mission. Every individual bug is assigned to one of 20,000 target cities around the world (for example, Guben, Germany). The bug's mission is to travel to, then around, its target city, collecting geocaching logs and photos along the way. Like the Jeep series, the Unite for Diabetes series was tied to a contest. Specially made geocoins were also created for release in 2007.