Our New Pastime: Geocaching
POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Family, iPhone
During our Fall family staycation last week we got hooked on our new family pastime: geocaching. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices (in our case, an iPhone 4). The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.
There are over 1.2 million geocaches hidden around the world in even the most remote locations. When I first fired up my app I was surprised to see how many caches were hidden with just a mile or two of my house!
We explained how geocaching worked to the girls, grabbed our phones and set out to find some caches. The girls loved it. Once you find a cache you get to sign the log book and see everyone else who has found that particular cache before you. The cache pictured below (GCH9DJ) has been hidden since 2003! Needless to say there’s quite a few names in this log.
After you sign the log, you can take your picture with your cache in hand, like this (taken at Geocache GC274D7)…
…or this (taken at Geocache GC1VWCB)
…or this one that we found at an old cemetery down in Martinsville (GCQW17).
Each cache has details about how hard it is to find, the terrain you’ll have to navigate to get to it and the size of the cache. Some of the caches are quite small and well-hidden…
…others will send you pretty far off the beaten path (GCZGMV)…
We have been using the Groundspeak Geocaching app from Geocaching.com (available as a free Intro version or the full version for $9.99) but you can also use your Android phone or any handheld GPS unit.
This is only our first week geocaching but we learned a few things quick. Here’s some beginners advice:
- Dress appropriately. Some of the caches require you to push through heavy underbrush or walk close to streams. Dress like you would for a day in the woods just to be safe.
- Check your cache details online or on your app ahead of time Each cache has a description and a rating for size, difficulty and terrain. Pick a cache that is a good fit for your experience or the age of the people you have with you. Young kids can get discouraged and lose interest if the hunt is too hard (we spent 20 minutes looking for our first cache and ended up skipping it).
- Read the logs of people who have found it already. In some rare cases a cache may have been stolen or moved from its original location. If the last 5 people who have tried to find that cache reported that they couldn’t locate it, you may want to save yourself the trouble of looking for something that might not be there.
- Use your GPS unit, but don’t rely completely on it. The GPS is supposed to take you to the location of the cache but after you’re there you need to use your eyes and look around. Make sure you’re close to the marker and then put the GPS back in your pocket.
- A good piece of advice I read online was not to look for caches, but instead to ask yourself, “If I were hiding something here, where would I hide it?” Once you start looking for hiding places instead of a little box you’ll be amazed how many caches start jumping out at you!
We’ve had a blast doing this as a family. The nice thing we’ve found about geocaching is that it is something anyone can do anywhere you’re at. For example, we were visiting a partner church down in Martinsville on Sunday so we decided to pull up some nearby caches afterwards while we were there. Any trip can turn into a full-on treasure hunt at a moment’s notice!
Have you been geocaching before? What was your favorite find?
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Visit My Website
October 28, 2010
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I bought the full app as well for the iPhone…we’re LOVING it!
I found my first “travel bug” yesterday at a cache…will be dropping it off somewhere in your area in the next day or two…
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October 28, 2010
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Sweet! We haven’t found any bugs yet but I was reading about them. It’s a cool idea.
We’re already thinking about where and how we would hide our first cache as a family when we decide to.
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October 28, 2010
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I love geocaching too! It’s huge in the Black Hills of South Dakota where I live.
Also, it’s a great thing to do when you travel to other parts of the country. Cheap entertainment that takes you to places you may never have gone.
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October 28, 2010
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We also love that it’s something we can do anywhere we travel to, and it’s great exercise for the whole family.
Thanks for this blog post, Brad!
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October 28, 2010
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I LOVE caching! It’s a great way to get the whole family out into God’s creation. Love the thrill of the find after a long search.
Welcome to the very-addictive world of GeoCaching!
–Tomara
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October 28, 2010
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I love geocaching!
My best find was an NES Kirby Game!
The best thing I left was firecrackers.
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October 28, 2010
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i took our boys this summer for the first time…. when we found the first geocache (after looking for a missing one for over an hour that was in flood territory and was probably in louisiana by now) i was more excited than my boys! thanks for reminding me how fun it was, we’ll have to do it again!
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November 4, 2010
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This is something my wife and I got into this summer when we got our new motorcycle. It gave us a good excuse to ride into parts of the state we would otherwise ignore. One of the coolest things about it is the caches that are part of the same “series”, for instance all the caches hidden in Indiana cemeteries in which someone from the Revolutionary or Civil War is burried. It’s a cool combination of history and geography and can make any normally boring place interesting.
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November 4, 2010
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Yeah Jordan, we hit up one of the geocache “series” when we found a cache in an old historical Indiana cemetery (pictured above in one of the pics). It was pretty cool.
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October 19, 2011
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I didn’t even know anything like this existed. I have an 8 and 10 year old, looks like a great project to get into after school today with them!
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October 26, 2011
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WOW, technology is a crazy thing haha. It has completely changed the way the world works. I hadn’t heard of geoaching either. It sounds like so much fun. Great photos!
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January 17, 2012
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What the hec, how have I not heard of this before??
Is the app available on Android as well and is it just called “geocaching”?
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February 18, 2012
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Sounds like very good idea. Very nice pictures also