Our new adventure....geocaching! Anyone do this?

[ChristusG]

Our family has just begun geocaching. What a neat family activity! It's free, it's fun, and it's quality time together! The kids love it because we go on adventures and find "hidden treasure." There are usually trinkets and small toys inside and the kids love swapping out new ones. And a great thing is that no matter where we travel to, there always seems to be tons of caches wherever we go! And this can be eduational too....learning about latitude and longitude coordinates, map skills, following directions, learning about a compass....not to metion learning about nature and plant life if you are geocaching in the woods.

 

Anyone else discover the fun of geocaching?

[Chelle in MO]

We've done it in the past. It is really fun. It's neat that there are different levels for different abilities, too.

 

Chelle

[Diane in CO]

We did geocaching with cub scouts....lots of fun!

 

Diane

[happi duck]

Love it! We have been geocaching for a few years. It's such a fun way to discover things you might not find otherwise, local landmarks, new parks, new trails etc.

[orangearrow]

My dad frequently takes the kids geocaching. They really enjoy it together! :)

[Amber in AUS]

I've never heard of it. Care to share some links or more info?

[BikeBookBread]

DH and I have always thought this was cool... I just went to the geocaching website and though it looks complicated to understand (at first), I think it could really develop into something fun for our whole family!

[Melissa in Australia]

We found a geocache by accident once. it had been "lost" due to the river flooding. and we were able to contact the "owner " of the cache. They lent us their GPS, and we had a ball finding all the caches in the area. We even set up a cache of our own. We haven't done any since, as we don't have a GPS, but I get an email almost daily form people finding 'our' cache.

[Thea]

We've not been geocaching but love letterboxing, which is similar. It's great fun!

[keptwoman]

We do it from time to time. It's good fun, even when you don't find the cache, you usually get to explore somewhere new.

[LinzluvsGJ]

I've never heard of it. Care to share some links or more info?

 

This is the "official" site for it. It is essentially a treasure hunt of sorts using a gps to find the coordinates to then search for a hidden container. Most include a logbook to sign, and items to trade in/out (some are themed boxes, some are too small to contain objects so they'll have a stamp or something in them instead to use). It's a lot of fun!

 

We used to do it as our date before we had kids while we were in college. It was a free way to get out and go do something together. Now we do it during the summer with the kids on the easier ones if we have some time to get out and want to do something low-cost. It allows us to spend time noticing things we wouldn't otherwise while looking for the cache!

[creekland]

We love geocaching and only wish we'd found out about it before we did the bulk of our traveling as then we'd have found caches in 49 states and the eastern half of Canada. Instead, we found out about it after we came home from our last long trip as we needed something free to do while we saved more money... Now we only have 13 states and 2 provinces AND we're saving money for college costs, so our caching has become less frequent. Nonetheless, it gives us free things to do on the trips we take - as well as great stretch breaks and a chance to see local sights many people miss.

 

Our favorites are the challenging caches - esp in the woods. I love a good hike with a good challenge. We really dislike urban caches where you have to keep quite the lookout for muggles.

 

Our all-time favorite caches were those with the old PA Turnpike Tunnels. It was really neat walking through tunnels that used to be traveled by oodles of cars. One tunnel was over a mile long (and had a great cache hidden in it). Here's the link to that one:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ac654b5c-cfd3-4656-adf5-f7a80479ac5b

 

And here's the "getting started" page for those who are interested:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/about/default.aspx

[Amber in AUS]

I've spent the afternoon checking this out. Going on our first expedition on the weekend, woohoo :)

[creekland]

I've spent the afternoon checking this out. Going on our first expedition on the weekend, woohoo :)

 

Have fun, but beware - it's addictive! ;)

[whitestavern]

We've not been geocaching but love letterboxing, which is similar. It's great fun!

 

Same here...but I've been wanting to try geocaching for a while. What equipment do you need?

[ChristusG]

We don't have a GPS....but we do have an iPhone. There's an app you can download (it's geocaching.com's app) and you can find all the cache's around your location. I think I actually like that better than using a GPS. With only a GPS, you have to plan which cache's you'll find beforehand....and write down the coordinates and such. With the app, we just go somewhere and it finds all the ones around us. Plus, if we get stumped, we can look at the hint. We can also look at other people's logs and make sure it was found recently.....and read the description of the cache if necessary.

[5wolfcubs]

We don't have a GPS....but we do have an iPhone. There's an app you can download (it's geocaching.com's app) and you can find all the cache's around your location.

 

Thanks for this info! I'd love to try this with my kids!

[TrixieB]

Welcome to the world's best addiction! :thumbup:

 

We have been caching for a bit over a year. As my dh says, the kids and I are totally obsessed with it. My kids begged me to let them get their own accounts and I finally gave in a couple of weeks ago. Now they are working on a challenge streak (finding at least one cache per day for a specific number of days in a row) and will finish that in July.

 

We love the events and meeting other cachers. We've made some great friends at the events and while caching. We've gone hiking and canoeing with our geobuddies, as well as going on in-town treks with them.

 

The biggest challenge is to mesh the caching and the schoolwork, so neither suffers. :D

[Rene Austen]

We love letterboxing, as well--it's such a great multi-age activity! We have found boxes in several national parks, multiple states, and lots here in our own state.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

I did geocaching a few years ago and gave it up eventually... We just got tired of it.

[PinkInTheBlue]

We just started this last year and love it. we haven't found one in several months just because we got distracted. Now I'm going to jump over to the website and see what new ones we have in the area.

 

We used our iPhone app to start with and then added a GPS. The two together are perfect. I even kept a geocaching bag in the back of our car in case we did some spontaneous caching while we were out. Our GPS, some bug spray, old tennis shoes and socks for me (I often wear little sandals and that just doesn't work in some places), and extra batteries for our GPS.

[happyWImom]

This is so cool!!! I'd never heard of either geocatching or letterboxing, so I am very thankful for this thread. We cannot wait to get started!:party:

[mamapjama]

We really got into it last year. We stopped for the winter and haven't got back into it yet. But we will. Easter Seals has an upcoming event that will be a Geocaching fundraiser. We are thinking about taking part!

 

For our first day back to school, I created a series of caches for my son. You can check it out on my blog. It is one of the posts I actually posted :lol:

[BridgeTea]

My first geocache find is still my favorite! I worked hard for that one, trudging through the woods in knee-deep snow. I was hooked after that, and our family used to go quite often. We haven't gone much in the last 2 years, but were just saying the other day that we need to start up again.

 

Our handheld GPS unit was bought just for geocaching. It's a dinosaur with very few features, but I bet it will still find them! I have a backpack in the closet that still has a few of our trading trinkets in there.

 

I want to try letterboxing, also. What's the other related hobby - the one where you locate the railroad markers or surveyor markers by coordinates? A person could enter the coordinates for a lot of things, and find them all in one trip.

 

This hobby is a great family activity. There are geocaches all over the world.

[TrixieB]

What's the other related hobby - the one where you locate the railroad markers or surveyor markers by coordinates?

Benchmarks. We've stumbled across a few by accident, and searched out others.

[KristenS]

Not owning a GPS, I am more drawn to letterboxing. We found our first, too, not too far from home.

 

We did try geocaching at an Earth Day event locally ... they loaned GPS's to folks, but it was on the nature trails and someone had reprogrammed our list ... and trails don't go as the GPS flies ... it was a nightmare. We finished, but were pretty bummed at the end.

 

Still interested though ... so (again, even though we don't own a GPS) I looked up some caches near where my dh and I went this weekend. One had a good enough map and some hints that we thought we'd give it a shot ... and we actually found it! That was cool!

 

So we're looking into the hobby.

 

Geocaching is part of Boy Scouting's 100 year anniversary stuff right now, so if you have a scout, try searching for some of their caches ... should be fun. I am hoping to help our Cubs hide a cache (none of the packs or troops in our Council are using the program ... our Council dropped the ball and didn't request the official kit ... and I hate for our region to be left out). We're gonna maybe hide some special celebration stickers in it, and make it a hybrid letterbox/geocache. Plus go find some simple local ones. (A parent has volunteered to guide us in this.)

 

Oh, and our first letterbox had our first 'hitchhiker' too ... that is motivating!

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

and trails don't go as the GPS flies ...

 

Well that's the whole point! Figuring out a way to reach the cache..

I remember once coming up to a path that split in two. The GPS was pointing right in the middle. I took the right branch with the two kids in tow. We ended up having to do some mountain climbing with a 9yo and a 6yo! The 6yo didn't appreciate it at all. And the left path (the path not taken!) was such an easy walk!!!

[MamaT]

We haven't done geocaching, but love letterboxing. It is one of our favorite things to do when we go camping.

[KristenS]

Well that's the whole point! Figuring out a way to reach the cache..

I remember once coming up to a path that split in two. The GPS was pointing right in the middle. I took the right branch with the two kids in tow. We ended up having to do some mountain climbing with a 9yo and a 6yo! The 6yo didn't appreciate it at all. And the left path (the path not taken!) was such an easy walk!!!

 

Oh, sure, I totally agree! Except that this was our VERY FIRST attempt, and they advertised it as 'beginner' (they also had an advanced route), and they also told us everything was supposed to be right by the trail (as it's part swamp, this is rather critical!). So when we couldn't find things ... it was so hard! Those back and forth trails ....

 

Though, when we realized the coordinates had been reset, and we used our sheet and figured out how to reprogram the machine ourselves, that did help some.

 

(It had been set up with a pre-guided geocache tour, basically, for newbies ... and it really wasn't for newbies at all. Even more experienced cachers were giving up in frustration, and more than one doing the advanced version compared notes with us to make sure they were on track ... they were having to solve puzzles for the coordinates, and were finding the stations in a different order. It was a total disaster, as far as what they intended the event to be for. The route proper shouldn't take even more than an hour, going by GPS, trail, and common sense, and it took us and most others who didn't quit at least two and a half hours ... thereby missing the entire rest of the Earth Day activities they were hosting.)

 

We did it ... but I was afraid I'd scared my family off the hunt for life. Thankfully the nearby letterbox was sheer joy for my kids to find, and the cache we found at camp recently (me and dh) was fun, so we're interested again. I think it could be a really cool hobby.

[ChrissySC]

There is a book too .... It has helped us start preparing. Geocaching for Dummies! LOL A book for everyone to read. :)

[teamturner]

We knew about it before but couldn't do it w/o a GPS device. My dh got an Iphone recently and so now we can. We found 2 on Mother's Day. It is a fun family activity! My dh dropped off my dd 8 to a birthday party in a nearby town and he and the rest of the dc geocached over in that area. It is addictive!

[Bug's Mom]

We done letterboxing in the past. I've wanted to do geocaching for a while, now, and just bought a used GPSr on ebay. It should arrive this week. Dd is excited to go "treasure hunting".