Geocaching: Another Excuse to Travel!

Travel, Hide and Find with Your GPS

Ever heard of Geocaching? Friends of mine from Oregon are now full-time RV'ers. They often show up at walk events in the Southwest and have tales to tell about walking and Geocaching at the same time. While a primary passion of theirs is volkswalking, they have also taken up Geocaching. They told me about traveling across the U.S. with their GPS and computer, hunting up little treasures. One was under a lamp post, one was under a rock in the desert, but all the fun was in seeking them out.

So I decided to find out a little bit more about this sport. They described how they logged on to the Geocaching website, and found out what caches were hidden in the area where they were traveling. I logged on and became educated.

What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

What are the rules in Geocaching?

Geocaching is a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, the rules are very simple:
1. Take something from the cache
2. Leave something in the cache
3. Write about it in the logbook
The hard part, I believe, is learning how to use a GPS device. Once you have mastered that, you find out the coordinates for some caches located near you and start hunting.

My friends let me in on a little secret. It's not easy. Once you locate the area where a cache may be stashed, the true hunt starts. Cache owners take great pride in hiding the cache. You have to be very creative to find them. Some are large and some are small. One man, they said, hollowed out a rock, placed the cache inside, and put the rock back in a park. You had to find the rock, be creative enough to look underneath and then pull out the stash from the hole that was drilled into the rock. Now imagine yourself seeking out "the rock" among many in a beautifully landscaped park. And, of course you don't want to draw attention to yourself as you seek out the cache!