Who doesn’t love treasure hunting? I was totally intrigued when I first heard about Geocaching. The prospect of hidden gems right outside my front door, just hiding in the bushes, was so cool. I wanted to go find them all so I grabbed the kids and we started exploring. Turns out, geocaching is super easy, kids of all ages love it, the whole family can get involved, and it doesn’t cost a thing.
RELATED: 10 Ways To Cure Nature Deficiency
Geocaching is the perfect activity to get everyone outside, exploring, on an adventure and having fun. After the winter we’ve had, it is time to get outdoors; the snow is melting and the ice is finally thawing. There is treasure to be found !
Here is the low down on what you need to know to get started Geocaching.
The definition of geocaching from geocaching.com is “geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS co-ordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.”
Random trinkets, jewels, toys, coins, and notes act as treasures and sometimes the cache is so small, there is just a teeny tiny scroll of paper that logs all visitors. EVERYWHERE around the world there is hidden treasure.
It all started back in 2000 when the U.S. government opened up satellite and GPS communication, enabling anyone with proper GPS receiving devices to navigate to the location of hidden items. Immediately GPS enthusiasts wanted to test the accuracy of these satellites. The first item was hidden in the woods by Dave Ulmer, its GPS coordinates sent out to an online GPS user group to see if anyone could find this “stash.” They did!
Within weeks GPS enthusiasts caught on to this stash-and-hunt idea and started hiding their own stashes. Soon the name was changed to Geo (for earth) cache (meaning hide or storage).
RELATED: Here's Who Is Responsible For Your Inactive Kid
Now over 2.4 billion caches are hidden around the world with varying difficulty levels. Some simply hidden with specific co-oridantes to a tree or under a shrub, others require solving riddles or multi layer, multi location puzzles to find the final cache.
Get Started Geocaching
All you need to get started is a GPS enabled smart phone and an App. I purchased an app for $9.99 app but there is the website and free apps available which you can use to test it out before purchasing. You can give your family a team name, electronically check off in the caches you find, and the app offers descriptions, hints and photos of the hidden treasure if you are struggling to find it.
Ready to try it?
Go to geochaching.com on your computer.
Choose Explore as a guest and enter your postal code on the far right.
Then choose Map this Location – check out ALL the hidden treasure around you just waiting to be found!
Ready to Get the App?
Some Geocaching Rules
The best part of the geocaching experience for us has been the secret knowledge we share as a family! Imagine knowing when you are biking with your friends that there is a hidden gem by the church parking lot, or walking to school across the bridge and only you know about the camouflage covered box under it, or remembering the fun you had with your family discovering the plastic “dead” leg by the creek that hid a cache!
Geocaching has us rediscovering the paths, forests, creeks, and great outdoors in our own backyard, and where ever we travel – Grandma's house, the zoo, camping, Florida, the apple orchard - a simple “Find nearby cache” on the app turns any hike, drive or a visit into a geocaching adventure.
Give it a try and tell me how much your family loves it!
Printer-friendly version