A few months ago I learned of a new sport called Geocaching while surfing one of the many social sites I frequent. A few people had posted pictures of the new travel bugs they had received, and while I didn’t fully understand any of it at the time, it had peaked enough of my interest that when I stumbled back across geocaching again about a week ago I decided to look into it further… Imagine my surprise when after my first time out I became instantly hooked. I only wish I would have found this sport/activity sooner.
As a kid one of my favorite activities was mysteries, whether in the form of a good book or a puzzle/riddle that needed to be solved. Geocaching combines this very thing along with a world wide outdoor environment to essentially play hide and seek in. In fact my favorite way to describe geocaching to someone is: Geocaching is like a worldwide scavenger hunt with pirate treasure you find at the end all the while sneaking around various locations pretending your a ninja!
The premise is simple… you log on to geocaching.com and create a profile, from there you can search for caches in your local area. I have almost 50 caches in a mile radius from where I am sitting right now, and the list grows larger almost daily. You enter the coordinates listed into a GPS device or Iphone if you download the groundspeak app.
From there you are on your way to discovering whatever trinkets have been hidden for you to find.
There are also a variety of different caches to find. These range from simple micro caches containing only a log sheet, to small caches filled with trinkets, multi-caches that send you from one set of coordinates to the next, to caches that involve complex puzzles or riddles to solve to locate the coordinates. Each cache offers a unique challenge that is bound to keep you active and guessing the entire time your out.
I have a total of 16 caches found in the last 3 days, my goal is to have 100+ by January 1st, 2010. If you like puzzles, being outdoors, or a decent physical/mental challenge give geocaching a try… I think you’ll fall in love with it!
