Geocaching

[chaps1870]

Went out geocaching this weekend. The boys had a blast and we found new places to explore.

If you own a GPS and love to get out, this is fun for the entire family.  It's like a hi tech version of a scavenger hunt.  To get started go to geocaching.com and punch in your zip code to see if there are geocaches in your area.  Most likely there are since it has become a worldwide obsession.

How does it work?  Once you locate caches in your area, you can either write down the coordinates for a cache (then input manually into the GPS) or download it to your GPS. The caches, when you locate them, can have anything in them. Most often there are toys and such, but occassionally you'll find a good one and there will be something of interest.  If you take something, you should leave something. We usually drop in a toy if the kids take something but we also made up some nifty window decals as kind of a signature or I'll make a run to the dollar store for odds and ends stuff to leave. 

We can usually do 8 or 10 caches a day depending on drive time and how much time we have.  At the end of the day you log back into the site and record your finds. If you find it, you can record what you took and what you left. You don't have to record your finds but if continue past the first day it's a great way to keep track of those caches you have found. You do have to sign up for a free account if you wish to record your data.
 
The beauty is that you don't need an expensive GPS to play. We've found that the high end GPS tends to take away the fun of the find, since they take you to the exact spot without much need to do the looking. Finding is the best part and it can become very competitive to be the one to make the find.