Geocaching – Fun Treasure Hunting with the Kids and a GPS
This weekend we geocached with our daughter and a couple of her friends. Geocaching is “a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches…” with the help of your GPS guidance system.
We used my husband’s iPhone to guide us on our adventure. We knew there were a couple of geocaches in a nearby park. So we headed there.
My husband had previously downloaded a geocaching app for his iPhone called Geocaching.com Intro. At the park, the app finds the closest geocache and guides you to it.
The app found a geogache for us to find. The girls took turns with the iPhone pointing the direction on a compass.
Eventually you usually go off the path. (If they were on the path, people who didn’t know about the game might take them.) Then you follow the directions until you (hopefully) find the cache. The two we found today were in small plastic tubs. You’re supposed to sign the log that you find inside the tub. There are also trinkets inside the tub. You’re supposed to leave a trinket and you can take a trinket in return. We made sure all the girls had trinkets to exchange.
It was a lot of fun!
We had tried this last weekend in a more public park and never found the geocaches. Our theory is that people who didn’t know how the game might have found the caches because it was a more public place and took them. The game seems to work better in larger parks with more vegetation.
If you have a regular GPS system you can go to geocache.com and type in the zip code for the area you are going to. Then you can find different geocaches nearby. Pick one and find hints for finding it. I think it will give you the final coordinates too. You’ll need to sign up and read all about it!
Have fun!
Mama Lisa
October 12th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
My husband and I have been geocaching over three years now. My favorite thing about it is finding the great off-the-beaten-path places.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:18 am
[...] clues to the location of their own cache on the official Geocaching website. Check out MamaLisa’s description of her geocaching outing with her kids! Have you created a scavenger hunt or gone letterboxing or geocaching with your kids? I’d love [...]