September 7th, 2010 
Queenie Several years ago, our family tripped into Geocaching. I think one of us saw soemthing about letter boxing on TV and then when we looked into THAT further, we found Geocaching.In short, Geocaching is a sport. Yes. An actual sport. It requires a GPS device of some sort although we do know a couple of people who actually do this using nothing but Google Maps and what we call in the cache world “Geosense”. You hunt down caches (containers) that others have hidden around the world. The containers vary in size and shape. Some are placed in easy breezy locations that you can drive your car right up to. Others require extreme hikes/swims/climbs to get to. No matter where the cache is hidden, one thing is guaranteed – adventure!
Our fun filled family of 5 quickly became addicted. In our first year, we logged over 300 caches and several hundred miles on the hiking belt. At the time, our kids were at a great age to love the adventure of hunting down these treasure boxes in all sorts of locations. Then, life got busy for us and we sort of let our addiction fall by the way side. Although, the adventures we had are still often topic of conversation.
We began caching because we were a family of 5. We loved doing things with our kids. We loved seeing new places and…we were flat broke much of the time. This high tech treasure hunting filled all of our needs without breaking our bank.Which is one of the reasons that I decided to share about this fun past time here. Additionally, Geocaching took us to places that we never would have been to and allowed us to really get a feel of nature around our community.
All you need to do it is:
- GPS device - Many cell phones have this capability already installed. I highly recommend a hand held device with a battery. This makes it easy breezy to carry with you should your adventures carry you onto a trail. My motto is: Why limit yourself?
- a pen or pencil – This is to sign the log that is located in each cache. If you don’t sign the log, you can’t log the find.
- Swag – while this is not required, if you have little ones, it sure makes it fun. Swag is any small item you have that you can trade from cache to cache. The rule is that if you take something out of a container, you put something back in. Swag can be as simple as penny trinkets from a gum ball machine or as elaborate as a custom designed travel coin. OR..you don’t have to trade anything at all. You simply log your find. The choice is yours.
- An account on Geocaching.com. This is free to do. All you need is a good caching name and an email account.
You find the cache listings on the Geocaching web site based on an address. We began hunting the ones close to home and then expanded our search from there as our addiction grew. Caches are ranked according to difficulty and also terrain. 1 being the most simple and 5 being the most difficult. Someone who hides a cache may add some hints in the description page or give you vital information about the area the cache is in. (IE: pack a picnic, and enjoy the nearby lake.) You can also find more info on each cache such as if you can ride your bike to the location, if swimming is required, if it is wheelchair accessible or if you can take your pet with you.
Today, I was not having a great day. Our money has been tight. Our entertainment options are a bit limited. So…the kids and I packed up the Iphone, grabbed a drink and headed out to do what we used to love to do for a while. We had a great time discussing past adventures and we even managed to make a couple of new ones. Although we hadn’t been at it in a while, it still appealed to us in the way that it had in the past. I also think that Geocaching will be put back on our list of things to do. This ecowarrior can’t pass up a good adventure. 
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