Realms Beyond Nature

[Kylearan]

Hi,

my wife and I have recently discovered a new hobby: Geocaching. For those who don't know what geocaching is: Someone hides a box with a logbook and some trade in a beautiful or interesting place, and publishes the GPS coordinates of that place on a site like geocaching.com. Now other people use their GPS receivers to try and find that box, and log their find both in the logbook and on the web site. Some coordinates lead you directly to the cache, others only to the first stage, where you have to solve some puzzles to lead you to more stages and then finally to the cache itself. For a more detailed explanation, see this FAQ.

I know some here at RB love to go out and enjoy nature: Shadow, Jaffa, and others. So I wonder if there are any fellow geocachers here at Realms Beyond? If not, you should definately try it out!

I've called this post "Realms Beyond Nature" because, well, I feel like I've discovered just that: A new realm beyond the nature I knew before. The idea that everywhere I go stashes are hidden is very exciting - but the best thing about geocaching is that I've discovered lots of new and beautiful places I wouldn't have found otherwise, even in areas I go hiking for several years now, and which I thought I've thoroughly explored! There are literally dozens of caches in a 10km radius around our house we didn't know about...

This is not limited to the wilderness, however. Today, I found a cache in my hometown of Bonn, where I live for over 30 years now. It was placed in the ruins of an ancient church, built in 795 AD. Its foundations have been rediscovered in 1978, in the middle of a residential block - very interesting, and again something I wouldn't have found without the cache.

I'm looking forward to introduce this hobby to my godson. He's four years old now, so maybe I can take him to some of the easier caches soon - and I know he'd love to go on a treasure hunt, although teaching him that if he wants to retrieve something from the box, he has to put something of his own into it might not be so easy... A lot of geocachers are families, as can be seen by the trade which very often consists of toys and other children's things. For us adults, it's the journey that counts; for the children, it's all about the treasure.

So, are there any other geocachers here who would like to share some stories?

-Kylearan

EDIT: To find out if there are caches near your home, take a look at this map displaying the different types of caches via Google Maps. The link brings you to my home coordinates, but you can easily enter your own address (or GPS coordinates, if you know them) to see the map of your area and its caches.

[ShadowHM]

I just got a GPS this spring. I am hoping to use it for hikes on the north end of the Bruce Trail this summer and for boating (so if I see nifty things in the water, like shipwreck parts, I can actually find them again).

Geocaching was on my list of things to check out as I become more proficient with using the GPS. Thanks for the link.

[KingOfPain]

Sounds like just the kind of thing that might get my butts outdoors more often. Heh, would the first variant in RBN be Nudists

I did a quick check what a gps unit would cost, wow, they are not cheap! Can anyone here make some commendations which to get, or what to look for in a gps unit? How about a setup with a laptop?

For that kind of money, what other uses are there for your average Jo?

Thanks for sharing.

KoP

[sunrise089]

I've Geocached, and enjoyed it a bit, but quickly grew bored. I think it's a really cool concept, and one I may revisit some day, but for whatever reason I could never make it stick. Maybe if I had a fun GeoPartner to share it with...

@KingofPain: Though it still isn't cheap, a good automotive GPS will allow you to both Geocache as well as have a nav system with you wherever you go. I'm not sure how much a standalone GPS is, but a car system should be available for as little as $300 if you shop around.

[Griselda]

We've enjoyed Geocaching for about a year now. It's been fun to discover all the caches that are hidden right around where we live- some I'd walked by for years without ever noticing!

One of the geocaches in our town said that you had to get to the coordinates, go through the door, take X paces south, etc., then say the magic words- "I want to walk like an egyptian" for the cache to appear. It turned out that the directions led you right to an information desk, and if you said the magic words, they'd get out the cache for you. You just have to have the nerve to say that to a stranger at an information desk.

Like that one, many geocahes feature creative writing that make them much more fun to decipher. There are often puzzles or riddles that you have to solve, in addition to finding the actual coordinates.

We've also found that our daughter enjoys hiking much more if we're geocaching. I think that kids have a hard time with the "we're just going to walk quickly in a big loop, isn't this fun?" concept of hiking. But, if you have a reason to be walking around out there, then it's worthwhile. You still get to see all the natural things that you would have seen on a hike, but you're also on a mission at the same time.

Our daughter is 9, so giving up toys might be easier than at 4, but what we did to start our collection of toys to put in the geocache was we went to an arcade for a few hours, with the intention of getting tickets to trade for geocache toys. The toys went right into the geocache bag, so they were never hers, and we were stocked up. I think she added a few things from her collection later on, though.

We've found that geocaching is a good vacation activity, too. The theme of the local caches tends to match the places we're visiting, plus it gets us out and exploring wherever we are. It's just as much fun wandering around in public looking under rocks in new places as it is at home.

The GPS unit and geocaching were my husband's idea, and they're mostly his hobby, so I couldn't tell you how much our unit cost. I have the feeling that I don't want to know. We have a Garmin, and our model is nice because it is handheld, but can do street or traill navigation. So, we can also use it as a car navigation unit. I think you have to buy the map software separately, though.

It also has some games on it- for example, you could go to the middle of a field, or any open space really, and play "maze". You have to walk your way through the on-screen maze using your GPS. That's another one that's pretty funny looking if "muggles" (non-GPS, geocaching type people) walk by.

So, the next time you're out in public and you see some people with a GPS unit digging around under a park bench, you'll know what they're up to.

[Berrie]

Never heard of it, but it looks interesting to do with kids. I might try this out.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I just got a GPS this spring. I am hoping to use it for hikes on the north end of the Bruce Trail this summer [...] Geocaching was on my list of things to check out as I become more proficient with using the GPS.

Well, a quick search by keyword on geocaching.com for "bruce trail" returned 41 caches, so I guess you could have a lot of practice using the GPS if you wanted to.

-Kylearan

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Sounds like just the kind of thing that might get my butts outdoors more often. Heh, would the first variant in RBN be Nudists

As the most dangerous enemies of the common geocacher are ticks, I think a nudist geocacher will run into some serious problems. Oh, and the second most dangerous are (geo)muggles - you don't want to draw attention to yourself from them, so good luck on doing a nudist geocaching run.

I did a quick check what a gps unit would cost, wow, they are not cheap! Can anyone here make some commendations which to get, or what to look for in a gps unit? How about a setup with a laptop?

Yes, GPS units are expensive. And while prices of other electronic devices (mobile phones, mp3 players etc.) have plummeted in recent years, the price and capabilities of GPS units have stayed the same.

There are basically two manufacturers ruling the market: Garmin and Magellan. Religious wars are fought between followers of these two brands, similarly to Windows vs. Mac, Intel vs. AMD or Warrior vs. Rogue debates. I have a Magellan eXplorist 100, the cheapest unit from Magellan, while the friend who introduced me to geocaching has a Garmin eTrex, the cheapest Garmin GPS receiver. Both cost nearly the same, have the same accuracy and similar funcionality. I bought the Magellan only because it shows the direction where the sun and the moon should be, so I can use the GPS unit as a rough substitute for a compass. Both units can neither display maps nor can they be linked to the PC easily, but are more than sufficient for geocaching.

More expensive units can be linked to the PC so you don't have to enter GPS coordinates and waypoint names by hand, but that's only important if you do A LOT of caches IMHO.

Another feature of more expensive GPS units is the capability to display maps. You have to buy these maps, though, and the maps are not very useful for caching itself, as they are normally designed for car navigation while geocachers often go out in the wild or leave the streets. However, if you want to use the GPS for car navigation as well, this might be a nice feature.

What the more rich geocachers often do is to buy a GPS receiver that you can connect to a PDA. That way, you can do "paperless caching", and this might end up cheaper if you have a PDA already. A laptop is probably too bulky for geocaching, except if you only go for caches you can reach by car, which normally are the least interesting.

-Kylearan

[sunrise089]

@Gris: That "walk like an Egyptian" cache idea is pretty cool. I might have kept up the hobby if I had encountered more like that around my area.

[mostly_harmless]

I had to smile a bit getting this from Kylearans Geo-muggles link:
"Geomuggles are mostly harmless."