Jibber00

No... those are separate things. You can have one without the other. But if you use the iPhone app being only Basic Member, will lose a lot of the fun. I bought the Android version, but now bought an iPhone.. does anyone know if it is possible to switch my version, or do I have to pay the full amount for a new app??? Unless you bought the Android version from iTunes, I'm afraid you'll have to buy it again. BTW, you can also upgrade to a Premium Membership inside the iOS app using your iTunes account. Pretty nifty.

If you have a Garmin eTrex 10, just boot it up, hit the menu button on the side twice to get to the main menu, and then scroll all the way down to the bottom to "Satellite". Select this function and it will show you your current GPS coordinates as well as info about the sattelites that are providing info to your GPSr. Go to this youtube video. The list below is supposed to start at the 8 minute mark and shows you the screen with the relevant info.

Your GPS should be able to tell you your current coordinates. Best to do it outside so it's nice and accurate. But we would like to know what brand and model GPSr you just bought so we can give you precise instructions. If you bought a Garmin nuvi, in the Tools section there should be a Where Am I? tool you can use to see your coordinates. On my Garmin GPSMap 60Cx, I would just hit the Mark button and the info displayed would include my current coordinates. But this is only what I know from owning various Garmins. If neither of the above work for you, then you'll have to tell us what GPSr you're using so someone else can give you the procedure to procure you coordinates using your GPSr. With a map, you could go to maps.google.com and locate your home address on the map. Right-click where your house is (just beside the road, not on it), select "What's here?" from the list, and then hover your mouse cursor over the little green arrow. It should display the coordinates of that arrow in a mouse-over text box.

Where are you located?

To each their own. Over the 4 years I have been geocaching, I have found the real reason that I personally like geocaching is the writing of the log itself! At first I thought finding something new in an area I'm quite familiar with was great... turns out that's what my wife really likes. My 9 year-old is now turning 14 in a couple of weeks, so he's moved from the trading of trinkets to actually getting interested in finding the cache itself. He feels pride when he comes up with the cache first, and that's important to a teenager. My one year old still dives into the trinkets with both hands, carefully inspecting them all before making his selection. I imagine as he grows older he will be quite proud of the collection he has in our geocaching pouch. The thing is, because there's 4 of us looking for every geocache, I always have a lot to write in my logs. Hand on heart, I love writing meaningful descriptive logs that are as long as they need be because I have 4 stories to tell! I even try to make sure I log what the smallest Jibber traded in the cache just in case kids of other cachers read our log. It is not uncommon for us to spend 10 minutes writing a log for a cache that took us under a minute to find. My whole family realizes that our log is our contribution to the cache, whether we found it or not. I know most cachers feel this way but actions speak louder than words.... er... more words speak louder than less words? Heck, I'd even go so far to say I hate acronyms (and if you knew what I did for work you'd find that deliciously funny). Most of my finds I will type out "Thanks for the hide!" just because I can. Again, this is only my 2 cents on the topic.

I agree that getting an iPhone on the cheap and the paid Geocaching app to become your portable geocaching computer would be good bang for your buck. I only recently bought the app and in my opinion it's the best thing for paperless geocaching. You can save caches for offline use so it's just like bringing a printout with you. Of course, it still doesn't hold a candle to my 60Cx for finding GZ, but it's more than adequate for urban park n grabs.

I agree with Semper on 1 and 2 (I'm in Calgary) but as for number 3... ...since I have geocaches with both my iPhone 4S and my Garmin GPSMap 60 Cx, I would use a dedicated GPSr to get the coordinates of a hide. Mainly for the fact that most geocachers will be using a dedicated GPSr to find it with.