benderoos

Its the model I have. Its a great starter GPSr. Works nicely for downloading caches to it, and after you get use to the menu system, you can hop along and find caches and your car nice and easily. If you can afford a it more expensive model, or are planning on doing alot of deep bush caching, I would reccomend something with an electronic compass. With this model,it will tell you what direction something is in, and with reasonable accuracy as long as your moving. Once you stop moving (or are in deep brush, and can't move at a reasonable rate) your compass point will bounce all over and not necessarily point to the proper direction of the cache. In fact alot of the time it will freeze and point in the direction it was in when you were last moving. To get around this I usually have to make a few runs toward a cache in the bush so I can pinpoint where the zero point should be.

How does that work when you are in an area that you have never visited before? Ask some locals, if you know any. If not, I would suggest looking around the area and see if you notice any "Geocaching term - usual suspects" in the area before diving under the nearest bush. The park I was talking about that I asked about, when I drove by afterwards, I noticed a needle exchange box. That pretty much summed up what I had been told.

I always consult peole that know the area before going into it for a cache. I would rather have an unfound cache in my profile then a tombstone above my head. 1 example, I was going to be in an area that was known for being in the seedy part of town. I figured I would do a few in the park nearby (Was in the middle of the afternoon, and I am a guy so wasn't to concerned about getting jumped). Asked some people that knew the neighbourhood about the park, and found most people in the area won't enter that park becuase of all the used needles lying in the grass. Needless to say, I am not going to be on my knees searching under bushes where I can't see where my hand is going in an area where the chance of a needle laying around. It would probabaly have been the same if the park was a known spot for gang attacks, ect.

I used to write everyones names on the cache, but after finding my first Nano, I decided to shorten it to our Team name. The kids still like writing their names below the team name when we find larger log books.

I usually log a DNF if I look for at least a few minutes and can't find it. I am fairly new to caching, but I have already had a cache owner go to check their cache after I logged my DNF, and found it to be missing. He replaced, and e-mailed me to let me know its back where it should be.

Wow, thanks for the tip. I just bought a Garmin GPS'r as well, didn't know about the 30 day trial. Going to try this when I get home.

I am new to caching as well, but have found a few already. What I usualy do (I go caching with my kids as well), is go to a Dollar Store, and stock up on whatever I can find that is small that I think someone wouldn't mind finding. Usually all the caches I have found so far have matchbox cars, Boxes of different types of kids card games, bracelets, stickers, plastics bugs, key chains, small action figures/dolls ect. I did find a "Large" once that was stocked with CD's, Scrapbooking paper, Burnt movies, paper lanterns, ect. Luckly that one was near the road, so I had to run to the car and find something a bit better to put back. But for the most part, don't expect to find any "real" treasures, as everyone knows it is only so long before the "muggles" come and grab it all.

I have found as long as you have kids along, you can get away with anything, and not many people will watch what your doing. I have been looking in a few bushes/trees in a local park, and when I am alone, I feel like I must look like a peeping tom looking around in a bush or under a large tree. But having the kids playing around, you look like you might be playing some type of game with the kids, or that they may have lost one of their toys, and you are looking for it.

I know the feeling. My family has just gotten into Geocaching in the last few weeks as well. We were on holidays, and some relatives introduced us to Geocaching. I thought it was cool, but didn't think there would be any near where I lived (Since I didn't hear of it before). To my suprise, I went on the website, put in my address, and noticed I had on 80m from my house, and had over the 500 cache limit looking at the city I live in . My word of advice. When we first started, we were using a cheap Garmin, and an expensive Garmin. We are caching in an open park, and both worked well at getting us to our goal. When I got home, I went and purchased the cheap GPSr we were using on our vacation. Once you get looking for a few caches in a wooded area, having a GPSr with an electronic compass would be REALLY handy. For the cheaper ones without the Electronic compass, you have to keep moving in order to find which direction to go. In deep brush, I find I have to keep turning backwards and then walking a few steps towards where I think it is to get the direction pointed out to me where it is located.