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How Did You Discover Geocaching?


Gecko1

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I was searching through google images for an interesting photo for a logo when I saw a photo of some bizarre little container. I clicked on it and and it brought me to some personal webpage about a "geocache" and it lead me back to geocaching.com

 

I've been addicted ever since.

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I new about the game, but just didn't participate, I'd read about Letterboxing back in 2001 or 2002, then my friend Jeepdogs, told me he had been doing it, so I signed up, and started searching. I'd had 3 GPS's Garmin 48, Garmin GPS III plus, Rino 120, now I have the Garmin 60cs and love it.

Edited by Cruiserdude
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a fellow homebrewer told me one day "I have a new hobby"

we subsequently went out within the week. I am currently waiting for my sigoth to come across with the GPSr she so generously implied would be my bday booty next week so that I can begin seriously following the scent.

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I got a gift card to Circuit City a couple of years ago and the only thing at the place that I could afford with it was an Etrex venture. I had fun with that for a while, untill I got bored and looked for something else to do with it. I googled GPS and games and it showed me geocaching. I saw a cache in the woods near a friends house, so we went and tried it. It was a multi but we didn't know that, in fact we had no idea what to look for at all. A year later, we tried again and found it. The next day we went out and got the other 2 in those woods. A week after we found some more. I've since sold the venture to my friend and purchased a 60cs. Now we have 25 finds, not a lot, but we enjoy hiking more than the caching. The destination for the hike always has a cache near it, just in case, even if we don't bother looking for it.

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I had heard about geocaching a year or two ago. Did a little research and reading and thought it sounded like fun. Just could not figure out a good way to bring it up with SWMBO.

 

A couple of months ago we were at an RV Park in CA when she met an older gent that was just returning to his motorhome. He mentioned that he had been geocaching. They talked about it for a few minutes. When she returned to our motorhome she mentioned it to me and said that it sounded like fun!

 

Well...now, that was all I needed to hear!! Within a week of returning home I did some more research and had a shiny new Vista C in my hot little hand. We went out and found 6 caches over a couple of weeks time. Circumstances have prevented us from getting out since then, but that is going to change very shortly.

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I heard about it from a guy in my office. He was talking about a "treasure hunt" that he was doing with a friends GPS. I looked at the site and then talked to my wife about how cool it "would be....." A month later for XMAS I got a new Garmin 76 and have been having fun since. It is a great way for us to get out and get a little exercise and helps us with our rehabilitation froma bad accident. Great topic!

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Through the Internet. I was searching for some non-related GPS stuff, and geocaching came up in the search results. Found it a year or two ago, thought "that sounds like fun", but didn't pursue it. Found it again this year, again clicked over to the geocaching.com site, and in browsing around, discovered that there was a cache right in my neighborhood. Well, I just had to check that one out, so that evening, I went for a walk, found the cache, and was immediately hooked.

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I was looking for a GPS unit for an odd reason. My other hobby is photography, and since we have moved to MD, there are some beautiful, OLD, places to photograph. Well, I always see these places when we are en route somewhere and I don't have my camera. So I thought if I could just mark the coordinates, I could return with camera equipment and good lighting and do some shoots. WELL, while googling, I checked out Garmin, and its site had the geocaching section. The rest is history.

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My boss got me into it acctually. i seen him here at work one day writting down cords and asked him what he was doing. he told me and as soon as he told me what he was doing, i was hooked. i think we are all kids at heart and big game of hide and seek put togeather by growen-ups sounded right up my ally! Thanks RVMAN and KellyJo!

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I have been trying to "justify" a GPS to my wife for over a year. I enjoy ice fishing and deer hunting, and I figured I could use one for both of those activities.

 

Her worry has been that I will use this gadget two or three weekends per year. One while stalking Bambi, the other two while sitting on a bucket in the middle of a lake.

 

She challenged me to find another use for one, so I began searching for other things to do with them, and found this place.

 

Now that my kids are hooked, I think she is softening to the idea of another $400 toy for Dad...

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My Jeep-addicted, electronics-junkie husband discovered it on the net very early this year. It was the White Jeep TB's that caught his interest. We went out on St Patricks' Day and found our first cache, very nearby, with the GPS we had that works with my PDA. It isn't much good for caching, but it got us to the general area. We took a couple of months off to move, and got a much more caching-suitable GPS, a Magellan Explorist 300, and have been pretty much going at it ever since. :)

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I learned about it from a segment on "All Things Considered" on NPR radio back in the spring of 2004. I went to the web site and printed off some pages of caches near my house and took those over to my neighbor who has a wife and little girl. I thought they might enjoy it as a "family activity."

 

I didn't think I would enjoy the activity all by myself. :laughing:

 

It took me seven months to get a GPSr and more than a month after that to finally get out and look for the first Geocache.

 

That was just over six months ago and more than 450 caches ago . . . :)

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I love to hike but a severe recurring back injury means I'm limited to dayhiking. I'm a gear junkie with no need for much gear other than the 10 essentials, and there's only so many daypacks and other items that one can justify owning. One day I was reading GPSr reviews in Backpacker magazine and immediately GPS spoke to my inner gearhound and techno-geek

 

Then, while reading an article about a large music festival, there was a side article about GPSr's being the most useful piece of equipment in such an environment to be able to find your car, meeting places, etc, not to mention just navigating to the venue. My honey and I do a lot of traveling to concerts and also to amusement parks/attractions for our kids, and I thought this was really neat. I started looking semi-seriously at GPSr's then.

 

As I started reading more and more reviews of these devices I was reminded of geocaching which I had first heard of when we tried letterboxing a couple years ago. We liked letterboxing to some extent, but there were only a few in our area that we quickly finished, and we weren't into hand-carving our own stamps. (As much as people will say you don't have to carve your own, there is definitely a mentality in the letterboxing community that you're not worthy if you don't.)

 

I pulled a search on geocaching and found this site. Immediately I was drawn to the trade aspect, which makes it more like a true treasure hunt for the kids than letterboxing. Combined with our love for hiking and my yen for most anything technical, this made it a perfect activity for us. Geocaching allowed me to justify getting a GPSr because it would ensure its frequent use if we kept up with the activity. We started less than a month ago, and already we've found a ton of new trails and parks in our area that we didn't know about when we were just hiking.

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That danged Brother-in-Law in Florida who has driven me into many such distractions:

 

Geocaching (I have outpaced him)

Scuba Diving (I'm certified, he's not)

High Power Rocketry (yep, I'm certified, he's not)

Cycling

Harley's

Minimalist Camping and hiking

etc.

 

Think he enjoys a new sport/object for a short time, while I try to keep up with it for years.

 

I got so excited when he told me about gc that I went out and muggled (found w/out GPSr) my first find. I've been a good boy since then.

Edited by Be-a-Jayhawk
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Just curious how you all first heard about Geocaching.

While I was looking for a RAM mount for my motorcycle on GPSCity, I saw some items that specifically mentioned geocaching. I thought nothing of it for about a year. I then started to look for more uses for my GPS than just as a electronic trip-tik when I remembered what I saw on GPSCity. Looked up some items, found out about this site and the rest is histoire!

Only 10 finds under my belt so far, but I have number of caches on my to-do list.

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I heard about Geocaching a while ago when it was new and did not think too much of it

 

then i read an aticle last summer in the paper

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...uery=geocaching

 

That got me interested, i always was obsessed with maps and geography so I felt that this would be fun. Of course took me 6 months to get off my butt to buy a GPS but that was it for me.

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I found out about Geocaching while chatting with Seamus in the Where's George? official chatroom. Go figure. He had been discussing about a find that he and Fergus had attempted the day before and I was intrigued. He did a search for me and said the nearest geocache to my house at that time was 7 miles away from me. This is Southern California in March 2001, so it was still pretty new. The area is now a lot more saturated than back then. Anyway, I went out and bought a GPSr and that weekend took my boys out and found Wilderness Park Cache. I've been loving it ever since.

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Had heard about it awhile back, but had forgotten about it. Then one day while on a business trip I mentioned it to a coworker but couldn’t remember what it was called. Turns out he as well as our boss are cachers. He told me some stories and gave me the web site. Two weeks later I had a GPSr and was out finding caches.

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I live near a paved hiking trail. I wanted to do some excercise that got me outside, but wasn't the same boring bike/walk on the trail. I saw an article in the local paper that featured Team Alamo (#2 in the world) and bthomas (now #3-several hundred behind on his logging) who are both locals.

It was exactly what I wanted to do! I have lost 40 lbs and have found >1600 caches in about 2 years.

Edited by Wacka
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I was looking for a good area on the internets where I could abuse and berate people. It took 5 years but it was worth it :D

I did a google search for places to get berated and this is the only one that popped up that allowed toadies ;)

 

Seriously though, I was converted by someone from hockey who mentioned what she did for fun outside of hockey...within a couple weeks I had my first find and shortly later my Legend...

 

Still waiting to be berated though... :blink:

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I must have known about it before, but when hiking on winter day in our favorite state park, my husband and I saw a strange little plastic vial along the trail. We picked it up to investigate and kept walking. I somehow knew what it was (I also know now that it probably wasn't placed their intentionally either, probably dropped -- no micros in the park!).

 

A friend with a GPS told me he was out geo-caching with his little daughter and told me about the website. Since I had bought the GPS for my husband last Christmas, I decided to try to find one in that same state park. I did, and I was hooked!

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Both kids are into Scouts. The Cub Scout have been going to an orienteering event since we were Tigers. The Girl Scout (now a Cadette) went along. I was checking out the Orienteering web site, and they had a link to geocaching.com. I guess, they'd say the rest is history! Great family fun. We found our first 5 or so with just the maps, but of course broke down and bought a GPSr.

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I had never heard of it before. Then one day, I was hiking in the woods and I heard a voice exclaim "MUGGLE!!!!" Next thing I knew, I was in a headlock and hogtied by 5 or more people. They carried me off to a secret cave lit only with aromatherapy candles and with a giant image of Jeremy on the wall. There was several GPSr's around a giant ammobox altar, where I was "initiated" over the course of several days.

 

WHY?? Isn't that how all of you guys got in ???? :blink:

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I recently read a small blurb in Rider, a motorcycle mag, and figured it would be a great way to convince the wife to go riding more. Me: "Honey, wanna get the bike out?" Her: "Where we gonna go?" Me: "Who cares, let's just go for a ride." Her: "Nah, that sounds pointless."

 

I just got my 60C last week and am still working out all the bells/wizards. Happy to report that all four of us (counting the two dogs) have found our first cache and I think we're hooked!

 

--Mike

 

P.S. The dogs are still hesitant to get out on the bike more :blink:

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It was either in 4wheel & Offroad or Four Wheeler magazine, I can't remember which one. They had an ad for the Jeep Geocaching challenge and that got me to look into geocaching. When I read about it the first thought I had was, "Wow, real life hidden packages". Anybody that plays the Grand Theft Auto videogames will no what I mean by that. Finding the hidden packages in the game is my favorite part so I knew I would like geocaching.

 

Krazymtbr

Edited by krazymtbr
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I was looking for a good area on the internets where I could abuse and berate people. It took 5 years but it was worth it :blink:

I did a google search for places to get berated and this is the only one that popped up that allowed toadies :D

 

Seriously though, I was converted by someone from hockey who mentioned what she did for fun outside of hockey...within a couple weeks I had my first find and shortly later my Legend...

 

Still waiting to be berated though... ;)

:D

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My boss got me into it actually.  I saw him here at work one day writting down cords and asked him what he was doing.  he told me and as soon as he told me what he was doing, i was hooked. I think we are all kids at heart and big game of hide and seek put together by grown-ups sounded right up my ally!  Thanks RVMAN and KellyJo!

Does he ever give you the day off to cache? :D

Edited by Gecko1
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I was browsing on REI.com one night when I was at work. I starting looking at GPSr's and they had a little blurb about geocaching. That night I looked up the website. The next day I found an easy one without using a GPS and 2 days later I bought a GPSr. Between work and family I haven't gotten out at much as I would like. I'm hoping to get at least 20 finds before the end of the year.

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My father had been using a GPSr for ages - first as work tool while working for the California Fish & Game Dept. and then as a key to re-find good fishing spots while deep sea fishing in Mexico. As technology improved and personal GPSrs became more popular, he continually had to get the latest and greatest - eventually passing on a model to my sister and brother-in-law that lived close to my parents. Apparently my sister's family got into geocaching since they had the equipment and they showed us what their new hobby was when we visited with them at a family reunion in Seattle. We helped them do a multi-cache in a park in Edmonds and apparently showed some interest as we got a GPSr the following Christmas.

 

I used the GPSr mostly for road trips in calculating mileage and where to find the nearest bank and such in towns I was not as familiar with, but it took a few months before we actually tried to use it for geocaching. We tried a multi-cache in Loveland with our other brother and sister-in-law that live in Colorado but they weren't really into hiking around outside in the middle of winter with snow on the ground still. We were able to get through all the waypoints in the first park and then had to drive over to another place across town and find the cache along side a bike trail. I think they gave us a maximum of 3.5 minutes to find the cache before they insisted in going back indoors and seeing as we were still new at this and the area the cache was supposed to be had about a foot of snow covering it - we failed our time trial.

 

So months went by until it warmed up again and we had an afternoon free to give this game another shot. There was only about 20 caches within 100 miles of our house - and over half of them were in mountain or desert areas that recommended a 4-wheel drive to access. Still we gave it a go and found a couple caches in our home town. That got our interest to try a bit more - not a full go as if we went on a cache binge too early we would run out of them awfully quick - but we would do a couple here and there. By the end of the summer we were able to be a little more serious about caching and made it a big part of discovering New Orleans on our vacation - an easy way to learn a lot about the town without spending a ton of money on the tourist traps.

 

The weather turned cold again and our caching went into hybernation, but this summer we have been able to go at it with a lot more effort. We ahve been able to start placing our own caches - some based on ideas we have had brewin in our heads for almost a year. We also have been making one day trip a week to a different area to visit, relax, take photos, and cache. Its been a lot of fun so far and hopefully will last a bit longer before we run out of places to visit and cache.

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