Who Got You Started?

[+jennycaz]

My parents, CazRay and MrsCaz got me involved. I always loved to go hiking and who doesn't love a treasure! When they told me about it, it reminded me of my orienteering class which I took in college. So, I went on two caches with them and found them right away. My boyfriend bought me a gps a few weeks later and off we went.

[+hunter259]

My uncle first told me about it, and it sounded interesting, but I didn't think much about it. Then it came up again when my Grandpa gave me a Geocaching GPS (Magellan eXplorist GC). I signed up right away and have loved every minute of it.

[+wmpastor]

I got a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro (no, I don't smoke ) and it sat in the box for a year.

How can I get a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro?

[+cerberus1]

I got a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro (no, I don't smoke ) and it sat in the box for a year.

How can I get a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro?

If you'd look at the date of the post you replied to...

- Back then we used to get usable stuff from cigarette manufacturers.

I got a mountain bike with Marlboro miles.

A lot of my old Harley gear came from Camel.

- And luckily I can still breathe well enough to use them today.

[+W7WT]

Back in August of 2001 I had a Garmin 45 and just happen to notice a mention of Geocaching on a Sony camera forum. I went to the Geocaching site and looked at caches. There was one just about 1 mile north of my home. I loaded the coordinates in my Garmin 45, hopped on my scooter and rode up to the forest the cache was hiddenin. Lost signal on the 45 as soon as I went into the woods. Picked up a Maggy 235, I think it was and found the cache. The cache is still there and active. Dick, W7WT

[+Harry Dolphin]

I got a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro (no, I don't smoke ) and it sat in the box for a year.

How can I get a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro?

If you'd look at the date of the post you replied to...

- Back then we used to get usable stuff from cigarette manufacturers.

I got a mountain bike with Marlboro miles.

A lot of my old Harley gear came from Camel.

- And luckily I can still breathe well enough to use them today.

 

Yup! That's what got me started. The eTrex from Marlboro Miles. Yup. That was 2004. Then I read an article in the Star-Ledger of Newark about using the GPSr for finding Geocaches. Yup. 2004. I was maintaining a trail in Wawayanda State Park then. Checked out geocaching.com, and saw a 2.0/3.5 cache by BrianSnat nearby. Terrace Pond. It took me about an hour to find it. And I was hooked! Hook, line and sinker! WOW!!!! (Yes. It's all BrianSnat's fault!) The eTrex was not a very good GPSr, but for it's time... Moved on to the eTrex Vista which allowed better maps. Now using the eTrex 30. Almost nine years now. Over 4400 finds in 27 states and six Canadian Provinces. And I blame it all on Marlboro Miles and BrianSnat.

Bucket List: Went to the EarthCache Mega Event near Portland, Maine, last year. (My sister lives not far from Portland.) What a great time to visit the Canadian Maritimes! New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland!! I've always wanted to visit PEI and Newfoundland!

Next year, we hope to visit Hawaii, and Washington (home of Geocaching, and one of my brothers....) Oregon, BC...

Yup. Marlboro Miles and Alan Hoffman in the Star-Ledger, and of course, BrianSnat, who go me started in this hobby.

[+BeachBums51]

Through a Trading Card site (Sportscardforum.com) we met a couple of traders online from Alaska. At the time I was the Team Manager in the racing forum. Stephen was one of my helpers called a crew chief. Well couple of weeks ago him and his dad stopped here for a couple of days to finally meet in person. They were avid Cachers and to have something to do took all of us out for a few. We found three the first nite out, including our only multi-cache so far. They got us hooked on it. Since then we have been out everyday finding atleast two each time.

[+Sassysnorlax]

I listened to a podcast by stuff you should know.

They made it sound really interesting and I have been doing it for about a year now.

[weiji123!]

I got a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro (no, I don't smoke ) and it sat in the box for a year.

How can I get a Garmin E-Trex through Marlboro?

If you'd look at the date of the post you replied to...

- Back then we used to get usable stuff from cigarette manufacturers.

I got a mountain bike with Marlboro miles.

A lot of my old Harley gear came from Camel.

- And luckily I can still breathe well enough to use them today.

 

Yup! That's what got me started. The eTrex from Marlboro Miles. Yup. That was 2004. Then I read an article in the Star-Ledger of Newark about using the GPSr for finding Geocaches. Yup. 2004. I was maintaining a trail in Wawayanda State Park then. Checked out geocaching.com, and saw a 2.0/3.5 cache by BrianSnat nearby. Terrace Pond. It took me about an hour to find it. And I was hooked! Hook, line and sinker! WOW!!!! (Yes. It's all BrianSnat's fault!) The eTrex was not a very good GPSr, but for it's time... Moved on to the eTrex Vista which allowed better maps. Now using the eTrex 30. Almost nine years now. Over 4400 finds in 27 states and six Canadian Provinces. And I blame it all on Marlboro Miles and BrianSnat.

Bucket List: Went to the EarthCache Mega Event near Portland, Maine, last year. (My sister lives not far from Portland.) What a great time to visit the Canadian Maritimes! New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland!! I've always wanted to visit PEI and Newfoundland!

Next year, we hope to visit Hawaii, and Washington (home of Geocaching, and one of my brothers....) Oregon, BC...

Yup. Marlboro Miles and Alan Hoffman in the Star-Ledger, and of course, BrianSnat, who go me started in this hobby.

[weiji123!]

Sorry to but in on your conversation but I live in Hawaii and am looking for some one who geocaches here. Do you know of anyone?

[+cerberus1]

Sorry to but in on your conversation but I live in Hawaii and am looking for some one who geocaches here. Do you know of anyone?

Last I checked, there weren't links to any organizations in the West and Southwest forums for your State (that still worked).

Once you log into your profile on geocaching.com (different than the forums), look at "List newest in Hawaii" (to the middle right) and find an event to attend.

- Noticed there are no events listed at this time either. Batting 1000.

Plenty of people to help here too, just start a thread in "Getting Started".

Edited May 16, 2013 by cerberus1

[+Bobcat_09]

This is probably more than what you really want to know. But here is my story.

 

I heard about geocaching on another website forum. They were talking about different hobbies and outside activities. They mentioned geocaching, and since I had never heard of it I had to look it up. It seemed pretty interesting, but I took me about a year and a half before I bought a GPS. I lived in Delaware at the time so started with the Delaware Geotrail. My attempt at the Kalmar Nyckel/New Sweden Center, was a success. That sort of hooked me. The idea that so many people visit and volunteer, but I was one of the few that new about the secret hide was pretty cool. Later that day, I also found the Old Swede's Church geocache. I ended up getting locked in the graveyard though (Tip to new cachers - be sure to check hours where the caches are hid.) I eventually "escaped". It makes for a sort of funny story now. I think it's these types of OOPS situations that add to the adventure and excitement. As long as nobody gets hurt or in serious trouble, it's all fun to me!

[+IcyMann]

Let's stretch the topic a little bit to get the whole story .

 

There was an article about geocaching in local newspaper (those you get free twice a week). I read it and went to next article, without giving any thoughts for it. Well couple of days later friend called me and asked if i'd liked to go geocaching with him. I thought what the... what is this, well ok let's go. We didn't have any GPSr, but were able to find the cache with local knowledge. After that I asked him if he'd read the article, well he certanly was. After few caches I decided to register and here we are now.

[+MountainWoods]

Don't remember exactly how I heard about it, but I had been thinking about doing orienteering. Just after I got my eTrex Legend in 2005, I checked out geocaching (probably this site -- too long ago to remember), but there were only a few hides in my whole big area, so I let it slide. I already have so many hobbies already!

 

But at the beginning of 2012 I thought I'd check out the hides again, found that there were tons more, and decided to give it a whirl; and it stuck. Still, since I have a lot of other hobbies that I share time with, I don't expect to average any more finds per day than I have now (about 1 find every 3 days).

[+ldyparadox99]

I'm a table top gamer (think dungeons and dragons) and always come up with tricky traps and puzzles for my players to navigate through in the fantasy world. A few weeks ago my husband told me I should start geocaching since it's real life treasure hunt. I started looking into it and watched some videos on some of the neater caches that were well thought out and put together (some outright devious and evil) and decided to give it a go on my own.

 

I may only have 6 finds to my name so far, but I accidentally started a multi that has kept my husband and I busy for about 2 weeks. Just found it tonight and now he's looking for the next multi to start! I think the person that got me hooked (or created a monster as he claims) has had a dose of his own medicine! LOL

[+Popcorn313]

My elder son got me hooked about 3 months ago...for the 1st 5 weeks I had NO GPSr but I still managed to grab 17 caches! I was hooked right from the get-go. As an aside, in my neck of the woods (Vancouver WA) there has been very little caching activity the last couple of days, probably because we have had about 2½ inches of rain during that time. I thank God we don't have tornadoes very often here. I'm really starting to get cabin fever...

[+M4RKO]

I recently moved to Austin, TX from California and because I don't know anything about the area I started exploring by googling for fun places to visit. I was on AustinExplorer.com, and while looking at the categories I saw one called Geocaching. I'd never heard of it, so I clicked it. It has some stats on local geocachers and informational links. So I looked into it more, discovered that it's basically GPS treasure hunting, and I knew right away I wanted to try it. I have discovered a lot of really interesting places that I never would have found if it weren't for the geocaches I was hunting; it has been a very fun way to become more familiar with my new home.

[+cwgrizz]

I had heard about GPS's and how it was real handy to mark favorite fishing/hunting locations, etc. At the time I thought I know where my favorite places are. I don't need to mark them. Then a few years ago, my son got a basic unit for his hunting excursions. I saw it in action and decided maybe it would be a nice toy to play around with. Bought one on sale and began playing with it. I saw mention of Geocaching in some of the paperwork that came with it. It really looked like a good way to become more proficient at using the device before I really needed to depend on it. Signed up and as they say the rest is history.........