How Did You Get Hooked On Geocaching?

[+Midget Izzy]

So how did you get into caching?

 

We accedently found our first cache, Holland Ponds. My son found it while we were poking around an old foundation. We thought it was a drug drop or something. So we opened the box anyway and found it full of toys and what not. We wrote down the web site we found on one of the cards in the box and checked it out when we got home. We thought it was pretty cool and we found out there was a cache bash a week later at a park near by, the Wolcott Historical Mill Cache Bash. We attended the geocache 101 corse and hooked up with another, more experianced cacher and we were hooked!! We have been caching ever since and we love it! And I would love to hear some of your guy's stories about how you got hooked on geocaching!

 

Thanks!

[+CheshireFrog]

I also got started by accidentally finding a cache. I think that's one of only three ways to get into it, the other two being: a) get introduced to Geocaching by a friend and read about geocaching and look up more info on your own.

 

In my case, I was metal detecting with a friend in a box canyon here in Colorado when we stumbled across Robber's Roost. I had never heard of Geocaching before, but I noted the web site and looked it up when I got home. I had an etrex yellow at the time that I used when 4 wheeling, so I loaded the coords for a few caches in the area and took my daughter out. My count's not that high, due in part to my love of multi- and mystery caches that take so much time, but I still love the hunt, and generally head out for a few hours every weekend.

[+Katerbug]

Rack another up for those of us who started by stumbling across caches. My friends and I were caving when we came upon one in the main room of the cave. We signed the log book just to say that it was a cool idea, then I looked it up when I got home. I got an etrex that weekend and having been caching since then. However, I haven't been able to find the geocache online as of yet, so I'm not sure if it was some other kind of cache(Jeep cache or waymark, possibly) But oh well. My numbers are low so far as well, but mostly because I don't have a car at my disposal most of the time. If it was up to me, I'd spend a lot more time out caching. I love it!

[+flyingRfarms]

I was introduced to it by a friend! i Love to ride horses snowmobiles,dirt bikes and fourwheelers and had a gps for these treks! due to recent health problems(severe backproblems) my doc says i need to walk more so my friend introduced me to the website and we have gone from there! after searching the website i remeber running across a cache in a local cave (deep dark cache) but i had left it alone!! I plan on going back to it durring the summer! We have decided for every 10 we find we are going to place 1!! hope to get a few more in the area!

[+flyingRfarms]

I hope some more cachers will use that 10 found 1 placed idea

Edited April 17, 2006 by flyingRfarms

[+Miragee]

I heard a segment on NPR's (National Public Radio) "All Things Considered" program in the Spring of 2004.

 

I thought it would be great fun for my neighbor, his wife, and their little girl. I didn't think it was something I would enjoy doing by myself . . .

 

So, I printed out some cache pages for nearby caches and took them over to their house . . .

 

About eight months later, I got a GPSr. It took me several weeks of browsing the Forums to learn as much as I thought I needed to know before finally getting out of the house to find my first cache, an ammo can hidden in a nearby canyon.

 

I was instantly hooked . . . and my life has changed immensely for the better because of Geocaching.

[+Dgwphotos]

Like many of you, I stumbled across a cache, but I had forgotten about it for awhile, but just this fall, My dad brought home Geocaching For Dummies and it restored my intrest.

[+tadabailey]

I got started by a guy in a restaurant. My dad had just got a gps and he asked if we were Geocachers. My dad said, "What's that." I am sure you know what happened next. And that is is how we found Geocaching!

[+bickhart814]

Bought a GPS and then found this web site called Geocaching.com and then found out about Groundspeak and set out a cache and then I was hooked on Geocaching and Geocoin collecting. bickhart814

[+Torchbearer]

I got a GPS for Christmas one year, took it hunting with me a couple of times, then let it set. Somehow, somewhere, I found Geocaching.com and just took off from there.

[+Zork V]

My Boss had just returned from his holiday in Italy and was telling me about a guy he met with a GPSr. He was looking at another famous fountain when this guy wandered passed and my Boss asked what he was doing. The chap explained he was looking for a tin box with some special tokens inside. I checked out out the web and found GC.com,and the rest is history.

[ScottFla]

I got a GPSr for kayaking and on the kayaing forums there was a thread about geocaching. I Pm'ed one of the posters (Briansnat, I think) and he sent me here. I looked up my area, was amazed at how many caches were in my immediate area, and set off on Father's Day for my first three caches, got FTF on two of them

[jamieb520]

I learned about geocaching with searching the net trying to decide the best portable GPS to get for the money I had to spend. I wanted to get a GPS for cycling use (tired of getting lost and having to ride sometimes for a hour or more to get somewhere it would have taken me 5 minutes to get to), after getting a explorist 400 (everything I need, and works great) I decided to try geocaching, and love it. I'm finding places in I never knew where here. I just hope that more cache's will be placed around the area that i'm in since I only have a bike lol.

[bandgeek]

My family met some people wearing Ontario Geocaching T-shirts, and asked them what Geocaching is. They came home and told me they found something I was going to love. And I do!

[+hereigoagain5209 & AugustWst]

My oldest daughter's high school teacher is the reason why geocaching is now my passion. He was offering 75 bonus points for each cache found, with a picture of the cache and coordinates as proof of the find. The first outing was my fiance, and my two daughters without me. They had a wonderful time and wanted to do it again, but did not think that I would be all too thrilled of hiking in the woods and them in "potiental danger", being the worrysome mom that I am. Well, the next day, I proved them wrong, we all went out together and I encouraged the climbing and the hiking through the woods and now I am more of the driving force than anyone in the family to pursue the geocaching hunt!!!

Moral of the story, teachers know what they are talking about!!!

hereigoagain5209

[MiloBloom]

Being a tech weenie, I bought a GPS just because (Yellow Etrex). Perusing the Garmin website, I found `things to do with your GPS' (thanks Garmin). I read about it but didt to too much, maybe 20. The following summer, I found myself poor and unable to do anything I normally did, and so with only battery and gas expenses I Geocached all summer.

Nuff said, thank you very much!

Very solo endeavour only met six other cachers in two years....

 

Milo Bloom

[Bama Cache]

I got started by accidentally finding an ammo box crammed with goodies. I looked under the root of a tree and saw what I thought was a car battery. I climbed down to get it and my girlfriend says "I know what this is, it's a geocache!" and after she explained it to me, I was hooked. Went to the store the following weekend and bought a Magellan Explorist 100 and have been caching whenever possible.

 

It's so much fun. Exactly the hobby I've been looking for.

[+lacey38655]

I am on the local vol. fire dept, went to a GPS class on how to operate during search and rescue. The instructor told me about it. A year later purchased my reciever. Looking online for GPS software I came across the website. Logged on, looking for someone selling software, became addicted.

[+KingofYoda]

I was at home with my family one afternoon, when a friend of ours stopped by just to talk. In a little while he had pulled out his GPS and was talking about a geocache that was right by our house. We had no clue what he was talking about so he took us all over to find it. The next Christmas I got a GPS and have started finding.

[+Team Dubbin]

I was watching a show on the Travel channel about the worlds top treasure hunts and Geocaching was like #2. I went out, bought a GPS and started caching.

[+Lotho]

I found a guys cache in the trunk of a tree, so me and my freind took it home to quickly research it then we put it back.

[+Belfrypotters]

I read an article about geocaching in a magazine, thought a treasure hunt sounded like fun, bought a cheap, no-frills GPSr as an anniversary gift, and dragged my husband out on a hunt. We didn't have a clue what we were doing, and unknown to us our GPSr was set for the wrong map datum. Our coordinates put us about 30 meters west of where we should have been, but with the help of hints and spoiler photos we actually found a few caches in the forest. I complained to another cacher about how inaccurate our cheap GPSr was, and he immediately asked if we had the right map datum. I ordered a copy of Caching For Dummies the next day. Needless to say, caching has been much easier since then!

[+HomerJFong]

I'm an avid whereswilly/wheresgeorge user. When I still had a few georges left over from a trip stateside, I was wondering how I'd get rid of them. I'd known about geo-caching from the reference to Geogeorges in the dictionary of terms, so decided to hunt one, albeit without a GPS.

 

Fortunately, GCJWAH was closeby, and based on the hint, was easily found even without a GPS. It was enough to hook me, and I had purchased an etrex a few days later.

[+Geo-Cad]

Read about caching on MSNBC.COM, 2 Days later bought an eXplorist XL and now myself and my daughter are hooked.

[+graylling]

I started out doing confluence hunting and saw a link to gc.com on the Degree Confluence Project website. I checked it out and the rest is history.

[+OshnDoc]

I can almost duplicate the entry about stumbling over a Ammo box while on an outing with the children along a small bayou in the back of our neighborhood, thinking we came across an object better not to be opened by children ...

I opened it and found the log and the explanation letter and was very intrigued by it. We signed the log and went back home to look geocaching.com up on the internet. That was almost 4 years ago --- Have been at it ever since, with some slow times and some very intensive times during vacations. We all got hooked and are having a GPS along on every trip we make.

[+ScoutingWV]

Bought my Magellan Sportrak Pro to use backpacking, camping, and bike riding with scouts. I did a google search to find some other things to use it for and I found this web site.

 

Been caching ever since.

[+Tsmola]

I had heard about geocaching on deer hunting forums before, some people on the ones I visit were cachers or had found some by accident while out hunting. I didn't think much of it until I got a GPS for deer hunting. I decided to check out this thing called geocaching, found my first cache a micro in a cemetary, and decided to find some more. The more I went out the more I enjoyed it and now I'm hooked.

[+JohnAengus]

Like many, I am a gadget freak and brought the GPS back in the summer of 2002 and stumbled across th geocaching site.

[+Sir Robin]

I read in a magazine that Jeep sends out about a guy who used 2 Jeeps to take his whole family caching. I thought my sister would like it and bought her a GPS unit, finally a year after that I borrowed it from her and started caching regularly.

 

I would love to know who that cacher was and what issue of that magazine it was, it was about 2 possibly 3 years ago. If anyone saw that or knows who that was let me know.

[+oldsoldier]

HAd an etrex I used in the military, about the time the originals came out. I put it away for a couple of years, then, I dont recall exactly how, I came across geocaching.com (I think a friend in pittsburgh told me about it). Got hooked, did a couple, then got deployed again for a couple years. Got back, totally didnt do anything but work since I got back, then got back into it this past fall. This time, I think I'll be sticking with it for a while.

[+roadrage64]

I bought an etrex legend for both bicycling and traveling. When looking through the owner's manual, I kept seeing the word "geocache". After a while I got tired of it so I looked it up on Google and found geocaching.com. There was a cache less than a mile from my house so I gave it a shot. I have to admit that when I moved that branch that looked out of place and saw my first cache, I felt kind of spooked and felt like someone was watching me. Been hooked ever since. Sadly enough, my first find "Big Mama" was archived shortly after I found it.

Edited May 16, 2006 by roadrage64

[+JakeBond]

I read into Geocaching after I discovered wheresgeorge in college. I was really interested in the game, but at the time couldnt possibly afford a GPSr so i forgot about it.

 

Im not sure what reminded me about it, but recently I stumbled across the website again and decided that this was something that I wanted to try. I bought my legend cx and have been actively caching for about 2 months and have found 43 caches. im hooked. i think i was hooked even before i ever found one...

[+The 4 F's]

Read an article in the Miami Herald, bought a yellow Garmin a week later found our first cache the next day and were instantly hooked.

[+imfrog2002]

I got hooked on it through Boy Scouts, I am on staff for a camp, and one of the leaders is a huge Geocaching fan (along with 99% of the other staff members) and I decided to try it. I've only found one cache, and I've hidden one, so I'm just getting started, but I'm hooked, thanks to them.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

We live in the wilderness, with tons of trails and bushwacking country in every direction. My wife bought me a GPSr for my birthday last year, simply so that I would be able track and record some of my hikes. A week after I received the GPSr for my birthday, I got a bit bored with using it just for hiking, and remembered having heard years before about GPS treasure hunting, also known as "geocaching". And so I did a web search and found geocaching.com. Sue was at first very skeptical about the whole thing and tagged along on the first few finds (all were wilderness caches located in the mountains near us) only reluctantly. Now, 13 months later, she is a total geocaching addict, and a bit of a numbers ho as well, and is far more obsessive about cache hunting than I am.

[irontidus]

There was actually a show on the travel channel "outdoor family fun" or something of the sort a couple years back. I was wacthing with the family and I was intrigued and went to the site. the next week when the ladies went on vacation the guys ran to the nearest Gander Mtn. and bought a GPS. Though surprised at our recent acquisitions the girls later were hooked too.

[+The Waldo's]

Nick Vinnie, Rocko and I had a job uptown and while we were digging the hole. "NO

wait I found a cache by accident and all ready had a gpsr for snowmobiling and since

then I have only used it for snowmobiling once. Oh the part about Nick and Vinnie

well just forget about that.

[Team Sidewinder]

I had found a few geocaches before I can say I was HOOKED on geocaching. BUT a trip to find the "TOURIST" cache and the lure of a coin which I had only seen mentioned once or twice made this more of a special hunt. Upon finding the Tourist cache and a Moun10bike version 1 geocoin did I become HOOKED on geocaching. The coin gave my newfound hobby some kind of validation when I would show it to friends who wondered what kind of treasure I was finding in these geocache things. It was no fun showing friends some of the Mctoys and some of the other junk I had found in caches so far but the Moun10bike coin was something my friends found interesting and quite a cool item and maybe worth my time and effort.

team sidewinder

[Ranger Fox]

I had a completely different introduction to geocaching.

 

Some years ago, I read on some forum or news site a box was found under a bridge. The police called in the bomb squad and performed the usual preparations and procedure. The box was a geocache; you probably guessed. The article glossed over geocaching, simply mentioning it as an activity that involved people using GPS receivers to find various hidden items. I thought it was interesting, filed the term away in memory, and went on to whatever I was doing at the time.

 

It wasn't until this April that I came back to the topic of geocaching. I was bored and very exhausted from programming both at work and in my spare time. I was waiting for my friend to finish talking with his girlfriend, so I grabbed his laptop and went to random sites. I remembered the term "geocaching" and decided looking it up would be a good way to waste time. How ironic.

 

I found geocaching.com, looked up which caches were close to my area (I thought it would be three or four), and saw the place littered with them (more than eighty). That seemed interesting. I brought up a few cache descriptions and it just added to the appeal. I decided to give it a try, researched which GPS to buy (60CSx), downloaded the waypoints, and passed the 100 cache mark within a month of starting.

[+The Borden Clan]

We first learned about geocaching from an article in our local newspaper - actually, it was a brief BTW in an article about letterboxing ("And for you techies out there, geocaching is a similar game using a GPS Unit.")...

 

But we forgot about it for awhile.

 

Then, when my Mom started at her new job, she discovered that one of her coworkers lives in our neighborhood and is an avid geocacher, who quickly pointed out to us that there are hundreds of caches in the natural park right behind our house! 10 years living in that house and we had no idea

 

So, with the help of a sizable tax refund (for a GPS Unit) and our newfound geocache teachers (Dashon), we were off - and still having a blast to this day!

Edited May 30, 2006 by The Borden Clan

[NHRunner]

i've been biking with a freind who was a geocacher and he asked me if i wanted to pick up a geocache. I've been caching since.

Thank you Uber_bike_geek!!!!!

[+albren]

The Travel Channel was having a show about America's 10 Top Treasures, Geocaching was one of them. So I went online and found Geocaching.com, joined and ordered my GPS the next day. The day after it arrived I went out and found my first two caches. My wife and I took our 5 year old grandson out, he love it too, so now we are all hooked.

[+krazymtbr & QT]

I was reading my Four Wheeler magazine one day and I saw an add for the Jeep Geocaching Challenge. I thought to myself, what the heck is geocaching. So I looked it up, read a lot of info on the site and knew I would really like this hobby. I like mountain biking, hiking and 4wheeling in my Jeep so what's another outdoor hobby. The next day I went out and bought a GPS and soon after that my girlfriend and I went for our first few caches. Since then we've been hooked. More me then her though.

 

Krazymtbr

[+alexrudd]

I was walking through the woods with a friend when I noticed something metal in a hollow log. We took off the wood covering it and checked it out. It didn't make much sense at the time, but sounded cool and had a geocaching.com sticker so I went to the website.

 

After browsing a bit, I figured out how to get caches near me for a picnic in a local forest perserve. I plotted them in USAPhotoMaps, took screenshots, edited them, and sent them to my camera. Then I left the picnic and struck off to find one. Through dead reckoning, a 1x3" camera screen, and sheer luck I found it and showed it to my friends who came along.

 

For a few months we searched for caches without GPS (got to be quite good, even in the middle of forests, if I may add), until I got an eTrex Legend for Christmas. I think you can fill in the rest.

[+Txnurse97]

My parents introduced me to it...they read an article in the Parade magazine (the one that comes with the Sunday papers) back in fall of 2004. Funny thing was, they were apart that weekend visiting family and they both read the article and thought it sounded cool. So they got a GPS and got hooked.

 

A month later they came to visit me in Texas and I love treasure hunts so I definitely wanted to try. I was hooked after the first find. The next morning, we went and got me my own GPS and I've been caching like crazy ever since!

[Iwuzere]

I read some reference to it, in an online discussion about GPS on slashdot.org... I followed some links and thought it sounded interesting, but I couldn't justify the cost of a GPSr.

 

Years later, I'm STILL wondering whether 100 pounds is worth it for a toy to help me find the 14 caches on this small island! I've now got permission from The Wife to buy something like a Garmin GPS60.. although it's just slightly too big for my liking.

 

Maybe in another few years I'll finally buy one. Carry on having fun without me!

[+Mother,Juggs & Speed]

I was sent a web page with an article/ picture containing a web site address for Louisiana geocachers. took a look at the site and eventually found the goecaching site. first chace found without a gps, it was only a short distance from home and an area I know well. One of a few sports that I really enjoy, understand and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to participate in. ( not considering the cost of gasoline) Haven't attended my first event yet but am looking forward to it

 

 

M,J & S

[Katie-did]

Someone said, "Hey, have you heard of this thing called geohunting or something? It's like a treasure hunt I guess."

 

I went on my first "geohunt" with my sister and her fiance, and then I was hooked but had to wait a few months for Santa to drop off my GPSr.

[+sadukie]

Our friend Matt (mattopia) has been prodding us to cache for quite awhile. We heard his prods but didn't really do much. Then this past Memorial Day, we were down in Raleigh, visiting a friend, and Matt and his girlfriend (Sexy Dana) got us to do a few caches with them down there. This sparked a bug in us.

 

Yesterday, my husband and I tackled a few near us and did our first multi, and we're hooked

 

(And now I have ideas for setting up my own multis.... arggh )