New And Confused

[Murph77]

I have never done geocaching before and just heard of it. I assume the first step is to get a GPS unit. Any suggestions for a low cost unit that will do the job?? Next step, just find a cache in my area and go for it?

 

Looking forward to the adventure.. Thank you!

[+Boot Group]

Next step, just find a cache in my area and go for it?

 

Looking forward to the adventure.. Thank you!

 

I'm not the one to ask for a gps unit referral. I'm sure someone can comment on that.

 

 

Yes, find a cache in your area and go for it! However, look at the difficulty rating and terrain rating before you go. Also, look at the type of container hid. It is easier to find a 1 difficulty, 1 terrain rating with a medium sized container than say, a micro container. It is good to start out with the easier ones until you've tried a few. Then, start to pick and choose difficulties depending on what kind of challenge you want for the day.

 

If you try all this, and are still having trouble, keep an eye in your local forums. There may be an event you can attend. Or, you can start a thread and ask for help. You may have some friendly geocachers in your area that are willing to meet up with you and show you the ropes, so to speak.

 

Good luck and have fun.

[+briansnat]

I have never done geocaching before and just heard of it. I assume the first step is to get a GPS unit. Any suggestions for a low cost unit that will do the job?? Next step, just find a cache in my area and go for it?

 

Looking forward to the adventure.. Thank you!

 

The Garmin Geko 101 is around $109 and will do the job nicely. For around $120 there is the Garmin Legend which is a mapping GPS. Very popular and a lot of GPS for the money.

[+TheGreatFinders]

I have never done geocaching before and just heard of it. I assume the first step is to get a GPS unit. Any suggestions for a low cost unit that will do the job?? Next step, just find a cache in my area and go for it?

 

We just started in April, and in all the shopping I did for our GPSr, we started with the Garmin eTrex Legend (blue); I found it on Amazon for $116 WITH the cable to connect to the PC. The cable is the most critical feature, in my opinion and I think there's probably a general consensus that it's a very basic requirement for geocaching.

 

We didn't start geocaching with a GPSr though. I wanted to give it a good try before investing money into it. So, I used Google Maps hybrid view to map several caches. Of course, I had to find caches that were not in heavy tree cover and in areas that were already developed when the satellite pictures were taken (3 years ago) to make sure that we had enough landmarks to go by to find the caches. The first 3 we found used that method.

 

Then we borrowed a GPSr from friends. Just started asking friends at work and neighbors if they had a handheld GPSr; neighbors happened to have one. Gave it a good try that way also.. finally bought one.

 

If you do happen to buy one at the outset, the Garmin eTrex Legend is a good buy since it has basic maps built in and can accept more detailed maps via the PC cable. You'll find use of it even if geocaching doesn't pan out.

 

-Chris

DadGreatFinder