What did you think of when you first heard the word "Geocaching?"

[+Snoogans]

First question: When you first heard the the word "Geocaching" what did your mind try to catagorize it as?

 

Second question: How long before you were hunting your first cache?

 

I came across the word out of context on a list of activities at a resort website.

 

I knew what geo meant and I had been a hider of caches since I was a kid and had become quite experienced at hiding them as a backpacker.....

 

STILL my mind didn't put the two together right away. My first thought was "must be some kinda photo contest..."

 

Having been an avid landscape photographer and a frequent contest entrant in that catagory, I clicked on the link.

 

I was at work when I discoverd this site and it was Friday. I got off work at 10pm that night. I already had a GPSr and even though Saturday was my day to sleep late, my eyes flew open at 6am. I was on the trail of my first cache less than 12 hours after discovering geocaching.

 

So what did you think geocaching was at first and how log did it take you to get out there and hunt for your first cache?

Edited July 22, 2007 by Snoogans

[+bwmick]

how do I convince my wife I NEED a GPSr.

 

a few months later I was hooked.

Edited July 22, 2007 by bwmick

[+Team_CSG]

I first heard of Geocaching at a Boy Scout Roundtable on GPS and map/compass. Withing 30 days I has a GPS and had found my first cache. Since then, I have expanded the use of GPS in my Troop's program.

[+Miragee]

The first time I heard about Geocaching was on an "All Things Considered" segment on National Public Radio. I went to the website immediately, browsed around for nearby caches (The closest one at that time was a Terrain 4.5).

 

I printed out some cache pages . . . and took them across the street to my neighbor. I thought he and his wife and little girl would enjoy doing it as a family. I didn't think I would enjoy doing it by myself . . .

 

It might have been a year and a half later before I was able to purchase my first GPSr, a Garmin Vista. Then, I sat at my computer reading the Forums and trying to learn about caches, and waypoints, and coordinates, and all that other unfamiliar stuff before I finally went out to find my first cache . . . six weeks later.

 

From that night on, and for about a year, I had a Geocaching dream every night. Nothing has ever quite captivated my psyche the way this game did.

 

Although I tried to get to that Terrain 4.5 cache early in my "Geocaching career," it ultimately took almost a year, from the time I signed up on the site, to get to it.

[+DammitNanet]

I got a GPS to use for hiking. I have all the hiking maps, but I wanted to be able to see the terrain better. But, the GPS had this awesome litte icon called Geocache. The first night I had the unit I looked up geocache on the garmin website and went out the next day and then I was hooked. I find that it adds a whole other dimension to hiking!

[+Renegade Knight]

First I read it somewhere and forgot where. But when I did read it it was all in context. I think it was in a magazine called InQuest but I'm not sure. Regardless I read it, said hmm, then it went to the back of my mind for a year. It fell in the 'thats interesting' don't but give it a second look department.

 

After about a year it surfaced as a thought "that geocaching thing may be fun, I wonder if there is one near me?" Then it occurred me that if there was a geocaching there would be a geocaching.com. Yup.

[+TexasGringo]

***When you first heard the the word "Geocaching" what did your mind try to catagorize it as?***

 

Another Wife Hating Hobby.

Edited July 22, 2007 by GURU4HIRE

[+AKStafford]

We had a special guest speaker at our church, speaking on a Saturday night to our Young Adult group. Before hand we were hanging out, and had recently discover Google Maps, with the satelite views. We were looking at people's home, when Daren (the guest speaker) told us to go to geocaching.com. He had heard about it and done a few caches. We dropped in our zip code, and there were several caches nearby. That night at about 11pm, he asked if we wanted to hit it. Being Alaska in the summer, it was still light out, so 4 of us went out. The mosquitoes were HORRIBLE, but my wife bagged the cache in minutes. She was hooked! The next day after church, we hit fiver or six more. Now we are at 220, and try an go out at least 4 times a month.

Edited July 22, 2007 by AKStafford

[+Harry Dolphin]

I read an article in the Techie section of the local newspaper: The Newark Star-Ledger. For some strange reason, I already had an Etrex. I said to myself: This looks like fun! I picked a cache that was near the trail that I maintain. Okay. My first find was a 2/3.5 cache! How's that for a start for this hobby? A classic BrianSnat hide. Three years later, I'm still going strong, and still having a lot of fun at this hobby!

[bogleman]

There was a local cache hidden outside a PD (with the Chief's knowledge) that was "disrupted" - communication issues gone really wrong. I found the website; concerned there may be other hides that could cause issues where I work. I already had a GPS and the boy was off school for a week for some minor surgery and I decided to see what all the fuss was over.

 

Was happy to know that my area was clear and promptly found several our first time out (a day or so after signing up). The first cache I wanted to find just happens to be the oldest in the state AND in my favorite hunting grounds (ended up being the 4th or so cache find). I had walked the trail and past the cache so many times it makes me sick just thinking about it. I check in on grandpa everytime I go out.

 

I'd provide links but I'm too lazy tonight.

[+eklenken]

***When you first heard the the word "Geocaching" what did your mind try to catagorize it as?***

 

Another Wife Hating Hobby.

 

I agree with these.....I got the eye roll when I laughed and read these to her. My goal is to get her hooked, I have my daughter hooked.

[+brodiebunch]

I thought it was some automated teller service like an ATM

[+007BigD]

It was all layed out in words for me...I grabbed a local "Day/Night" paper (its like a things to do paper) because it had a Disc golfer on the front of it and I play Disc often.

 

After thumbing through it I came across the Heading "Modern day Treasure hunt" Where a local cacher (Still with only 3 finds) took a writer for a multi cache which described the hunt and what they found and the fashion they found it in.

 

I found it very intersting and I had a GPS, but for some reason I thought it didnt work in the rain, so I used Satellite imagery and the hints to find my 4-5 first Caches!...I loved it and had a cache placed rather quickly!

 

I thank the guy who took the paper with him and wonder if he was ever a cacher only to introduce me into the sport!

[+OEnavigators]

A friend of mine mentioned it to me several years ago. I thought he was talking about some kind of scavenger hunt and didn't pay much attention.

I stumbled across it a couple times on the net and after purchasing a GPSr for hiking I thought I'd check it out.

I somehow missed the warning about this hobby becoming an obsession. After that first cache we were hooked!

[Clan Riffster]

My wife knew how much I loved playing with my GPSr in the woods, and mentioned geocaching to me. I figured it must be some bizarre variant of orienteering. I looked the word up in Google, and thought, "Gee...Hunting Tupperware...That sounds like fun..." Her patience paid off, and just over a year later, she mentioned it to me again. Within an hour of that second conversation, we had our first find, and we've been hopelessly addicted ever since.

[+Trucker Lee]

Stumbled across the word doing web seaches on another topic. First thought was "WTF??"

 

Read it up, thought it sounded fun, time from discovery to test-driving my unit found on Ebay, 20 days.

 

Will be just short 200 finds on my one year anniversary.

[+beezerb]

It was the Wikihow of the day on my Google home page. http://www.wikihow.com/Go-Geocaching. After reading the article I though “aren't any of those around here”, but checked to out anyhow. Surprise!

Beezer (aka Bob) already had a GPSr that he was always trying to get me to learn how to use but I didn't want anything to do with it. I ask him it this was something he could do with his GPS thingy. I went with him on “his” first hunt. He had to get himself a new GPSr since I wouldn't let the one “we” already owned go..... mine, mine, mine!

[BRTango]

I can't remember the first time I heard of Geocaching... when it really came into my conciousness a few years ago, I seem to have already known what it was.

 

I'm sure I had heard about it on an episode of Law and Order, but even then had an idea of what it was. So I'm guessing that I had come across it on the web somewhere and at some point had read what it was, then stuck it in the back of my mind as something that I was not equipped to do.

 

In 2005, I was working with a guy who was all about geocaching. Suddenly it was back in the forefront of my mind and I bought a GPSr the next day. Headed out a couple of days in a row and came back unsuccessful yet undettered. Headed out and found my first cache the third day.

 

Didn't much care for the GPSr that I had, so I took ordered a new one and took the other back to the store when that one arrived. I've been hooked ever since.

[Dinoprophet]

The name never really had much effect on me. I knew the concept long before I knew the name. I heard about this GPS game way back, probably around the time it first started. I searched for "gps game" online and only found the "Planet of the Apes" site. It was cool but too sparse and remote for me to participate. In 2002, something made me search again, and this time I found gc.com. There were actually a few within 20 miles of me by then, so I ordered a GPS (using my LL Bean Visa rewards, it cost me $9 out-of-pocket) and started playing.

Edited July 23, 2007 by Dinoprophet

[+Shakedown.dave]

I heard about it from a former co worker, who was looking to buy a GPSr so he could go caching with his grandkids. I sold him the GPSr, and thought, well that sounds cool. I didn't have the extra income to spend on a GPSr, so I forgot about it. A little bit later I heard the word on the TWiT podcast, and it brought Geocaching back to the forefront of my mind. Around the same time, an Explorist 210 was pulled off display at work, and set to be sold. I convinced my manager to sell it to me for 50 bucks, and signed up that day. I read the entire 'How To' section, and got an idea of what I was doing. When I finally looked up near by caches, I found that there was one just a quarter of the way around the small lake in front of my house. I called my neigbor in excitement, asking her if she wanted to go on an adventure with me, but she thought it sounded stupid. So, I walked around the lake, and picked up the 1/1 micro. I was hooked. That was November, in which I found about 15 caches or so, and then took a break during the Christmas season. (never work retail during Christmas!) and have been caching non stop since then.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Much as in the case of Dinoprophet, the name never had any effect upon me. I had known of the concept -- that is, of the basics and the existence of the sport -- for several years. We live in the wilderness in the mountains of Western MD, and, in April 2005, Sue purchased a GPSr for me as a birthday gift, because she knew that I had always wanted one to assist in figuring out where some of the many local trails went. Well, after about a week of using the GPSr for hiking, trail and mapping chores, I grew rather bored with it and decided to broaden my GPSr horizons. So I went online to check out GPSr-assisted "Easter egg hunting", aka geocaching, and quickly found the GC website and joined it. Luckily, there were several caches located in the mountains within a few miles of our house, and so I went out to find them. Sue went along with me for the first few finds kinda begrudgingly, as she just did not "get it". Ultimately, within about two months, I became extremely selective and elitist about which caches I would seek, preferring only very special and unique caches and extreme terrain caches, while Sue had meanwhile become obsessed with geocaching, and particularly with puzzle caches, and proceeded to find every cache within ten thousand miles, including every lame local lamp post cache, guardrail cache and parking lot cache in the GC inventory. To this day, as noted on our Profile page, Sue scores far more of the finds on our joint account than do I (although I log more states and countries, due to my travels), and in fact, she often goes out caching with our friend Lynn, CCCooperAgency, at least once per week on all-day outings, during which forays they find from 25 to 80 caches per day -- that kinda thing is sooo not my style; I would rather curl up and take a nap!

[+nikcap]

Hmmm, I never really considered it much. My father had heard about the GPS Stash Hunt from the USENet groups. I read about Geocaching in Games magazine in Feb 2001, created an account and found that there was only one cache in NJ within 100 miles.

I have letterboxed since the 1997/1998, so I just kind of figured that Geocaching and the Stash hunt where off-shoots of LB-ing. But the name GeoCaching kind of made a lot of sense to me at the time as I immediately envisioned a container hidden in and among a rocky area or in a small cave. The Cache word gave it a little bit of a clandestine military feel.

The last thing I though of was a film container hidden in a lamp post skirt.

[vagabond]

I was on the net looking for an acc. cord for my old Lowrance GN 212, when I ran across the geocaching site. It was a monday evening and the following sat I set out on a 60 mile round trip for my first to finds.

[+Bill Bailey]

You may not believe this, but I was setting and finding 'multicaches' with my cousins

more than forty years ago. We called them 'Treasure hunts', which is still how I

describe caching to newcomers. We got the idea from a Dick and Jane book where Dick hid

Jane's dollies and placed a chain of notes to lead her to them.

 

My mother worked summers in my uncle's greenhouse, so we were there on a two block lot

with fields, hills and holes all over, not to mention all the cool hideyholes in the

greenhouse (like the 'cave' behind the steam boiler!) to play in. I did one with

geometric solids made of cardboard as clue holders. Another had a clue on a paper

airplane launched from a catapault by a tripwire.

 

Years later, I bought my GPSIII mainly for car navigation (After the 'Deckers Triangle'

incident - don't get me started.) Since it didn't have turn by turn nav or detailed

street maps, it was of limited use. Then I saw a piece on Geocaching on CNN science news.

(This was a long time ago, and they still did things like that.)

 

This was one of two times I have seen something on TV and immediately said 'I gotta do

that!' (The other was stunt kites.) This was in November or December of 2000, and it was February 24 of 2001 before I had good weather to get out and find my first, Dinosaur Ridge (GC10D).

 

And the rest is in my profile!

 

-Bill

Edited July 23, 2007 by Bill Bailey

[+StarBrand]

Discovered the site, the meaning and the intent of it all at about exactly the smae time. I was updating the firmware on my unit when I saw on article all about it. Thankfully 1 of the 5 caches within 100 miles was nearby.

[+DudleyGrunt]

First heard of Geocaching in late 2001 or early 2002 from "mcmasterc". He was running the program office I was working at and mentioned it from time to time. My impression was that it must be expensive to purchace this sattelite equipement and awkward to lug it around the woods and such. I didn't really get it. It next came to my attention in the spring of 2006 when my uncle, "rookie49", found an article about it in a local paper and decided to check it out. He loves gadgets of all kinds, so it probably didn't take much for him to go out and by and GPSr. He told me about some of his first ones and one he hadn't done yet called, Pre-Columbian Relic that just sounded really cool. Although it wasn't my first, it is probably the single cache that most got me interested in this. Soon, I'm likely to have about twice the finds of "rookie49".

[+Airmapper]

The first time I saw the word was in the waypoint icon list on my Garmin unit. It looked like a treasure chest, but I still didn't put it together. I had seen what I now know is Orienteering on TV, and assumed it was that.

 

A while later I stumbled across the word in a GPS review on a Kayaking website, and decided to search it on Google. That is when I found Geocaching.com and I was immediately sucked in. I think that was a Thursday night, I made my account the next morning, and found my first cache on Saturday while out camping.

[Uberquandary]

I can't even remember when I first heard it.

 

But when I was telling my roommates about it years later, they thought I was saying 'Jew caching' and didn't know what to think and didn't really want to ask.

[+DocDiTTo]

I heard the word very early on but never cared or was interested. Didn't have a GPS receiver, didn't need one. My only prior experience with a handheld GPS unit was around 1996 or 1997; a friend had one and showed it to me. It was huge, very expensive, and couldn't hold much of a lock at all. I decided that my use for one was nil. I heard mention of geocaching soon after selective availability was turned off, but I didn't know what it was, and didn't really care. I just knew it was some game or something.

 

Then, in 2004 a guy at work mentioned it. When I asked, he explained it in more detail. I immediately logged on to geocaching.com and saw a cache hidden 0.3 miles from my house. And lots more close by. Suddenly I had a reason to buy a GPSr -- something I'd never had a use for before. Ordered one right away and found my first cache as soon as it arrived. Funny how something can go from "don't need one" to "gotta have one yesterday!" so quickly.

[+D@nim@l]

I bought a GPSr so I could go hunt deer and not get lost. Once that was done I set it with my hunting gear.

A month or so later I was looking up some information on a town called Livermore that was abandoned in the 50s to become a dam/reservoir. It is also near where a few scenes of "Night of Living Dead" were filmed.

The first thing that popped up was a cache listing and that was when I heard of geocaching. I got back out my 'ol yeller and started hunting caches.

[+Mr. 0]

I really didn't know what to think. I first heard about Geocaching on a Jeep message board I was on. There was going to be a clean-up at some trails outside of Flint, MI, and someone posted that if they find a "Geocaching game piece" to leave it there, and not throw it away. Because of the "game piece" part I pictured a lost token from a board game or something, and couldn't figure out why they would want it left there, rather than have someone bring it back to them. I let it go for a few days, but curiosity got the best of me, and I finally clicked the link they provided....the rest, as they say, is history. I already owned a Garmin GPS II+, so I found my first cache that evening when I got home from work.

[+Thrak]

Once a year we have a "block breakfast" where many of us gather outdoors at a neighbor's house and eat and gab. In late July of 2005 my neighbor Bob (caches as bobolu - Lou is his wife) came down to grab a plate of food and folks asked him what he'd been up to lately. He got a big grin and replied, "Treasure hunting!". Most of the folks laughed and asked what he meant and he grinned even bigger and said, "Geocaching!". They all laughed again and kind of shook their heads and asked what geocaching was. Bob explained and most of the folks shook their heads and gave him "the look" (I'm sure all geocachers have received "the look" from amazed muggles) but I was intrigued and asked him a bit more about it. When we were all breaking up after breakfast I asked him to repeat the URL for the web site. I went home and immediately made an account so I could read the forums and check it out. Within a week I had determined that I wanted to try it, decided which GPSr I wanted to buy, ordered the unit, and downloaded and installed GSAK. My unit arrived on August 8, 2005 and I made my first find that day. I sat near a hollow tree looking at the swag inside an ammo can and marveling that such things could be sitting around all over the place without folks ever knowing about them.

[+Matt_Harpenden]

No idea when I heard it, but it was in my mind, and I decided one day to find out what it meant. I had found my first just hours later.

[+FireRef]

I had a GPS back in the late 90's because I thought they were cool - they didn't do routing or anything, so I had programmed routes for long trips (like the one up to see my cousins in Michigan from Erie, Pa), so that the straight line route was a little more accurate. I had actually thought it would be neat if people would put coordinates out there for other people to find and other people went looking for them, but didn't do anything with it, and I was the only one I knew with a GPS.

 

So in 2002 or so, it was on an episode of CSI (I think - someone else mentioned Law and Order, and maybe that was it), and so I looked up the site. Found it, and thought it was really cool! There were only a couple in the Erie area, including one in North East Twp, Pa. (which, if I remember correctly, is the same township Bogleman mentioned before about being... um, destroyed even though they had permission to place it there - but not the same cache). A friend I worked with and I went out in the evening to hunt for one, spent about a half hour blundering around, got wet and dirty, and never found the cache. I kind of lost interest at that point. I tried 1-2 more as the next couple of years went on when the interest struck me, but didn't stick much with it. One included taking some family looking for 2 of them in 2004 in Allegany State Park - found one, didn't find the other one.

 

About a year and a half ago, some things changed at work and I had a little more free time. Surfing the net, I ran across gc.com, and thought "Wow... something to fill some of that free time - and there's a TON of them in the Erie area!"- so I used my old GPS for a while (which, incidentally, was my second because of the change in the programming that made the old GPS's obsolete a number of years back), and then got a new eXplorist since it had geocaching programming in it, and the ability to DL waypoints. I also got the Tom Tom 5 software for my Treo 650, which allows for routing, and learned how to upload the points into that.

 

And I'm now at almost 800 caches, mostly in the last year and four months, and have 29 out of my own. It's a very addictive hobby. And is a lot of fun!

[+astep@atime]

We moved to Alabama in the summer of last year. As the weather turned more pleasant in the fall, we started taking advantage of the wonderful terrain by doing some hiking. One day while looking at some hiking websites, I came across the term geocaching. Looked it up and found it interesting. The following week there was an art festival at a nearby park. We went and the local caching group (DixieCachers) had a booth set up. They had information on what geocaching was, had placed 6 temporary caches nearby, and were doing guided hunts. We went and were hooked.

 

We found our first one the next day by using our TomTom in the woods (that wasn't too easy!). The GPSr arrived the next week and here we are 8 months later with more than 300 finds.

 

Thanks to TheAlabamaRambler for explaining the hobby to us at the event and DrFred for being our first guide.

 

Now all our hikes are enriched by doing some treasure hunting along the way.

[+countrymouse]

Let's see...I first heard of Geocaching about 3 years ago when I saw it discussed on another discussion board, or maybe a mailing list, can't remember. And I thought, gosh, must be nice...another hobby for the rich folks that I can never do. Then on the same board/list somebody mentioned Letterboxing, and that seemed like something I could get into!

 

I mentioned letterboxing to the kids, at the time 6 and 8, and it didn't go over too well. Then DD's Girl Scout leader mentioned she'd started letterboxing with her family, and led us on a hunt which culminated in a bit of bushwacking for a worn-out Gladware box containing a stamp and soggy logbook; the girls were not impressed.

 

I bought our GPSr for my DH who is terrible with directions, thinking at least I'd have some backup ammo next time we were on a road trip and he insisted that North was actually East. I thought *maybe* I could use it for geocaching but just as before, assumed my GPSr wasn't expensive enough. Fortunately I was wrong.

[+GSVNoFixedAbode]

I first read the word in a Slashdot article mid-'03 and the description sounded like my kind of heaven: internet-based, techno-toys, walking in the hills, receiving signals from satellites, and some oddball treasure at the end. COOL! Then saw the prices of GPS unit in the local shop (Etrex Legend $NZ600/$US400) and had to shelve it for a month or 3 until I was able to get one off Ebay. Caches in my area were sparse (8 within 30km) but with no online maps at that stage I just had to wait.

[+fatblokecaver]

Having started this pastime way way before gps's were invented and in the home of the original 'cache' Dartmoor UK, my first reply was what the hell is that? Once explained I was geocaching within days. Over the years I have letterboxed on Dartmoor which is absoultly brilliant 6 number co ordinates no other clue you have to be spot on with a compass and map. Letterboxed in the New Forest (UK) these were hard to solve clues like - from gate 65 take 25 steps to silver birch on 360 deg these are fine if you know where gate 65 is in the 100sq miles of forest (yes I did find gate 65 spotted it whilst driving past and nearly wrecked the car ). To me Geochching is a modern form of letterboxing, its great and the kids love it, if I had the time I would be out and about every weekend.

Fatblokecaver