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Where did you first hear about geocaching?


Phil&Phil2008

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I guess I can add myself to the TV vote.. saw a small story about the sport on Inside Edition (A Tabloid News show, which does, from time to time, actually have some useful news & info amongst the hype ans sensationalism. :) )

 

I already had my 1st ETrex (yellow) and gave it a try, but failed.. It wasn't until 6 months later, after getting a few gift cards to a sporting goods store, that I got the ETrex Legend (blue), that I finally found my 1st cache.

 

Stephen (gelfling6)

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Word of mouth - or was it word of HAM radio? Actually, it was a fello radio active buddy Dictaham who spilled the beans about this addiction. Come to think of it, it was during my first caching run with him when I scored my 100th find almost three weeks later. Wow! only a year ago! funny how the time flys when you're having a blast...

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An About.com article. We spent <60 minutes bowling with the family and it was over $30. It seemed there had to be a more affordable family activity. Read it on Saturday afternoon. Bought a GPSr on Sunday and we went out and found half dozen on Sunday.

 

Man that GPS was a pain. We wanted to go "treasure hunting" and i am fumbling around trying to figure out this new electronic. lol.

 

This must be the worlds best family activity. :) Thanks Dave!

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Heard about it from my Mom <_< ! I like to collect local folklore about different haunted areas in our county, and my Mom (Molly of "Finn McCool & Molly) told me about this "new scavenger hunt game" that used a GPS and the Internet. My initial thoughts were "Yeah, whatever..." until she told me there was one hidden in the old haunted rock quarry near her house...I've been hooked ever since! :) ...and I didn't even find the cache on the first try, or the second!

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FYI... you will only be able to edit your post for a limited amount of time. You will just need to keep pasting the list in every now and then to update it. You could also quote the first post again and again and edit it down to the list.

 

I ended up finding it in Google while searching for GPS tracking devices for trucks in 2001.

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I definitely fall into the `other' category. I actually sent an e-mail to an old high school history teacher and well-respected local historian asking about an old railroad tunnel. He wrote me back and told me that he hadn't been there, but a friend of his who was into geocaching had told him that it was still there. Geocaching, eh? How I hadn't heard of it sooner I'll never know, but that's my story.

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I definitely fall into the "other" category. My dad purchased a unit in 2000, I bought one shortly thereafter, and, I BELIEVE it came with a card about geocaching. I was interested, but never actually used it for that purpose for another year. I did a few, then was deployed extensively with the army...that kinda put a damper in my caching. Picked it back up full force a couple years ago, and have been happy doing it since!

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I was getting ready for a short hike with my son on vacation in CO. My cousin (a local, big hiker, mountain rescue etc.) threw me his yellow Garmin etrex. I enjoyed playing with it so much I went out and bought an E-trex Legend.

 

After buying a handheld GPS, figured I'd better figure out some more stuff to do with it!

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been obsessed with it since. would do it everyday but that dirty 4 letter word gets in the way........WORK.......bummer

 

Same here!!!

 

I first heard about it on some show on TV about 18months or 2 years ago. It was on the discovery channel I think. I thought it was really cool! I'd wanted to get into it ever since I saw that but didn't want to spend the money on a GPSr.

 

Also at that time I had a 2 year old and a month old or so baby, so treasure hunting was kind of out of the question.

 

I finally joined and checked out more about it last fall. I really wanted to find some since there were some so close to my house. I bought the GPS for my husband for Christmas hoping that he would share my enthusiasm. I thought he's like a cool new toy anyway. He ended up NOT sharing my enthusiasm so I bought him a pair of shoes and took the GPS back. (not my fault, he will never tell me what he wants)

 

So far, I've taken my (now 4 year old) daughter caching once and we're all going to go as a family tomorrow morning. There's a travel bug in an easy looking multi-cache that I MUST possess (briefly).

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FIRST? I couldn't tell ya.

 

When I first heard about it I ignored it because I didn't have a GPS, money to get one, and figured there wouldn't be any in Tucson because Tucson sucks.

 

Years later, I'm poking around on the forums over at toysoldiersunite.com and someone mentions Geocaching as a way to spread the word of Doctor Steel. It sparks a stray memory, and I go over and poke at the sight. At that point I still didn't own a GPSr, but my dad had/has a decent one. So I poke at the sight a bit, find a few in my area, hit up my friend Roo, we go out on a cold foggy morning.. And have been hooked ever since.

 

I also now actually have the money to buy expensive toys, and as such less than a month later I had myself a Vista HCx :o

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I met a lady at church and we struck up a friendship. We were having lunch one day and I asked her what kind of hobbies she had. She mentioned geocaching. "Huh? What's THAT?". Once she explained the concept to me I was intrigued. She took me out on hunts a couple of times over the next three months and before I knew it I was hooked! :o

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I was searching ebay last spring and came across a geocoin. I was curious about what it was for and asked the person selling the coins. I know his name was sparky something...anyway he responded very excited about telling me what caching was. I totally thought that this was possibly the most inventive treasure hunting thing ever. I joined this site and finally purchased a GPS recently after having a bit of money to finally get one and some coins. :blink:

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Some of my family took a flight up for christmas one year and my brother in law was talking about it.He had brought his Gps up with him just to take me out and show me what geocaching was all about.The first one he took me to was only .8 of a mile from my house...who knew! After we found the first one,I was hooked.I bought my own Gps shortly after they left to head back home,and have been geocaching and finding benchmarks ever since.I, in turn, have also turned a few people on to geocaching as well.

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I read about Geocaching in a Boating World magazine article (Oct or Nov of '07?) They always have a great column called Family Time where they have suggestions on things to do with the family - typically boat realted. Well, I read this one regarding caching and was hooked on the idea. Picked up a GPS for Christmas and have been living the good life ever since.

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I learned about Geocaching on an "All Things Considered" news segment on NPR (National Public Radio) back in 2003 or 2004. At the time, I didn't have a GPS unit, or the money to buy one, but I also didn't think it was something I would enjoy doing by myself . . . :lol: I guess I was wrong about that . . . :D

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another funny thing is telling people about it. my wife was explaining this to a her fellow co-worker and she misunderstood and thought we were saying "geo-bashing" guess she thought we were going out and destroying geo metro cars !!! so everytime we talk to her it's " hey we went out bashing today" lololol

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I had heard about it from a TV show that mentioned it, but my daughter Kami told me more about it last week. She had heard about it from friends at college. I was looking for an excuse to buy a GPS (I have the world's worst sense of direction!!) so Grayson (11 year old son) helped out by doing a lot of research on a great crossover/family style GPS and we settled on the Garmin Nuvi 350. We bought it on Friday night, learned to use it and started caching on Saturday March 1. Man, are we hooked now!

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I had first seen it on a Comedy Central show called "Insomniac with Dave Attell". I forgot where he was or why they were Geocaching, but it looked fun. I just figured it wasn't something that would be going on in Louisville, KY. Shortly after that in early 2004, I saw a local TV news story about it and was surprised that there were people caching here. I looked up the Geocaching website and saw that there were several hidden in nearby parks that myself and some hiking buddies used to hike on a regular basis. I told one of my hiking buddies about the sport and sent him a link to the website. The next day he had a GPS and a few of us were off finding our first caches. I have been at it ever since.

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I live on a cul-de-sac and we tend to have a block breakfast once a year. A number of the neighbors will all get together and have an outdoor breakfast at someone's house. On July 30, 2005 we were having a breakfast when my neighbor Bob came down the street to grab a bite to eat and gab a bit. Folks asked him what he had been up to and he got a big grin on his face and said, "Treasure hunting!" People laughed and asked what he meant and he started describing geocaching. The neighbors all laughed again and shook their heads and started giving him a bunch of good natured razzing but I asked him to repeat the name of the website he had mentioned.

 

After the breakfast I went home, created an account on geocaching.com and started checking out the forums. The more I read the more interested I became and I started to research units. I ended up buying a Garmin unit and it arrived on August 8, 2005 - exactly 10 days after I had first heard the word "geocaching". I glanced through the manual, loaded a few caches, and went out hunting. To start myself off I looked for a regular sized cache with a low difficulty and terrain rating that had been placed by bobolu - my neighbor Bob who had told me about geocaching. I found myself following an arrow leading me to a burned out tree with a hollow center. Inside was an ammo can with a bunch of swag. I was amazed! I just sat there stunned because I realized that these things could be anywhere and most folks would never know about them. I took a carabiner and left multiple items (I still have that carabiner and use it) and have been hooked ever since.

 

I just got my 147th FTF yesterday on my birthday. :laughing:

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I read an article about it in a local parenting newspaper about family friendly activities At the time I just thought it sounded interesting. Then about a month later I was talking with some friends who had been doing it since it's early days. That's when I fell into it head on! My 6 year old loves it, even the micros.

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I was researching a local state fishing lake for a Cub Scout campout, and there was a geocache at the lake. An icon on the page showed up whenever a geocache was at a state park - it was scooping data from Geocaching.com and so was later shut down, but at that time, it introduced me to the game.

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An About.com article. We spent <60 minutes bowling with the family and it was over $30. It seemed there had to be a more affordable family activity. Read it on Saturday afternoon. Bought a GPSr on Sunday and we went out and found half dozen on Sunday.

 

Man that GPS was a pain. We wanted to go "treasure hunting" and i am fumbling around trying to figure out this new electronic. lol.

 

This must be the worlds best family activity. ;) Thanks Dave!

 

It's kind of become that way for us too (though we still try to occasionally bowl <_<)

 

This thread comes to the forums often, but I never mind saying it all again. Anyway, my brother-in-law in NC was visiting up here in July 2005 and got my other brother-in-law (who lives up here) hooked. A month later, my wife (his sister) and kids went to visit him and on a hot Sunday we took a nice walk on a flat nature trail and hit 2 caches. We bought a GPS and the fun began! Ironically (and sadly) he doesn't cache anymore.......(mostly because his kids (5 year old twin boys and 3 year old girl) aren't into the micros, which seems to be proliferating down his way).

Edited by HaLiJuSaPa
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First time I heard about geocaching....

 

I had seen a snippet on a cable show on TechTV with Leo Laporte. A few weeks later I told a friend about who had also recently heard about it before me. He bought a GPS online and a bunch of us went out on a lunch break to find a geocache... a few weeks later I bought my GPS and we've been hooked.

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My Dad mentioned something about new age treasure hunting with a GPS called geocaching to me back '01 but I didnt really pay attention (who does at 20) I then heard about it again in the news and was really interested in'04 but my job was taking up all my free time...... Then recently I saw it on the REI website when I was looking at camping gear and low and behold here I am.

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