Becoming a Geocacher

[+TeamThom]

It was around Mother's Day 2007 and my daughter and grandson flew in to visit while her husband was in China. This was the first time that I ever saw my grandson, who was almost big enough to crawl. They live in Virginia, near DC and I'm in Utah.

 

About May 16th my daughter and I were talking about kids not going out to do stuff anymore, they stay in and play video games. She wondered what else was there and I threw out a couple of activities including geocaching. (I had seen a couple of short programs on geocaching and looked up the website once. Never tried it though.) My daughter thought it sounded like a fun activity so we went to the computer, I signed up on the web site, and we searched the site for caches near my house.

 

On the 18th we dusted off my old Garmin 12XL and set out on foot. When I say "we" I mean my wife, daughter, grandson in a stroller, yellow dog, and me. It took us several minutes to find the cache container but we were excited when we did. It contained the congratulations and explanation paper, log, swag, etc. We really enjoyed the adventure.

 

Having enjoyed that experience my daughter acquired a GPS receiver and now geocaches with her family in the East. We told our other daughter of the adventure and her and her husband now have a GPS receiver and geocache near Hill Air Force Base. (He is in the Air Force and they live on base although he is currently serving in Iraq.) From that one find, there are now eight new geocachers in the field.

[+Zop]

I have to blame it on a Ham Radio buddy of mine, DictaHam & Clan who along with Stitchygal, kept talking about it on the radio. Well, I eventually crumbled and bought a Garmin Legend in February of 07. By April 07 I had a few hundred finds and a 60csx.

 

Those ENABLERS!!!!

[+The Ravens]

My start is similar to Scottly66's

 

I had never heard of it till I saw it on the Top Ten Treasures on the Travel Channel about 4-01-08.

 

I thought it sounded cool but wasn't in the market for a GPSr and didn't think there would be any around Lawrence, Ks. There is always nothing in Kansas. A month later I had started a new job and the guys mentioned geocaching. They directed me to geocaching.com and said there were about 40 inside our city limits. After registering I found there was one .21 miles from my house. Well I just had to go find out what it was so I broke our budget and bought a Nuvi 260W. It was a premium member only, so I upgraded. That was May 10, 2008. Today I received my 60csx via UPS today and it's going to kill me to wait until Friday to use it. In 45 days we have 63 finds and 3 states already. I will say one thing, I am sick and tired of the ticks and can't wait until fall/winter. That will probably be our prime caching seasons. We are addicted never the less.

[+Mushroom finder]

A few months ago I was out looking for mushrooms when I spotted a container hidden under a log. I've known about geocaching for a few years and have really wanted to try it but didn't have a GPS. So when I spotted this container I instantly figured it was a cache. It turned out to be a letterbox. I had never heard of Letterboxing but I signed their log and took a card with the web address on it and when I got home I got online and learned all about Letterboxing. I thought this would be a good alternative to geocaching since I didn't have a GPS and decided I was going to try it. The very next day I was looking for mushrooms some 40 miles away when I stumbled upon a geocache. It was laying in the open and had been muggled (perhaps by critters) but I found most of the contents scattered about except for the log. I went to the geocaching website to see if I could find the owner but there wasn't a listing that I could find so I assumed that it has been archived. I did however discover that there were three other caches very close by so I signed up and set out to find them. Armed only with some good descriptions, an intimate knowledge of the area and google earth, I found all three within a week and one was a multi. Hooked, I then went out and bought my first GPS. I now have a handful of finds under my belt and have just hidden my 3rd cache. As a life long outdoorsman, geocaching seems to fit in very well with my lifestyle so I don't see it being just a passing fad for me.

[+CapeDoc]

On the loo.

(Magazine)

[+crockett3663]

I got into it because my 9 year old son is always wanting to look for "buried treasure" when we go camping, so I thought that this was the perfect activity for him and I. Lately we've been spendig much more time together and getting along pretty well, so it's working out great.

[+wheezor]

My sister in law told my brother & I about geocaching (we both grew up in the geocaching capital of Canada). He jumped on board quickly because he had a GPS. My husband felt sorry for me because I had to tag along with my brother when he went out, so he bought me one of my very own.

[+DrgnTrappr]

I had known about geocaching for some time having read about the first cache, but money was tight back then and GPSr's were top dollar. Then it was in the news again when the Planet of the Apes re-make came out, the wife and I still couldnt justify the expense of a GPS on our budget. Well the years passed by and I had all but forgotten about Geocaching, then late in 2007 I was diagnosed with kidney and bladder cancer. After giving up a kidney and part of my bladder the doctor said I had to quit smoking and walk more, well my wife had remembered me wanting to do the geocaching so she got me my GPSr for Christmas. So now I am hooked, I have since returned to work, gave up a 35 year smoking habit and finaly found something that my teenage daughter enjoys doing with her dad.

[+The Blorenges]

As our "date joined" shows, we became aware of Geocaching in March 2001 when we read an article about Letterboxing on Dartmoor (U.K.) in a Country Walking magazine. Right at the end of the article there were several "useful links", including the one for Geocaching.com. To find out more we created an account, but buying a GPSr was rather a long way down our list of priorities at that time so we just sat on the side-lines, occasionally dipping into the site.

 

Finally, in May 2004, we searched for our first cache "The First in Wales". Not an easy one for a first attempt - We were stumbling over rocks for about 40 minutes and just at that point where we were thinking, "This is a really stupid idea... It just doesn't work... Let's go home..." ... We found it!

 

Been at it ever since, but we're not obsessed, as our statistics will show

 

MrsB

[+SimbaJamey]

About 4 years ago I was visiting one of my best friends from college and her hubbie up in the mountains (Howard, PA) and she had recently come into posession of her dads GPSr (a 76 I think, they got it for his boat). She was pretty jazzed about her new hobby. She showed me some cache page printouts and explained what it was all about. She even had a travel bug she'd picked up and was going to take to Hawaii on their honeymoon I think.

Fast forward to this past March in the mountains outside of State College cruising around in my Jeep. A birthday tradition I couldn't partake in the year before due to a 3 day ice storm on my b-day weekend.

I know those fire roads pretty well and have always been good at finding my way through the woods no matter how I'm traveling. It struck me this year though, started on the drive up, that it would be cool to have a map with a little, "You Are Here" dot (triangle) on it.

I remembered geocaching from a few years before so I looked it up. I had a membership before my GPSr came in the mail and went premium after about 2 weeks for the PQs and because some guy named Jeremy needs to eat.

Can't wait to start venturing out to the ones where I'll need to bring my kayak or my rock climbing gear! And of course I already run the PQ for every cache in PA and NJ that requires a Jeep (ok, a 4x4...but the little attribute picture )

Can't wait to head up and cache with my friend...she's got 4 finds in 4 years (and as many DNFs)...I think when she sees the Colorado it'll change her perspective on the game a bit. It would be cool if I got her really hooked on the game she got me hooked on.

 

I've spent a good part of my life (especially growing up) walking (kayaking, mountanbiking, etc.) around in the woods and I always dreamed about something like this.

Edited June 25, 2008 by SimbaJamey

[+parker313]

I read about Geocaching at least twice online before I got involved. I always thought it looked REALLY cool and was interested, but saw that it requires a GPS and I thought they would be too expensive so I never pursued it.

 

Two years ago, two friends of mine in a buddy group on another website started talking about geocaching. They both had the blue Garmin and a Palm for paperless caching. When they told me the total price for the GPS and the Palm, I was amazed! I logged onto geocaching.com for the first time and was in heaven I was so excited to hear that this thing I'd been peripherally interested in for so long was really something *I* could do.

 

That was 2yrs ago and I am still having a blast

[+The Aardvarks]

Last spring my wife had attended a parent/scout campout with our sons while I was away on an assignment. When they returned they talked about the older scouts teaching them about geocaching. I had heard about it and actually owned an old GPSr but never gave it much thought. Nothing came of it until June 3 last year. It was a sunday morning and my wife let me sleep in. When she woke me up, she asked if I wanted to go geocaching. I had to do a google search for the website and how to start. 2 weeks later my wife bought me aa GPSMAP 60Cx for Fathers Day. We have been hooked every since.

[+TXPathfinder]

We were with a tour group in China when a fellow tourist pulled out his GPS. We started talking and he explained about geocaching. When we got back to the States we logged on to geocaching.com, brought a GPS and the rest is history!

[+m.austin]

I attended a Technology in Education conference and one of the workshops was on geocaching. I went back to school and started researching. Before long I purchased my GPS system. I spent some time trying to figure out how to put in the coordinates, but once I figured it out and used that little toy to track down a hidden cooler under some bark I was hooked! Funny how that works..............

[timp84]

My dad bought a GPS 3 or 4 or 5 years ago (an old b&w magellan) and came across the sport... took us to find a few caches. I found it interesting, it combines treasure hunting and hiking (which I enjoy on occasion).

 

Then I moved out and it took me a few years before I actually got my own GPS and could get into it for myself...

[+hockeychik.com]

I was kidnapped at gps-point and forced to go geocaching with mtn-man several years ago.

After many years of trying to escape it, I gave up and joined in on it.

[+BTBAM]

I guess I have become what you might call addicted.

 

I work at a civil engineering company with a buddy named Brian. We were out on the job site near the Miami River, and he was talking about geocaching. What? I decided to let him show me. He took me to my first 4 caches and I was hooked. I ordered a Garmin 60CSX that day. Since then (in 6 months) I am 40 caches away from 1500, grabbing about 500 every 2 months, and have hit milestones the past 4 weekends (if I get 44 this weekend that would make 5).

[+crosschk]

I think it was a site called bored.com (or something like that) and there was a link to geocaching.com. this was 2001. I looked for one near me and in Feb of 2001, there might have been 100 on all of LI. (thats a stretch I think) Me and my wife went looking for one and could not find it(found it years later) and gave up.

 

In 2004, I was in Texas for a training and the training got boring. I had my garmin emap with me and rembered geocaching and checked it out. I found 7 that trip and was hooked for the summer. I move to PA in 2005 and went out once or twice and lost interest again. I was at 48 finds. I think 100 was a milestone that people still commented on.

 

April 2008, I got my 300t. It had all the things I needed to cache and I didnt have to bring my palm pilot or print outs. I was on another training trip, this time in Omaha and hit 2 caches out there. I came back home and have hit almost 100 in the last month.

 

I hope to stick around for more than the summer this time :D

 

edited because I wanted to

Edited June 27, 2008 by crosschk