Geocaching without a GPS

[AstarianJewel]

I started out geocaching without wanting to make an initial investment.. after I found my first half dozen caches, I bought not one.. but two GPS units. I'm officially a junkie now. I did an article recently on getting started with a GPS.. and figured I'd share it with the community. It might help someone out who is interested in getting started, before purchasing equipment.

 

http://familytravel.suite101.com/article.c...hout_a_gps_unit

[+briansnat]

I started out geocaching without wanting to make an initial investment.. after I found my first half dozen caches, I bought not one.. but two GPS units. I'm officially a junkie now. I did an article recently on getting started with a GPS.. and figured I'd share it with the community. It might help someone out who is interested in getting started, before purchasing equipment.

 

http://familytravel.suite101.com/article.c...hout_a_gps_unit

 

Nice article. I like your writing style.

[ao318]

There is an individual here in the Sacramento region that has around 600 or more finds without a gps.

[+Team Cotati]

How do 'driving directions' get you to within 20' of a geocache unless the geocache is within 20' of a public road?

Edited April 25, 2008 by Team Cotati

[AstarianJewel]

There is an individual here in the Sacramento region that has around 600 or more finds without a gps.

 

Maybe I should have clarified. You can follow the driving directions even after you get out of your car. Google will give you directions as if the entire route were driveable. Even if the cache were not within 20' of a public road, the directions will lead you right to the point it's hidden as if it were. You just hoof it the rest of the way.

 

Hope this helps.

[AstarianJewel]

I started out geocaching without wanting to make an initial investment.. after I found my first half dozen caches, I bought not one.. but two GPS units. I'm officially a junkie now. I did an article recently on getting started with a GPS.. and figured I'd share it with the community. It might help someone out who is interested in getting started, before purchasing equipment.

 

http://familytravel.suite101.com/article.c...hout_a_gps_unit

 

Thank you very much. I'm somewhat addicted to Geocaching, and I'm fortunate to work for several news sites, if you can think of any other news-worthy topics I could cover, I'll happily do what I can to continue spreading the word about this great hobby. I'm getting my sixty plus year old mother into the sport.. it's excellent excercise.

[AstarianJewel]

There is an individual here in the Sacramento region that has around 600 or more finds without a gps.

 

I'd love to talk to him/her. If you run across them, send em' my way. That is truly awesome.

[+brite00eyes]

I started out geocaching without wanting to make an initial investment.. after I found my first half dozen caches, I bought not one.. but two GPS units. I'm officially a junkie now. I did an article recently on getting started with a GPS.. and figured I'd share it with the community. It might help someone out who is interested in getting started, before purchasing equipment.

 

http://familytravel.suite101.com/article.c...hout_a_gps_unit

[+brite00eyes]

How do 'driving directions' get you to within 20' of a geocache unless the geocache is within 20' of a public road?

 

Until we get our unit, we will be using Google Earth (free version even). You can put in the coordinates of the cache and it will give you the exact location. If you want directions, give it an address of a starting point (your house or someplace nearby that you'll be starting from) and it will show you step by step how to get there. It is very accurate.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

How do 'driving directions' get you to within 20' of a geocache unless the geocache is within 20' of a public road?

 

Until we get our unit, we will be using Google Earth (free version even). You can put in the coordinates of the cache and it will give you the exact location. If you want directions, give it an address of a starting point (your house or someplace nearby that you'll be starting from) and it will show you step by step how to get there. It is very accurate.

 

Still doesn't mean you can park within 20 ft of it. And I don't agree on it always being very accurate. Yes, Google Earth is very accurate, but sometimes the hider of the cache is not, which makes Google Earth somehwat useless.

 

There's another guy in PA who finds caches sans GPS, he's quite the experts on using maps and orienteering. His Geocaching handle is edscott and he's on the forums a lot so I'm sure he'll be seeing this one at some point and commenting.

 

Of our 200+ finds, only twice have we found sans GPS, both times because the batteries crapped out before we got there and we used the clue combined with Google Earth.

Edited April 27, 2008 by HaLiJuSaPa

[+briansnat]

There is an individual here in the Sacramento region that has around 600 or more finds without a gps.

 

I'd love to talk to him/her. If you run across them, send em' my way. That is truly awesome.

 

There are a bunch. Walden Run has 3,000 finds, most without a GPS. Many of Web-ling's 2,600 finds are sans GPS. Ed Scott is another prolific geocacher who doesn't use a GPS

[Tonka_Boy]

Great article. I wrote something similar on our blog. If a person were to hunt only large caches, finding them without a GPSr would be pretty easy. Some pre-planning, a compass and a map should get a person pretty close. And with a few hints from the logs, it should be a snap. We are going to try it this afternoon.

 

But I'm still going to bring the GPSr... just in case.

[ao318]

The person in sacramento is Treasure-Hunterz and he actually has just over 300. I now know this because I just placed 2 caches since my last posting and he was FTF on both of them. I had posted them on different days and in different areas. Granted they were not that difficult but it is still impressive.