Geocaching is...

[meathelmet]

People cache for many different reasons. What's yours? I cache because I like learning new places to visit around my home, and it is an inexpensive way to spend time with the family. I am also addicted to happy meal toys.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Geocaching is a fun game, but more importantly it is an amazing community!

 

I can't explain why, but this game attracts a certain type of individual.

 

Church, Scouts, Military, Professional associations... I have been part of many groups, but geocaching is one where I can consistently find myself comfortable among folks who are strangers one minute and friends the next!

 

My peers in volunteerism are the only other group where I find such a community of instant kinship. shared interests and common bond.

 

I love that I can see an event listed anywhere in the world, show up unannounced, be immediately accepted and leave with many new friends.

[+sbell111]

A hobby. A diversion from real-world pressures.

[+solo63137]

Pretty much like you said...

 

I like learning new places to visit around my home, work and Cabin areas

inexpensive way to spend time with the family

It gets me out of the house and I get some excersise from all the walking...

Spending time with my 2 long time friends that often go caching with me...

 

Also, I posted on another thred about what people leave in there and said, I normally don't take anything, for me its....

 

1. Challenge of the Find

2. Reading and Signing of the Logs

3. Looking thought the cache to see what others left...

 

I have one longtime (to me) friend of like 20 years that lives like 6 houses down the street from me and I don't really see him that often... Maybe a passing hello, whatsup. yadda yadda... He is a real big outddors guy always looking for an excuse to go hiking,hunting,fishing etc.... I've spent more time with him caching in the last two months than I have in a year I'd guess... Its pretty nice...

[+StarBrand]

A chance to explore. Spend time with family. Spend time learning and exploiting technology. A chance to go and do.

 

Read my sig line below - It should give you a little insight into me.

[+Snoogans]

People cache for many different reasons. What's yours? I cache because I like learning new places to visit around my home, and it is an inexpensive way to spend time with the family. I am also addicted to happy meal toys.

 

I cache because hiding and finding things has always been my nature. I hid caches 20+ years before there were geocaches. I also got my first GPSr in 1995. (Magellan GPS 2000)

 

I hide geocaches to share interesting places, to challenge people to get to some of those places, and for some of my more devious hides, to see just how many hoops someone will jump through to get a cache.

 

I like trackables too. Especially BIG hard to move ones. My refrigerator door TB seems to be a big hit.

 

I love that I can see an event listed anywhere in the world, show up unannounced, be immediately accepted and leave with many new friends.

 

Same here.

 

Events are really what keep me here besides a good log (with pictures) on one of my caches.

[+MerlynNY]

For me it's still relatively a new hobby (been doing it for about a year now), but it's something I can see myself doing for a long time. I'm a bit of a technophile, and I love GPS units. I have two for my cars and a handheld to go geocaching with.

 

I also enjoy getting out and hiking with my wife, who also has come to enjoy geocaching. She's an Earth Science teacher, and she loves nature. So it's a win/win for me. It's a hobby I like, and it's something I get to share with my wife.

[Skippermark]

I like to be taken to new places and see things that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Through caching we've discovered some amazing places that aren't the usual touristy areas.

 

Plus, as others have mentioned, I like the social aspect. At last year's GeoWoodstock, we met some cachers and hooked up and cached for the entire day together. Not many places or hobbies where you can meet a total stranger and go off together after only meeting 5 minutes ago and have an instant connection.

[+Jeep4two]

I cache so there will be a list of all the possible places that my wife hid my body will be conveniently available for the authorities to search in the even she decides to off me.

 

Or. . . .

 

Maybe . . .

 

To get out, get some fresh air and enjoy friends, family while getting some exercise, seeing amazing places, practicing photography, discovering myself, rediscovering my wife, watching the flowers and animals all while getting to play with technology along the way

[+TeamFiestyMidgets]

A hobby. A diversion from real-world pressures.

 

That explains alot!

 

We started as a way to take our love of hiking to the next level. My youngest as I have mentioned before has Asperger's Syndrome....and if you know anything about that, it comes with a lot of sensory sensativity. So it is a way to get him to come outside and touch and play! He is deathly afraid of spiders, ants and bees...so this way he is becoming more exposed to those things he fears (slowly) Most of the time now he forgets they are there! Especially when he finds the cache!

[+sbell111]

You ever feel like someone is following you?

[+tango501]

free beer is what keeps me coming back

[mirandaland]

You ever feel like someone is following you?

Yes... or that I am following them.

 

I cache cause it's a take on urban exploration where there's no real chance of getting arrested or if it's out in nature, it's a game of hide and seek where you're not going to get lost. Good times.

[mirandaland]

free beer is what keeps me coming back

 

Woah... have I been missing this part? Tisk tisk, what a shame.

[+flask]

i was hiding caches back in the early 70's. problem was that nobody wanted to come find them. no convenient way for me to list them anywhere.

 

geocaching is a leap of faith; the hider provides you with coordinates and you go there, not knowing what you'll find or what will happen along the way. you trust the hider to take you somewhere worth your time. the point is to go just to have gone, to see for yourself what's there. done properly, a cache can be a prayer offering.

 

often i think that if more people had this attitude in mind, we'd have fewer skirt-lifters in parking lots.

 

i do not cache to meet people; often when confronted with people on the trail i will dive into the nearest ditch to avoid them. neither am i looking to make friends. i am satisfied with the quantity and quality of the friends i already have.

 

when i'm caching large i spend most of my time in solitude, rushing quickly from thing to thing or stopping to take pictures of rocks for an hour or so at my leisure. i move to the rhythms of the day and the patterns of the caches. i am by turns surprised and delighted, frustrated and desperate. it is a dense, multidimensional way to move across the earth, a way to feel at home.

[+flask]

 

I cache cause it's a take on urban exploration where there's no real chance of getting arrested or if it's out in nature, it's a game of hide and seek where you're not going to get lost. Good times.

 

(bolding mine)

 

oh, man. what planet are YOU playing on?

[knowschad]

... a high tech treasure hunt?

... An increasingly popular game of grown-up hide-and-seek?

 

OK... just funnin' with you.

 

Geocaching to me has morphed many times in the years that I've been doing it, and is likely to morph some more. My initial excitement was with the more clandestine, spy-like aspects, especially with hiding things in plain sight.

 

Then I took my first caching trips and got excited about how geocaching could show me those great little out-of-the-way places that only the locals knew about.

 

I've had my stint with caching for numbers, and I still enjoy that to an extent, but could never cache exclusively that way for very long.

 

I've made some of the best friends of my life through geocaching. Very "real" people that don't just talk about doing things... they do them!

[mirandaland]

 

I cache cause it's a take on urban exploration where there's no real chance of getting arrested or if it's out in nature, it's a game of hide and seek where you're not going to get lost. Good times.

 

(bolding mine)

 

oh, man. what planet are YOU playing on?

 

Looking in storm drains, around shrubbery, light fixtures, telephone poles, libraries, cemeteries, etc etc- sounds like urban exploration to me. It's just not the breaking and entering kind where people explore old escape tunnels or empty factories thusly getting into trouble. So yes, I stick with the previous *nods*.

 

And on the trail/park/forest side of it all, it is like hide and seek but you're seeking a treasure unkown to you rather than Billy or Donna from down the street. And really if you get truly lost when you are holding a GPS, sad pandas.

 

-m

[+ngrrfan]

To me it's a reason to get out and exercise. You can go for walks, but if there is only the "goal" of walking for 30 minutes, or once around the block, it gets boring.

 

Caching gets me to walking farther, "There's another cache just 1/4 mile away.... go get it" and at the same time I can plan trips around the area to explore new areas.

[+Headhardhat]

Geocaching has allowed many different facets for me to explore.

Not only is it a healthy alternative to being a couch potato but also a common ground for my daughter and I to have similar interests. Try doing that with a teenager these days.

 

It also allows me to engage my creative side through tutorial videos like GeoSnippits or my blogs.

 

Finally I have interactions and communications with multitudes of people all around the world that would not have been possible without the geocaching community. There is nothing quite like greetings and good tidings from some far off place I will most likely ever see with the same friendliness as if they were across the street.

 

Oh and I like going outside and using that big satellite thingie too.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Headhardhat

[+flask]

 

I cache cause it's a take on urban exploration where there's no real chance of getting arrested or if it's out in nature, it's a game of hide and seek where you're not going to get lost. Good times.

 

(bolding mine)

 

oh, man. what planet are YOU playing on?

 

Looking in storm drains, around shrubbery, light fixtures, telephone poles, libraries, cemeteries, etc etc- sounds like urban exploration to me. It's just not the breaking and entering kind where people explore old escape tunnels or empty factories thusly getting into trouble. So yes, I stick with the previous *nods*.

 

And on the trail/park/forest side of it all, it is like hide and seek but you're seeking a treasure unkown to you rather than Billy or Donna from down the street. And really if you get truly lost when you are holding a GPS, sad pandas.

 

-m

 

oh, you can get plenty arrested, and even with a GPS you can get plenty lost.

 

if you do not know these two things, i submit that either you are too naive to be let out of the house alone, or that you have not seen much of the geocaching experience that is available to you.

 

in today's climate a paranoid officer need only think you look like a terrorist because you took a picture on a bridge, or a landowner or utility company get really fussy about explicit permissions and you've got some 'splainin' to do. sometimes you are required to do your 'splainin' while in custody.

 

more than one cacher has been detained and cited.

 

likewise, it is of little use to know exactly where you are if you don't know how to get to where you want to be. when you're seeking that little treasure it is quite possible to end up on a road that doesn't go through and isn't on your map, or for you to take the wrong trail and end up several miles to the wrong side of the river.

 

if you've ever had to change your trail plans radically because of a bear or bull moose in rut and that swamp from the beaver dam isn't on your map and you think you'll save four hours on the return trip by making a bushwhack for a mile or so, you know what i'm talking about.

 

i don't know; maybe you don't ever get out of the suburbs and are never more than five minutes from a convenience store where you can buy fresh batteries.

 

out in the big wide world things can and do go wrong. it is folly to assume you are safe from these things.

 

even with proper preparation and equipment, it's a crapshoot. sometimes you roll craps. if you think you're safe from trouble, you won't be prepared when that happens.

[mirandaland]

 

I cache cause it's a take on urban exploration where there's no real chance of getting arrested or if it's out in nature, it's a game of hide and seek where you're not going to get lost. Good times.

 

(bolding mine)

 

oh, man. what planet are YOU playing on?

 

Looking in storm drains, around shrubbery, light fixtures, telephone poles, libraries, cemeteries, etc etc- sounds like urban exploration to me. It's just not the breaking and entering kind where people explore old escape tunnels or empty factories thusly getting into trouble. So yes, I stick with the previous *nods*.

 

And on the trail/park/forest side of it all, it is like hide and seek but you're seeking a treasure unkown to you rather than Billy or Donna from down the street. And really if you get truly lost when you are holding a GPS, sad pandas.

 

-m

 

oh, you can get plenty arrested, and even with a GPS you can get plenty lost.

 

if you do not know these two things, i submit that either you are too naive to be let out of the house alone, or that you have not seen much of the geocaching experience that is available to you.

 

in today's climate a paranoid officer need only think you look like a terrorist because you took a picture on a bridge, or a landowner or utility company get really fussy about explicit permissions and you've got some 'splainin' to do. sometimes you are required to do your 'splainin' while in custody.

 

more than one cacher has been detained and cited.

 

likewise, it is of little use to know exactly where you are if you don't know how to get to where you want to be. when you're seeking that little treasure it is quite possible to end up on a road that doesn't go through and isn't on your map, or for you to take the wrong trail and end up several miles to the wrong side of the river.

 

if you've ever had to change your trail plans radically because of a bear or bull moose in rut and that swamp from the beaver dam isn't on your map and you think you'll save four hours on the return trip by making a bushwhack for a mile or so, you know what i'm talking about.

 

i don't know; maybe you don't ever get out of the suburbs and are never more than five minutes from a convenience store where you can buy fresh batteries.

 

out in the big wide world things can and do go wrong. it is folly to assume you are safe from these things.

 

even with proper preparation and equipment, it's a crapshoot. sometimes you roll craps. if you think you're safe from trouble, you won't be prepared when that happens.

 

Peace fellow forum member, there's no need to take it to a grumpy or defensive place. My intent was not to rile seasoned veterans, yet it was simply to make a light hearted post. Yes, people get arrested (There are tons of other things you're more likely to get arrested doing. It seems bleak to me to have that forethought of getting arrested as you geocache. If I went out with that mindset its as if if I am asking for that to happen to me.) and lost (Although marking your original location you would wind your way back, regardless of it being the shortest easiest or safest way back. I'd hope a person on that type of adventure brought the old standbys of a compass and a map.)

 

In the end, geocaching, like life is what you make it into being. That's all I've got.

[+flask]

 

 

Peace fellow forum member, there's no need to take it to a grumpy or defensive place.

 

grumpy? defensive? i was thinking whimsical and lighthearted.

 

have you ever been detained and questioned while caching? i have. i consider it to be a funny little story.

 

suspicion of being a terrorist.

 

have you ever been approached by a bull moose in rut? he was disappointed in me to be sure. very entertaining, to be bleeding freely from a puncture wound and standing calf-deep in a pool of moose urine.

 

while i don't expect these things to happen while i'm caching, somehow they do. it's not a bleak outlook; these things just happen.

 

if you're prepared when they do, you get to go home afterward and tell the story instead of going to prison or the morgue. the story is a lot funnier if you get to go home.

 

EMT working desperately to start an IV on you? not funny.

telling the story afterward? hilarious.

[knowschad]

grumpy? defensive? i was thinking whimsical and lighthearted.

 

(pssst... you did sound grumpy and defensive, at least to me, and you still are kinda. Thought you'd want to know.)

 

On another note... you were hiding caches in the early 70's? I'd sure like to hear more about that! A lot of us were doing that back then, of course, but that was just to keep our stash from being busted. The only ones that wanted to find them were the LEOs. My, how times have changed!

[+Steve&GeoCarolyn]

My beloved and I have talked about this quite a bit.

 

For me the entire thing is about beauty and adventure. It is desperately important for me to be amid beauty and to be able to tell a good story about the adventure. The cache placement, the environment, the log, and my photos provide the aesthetic joy. The adventure provides content for the narrative. I also like some of the associated games (like rescuing travel bugs and moving them along).

 

Figuring this out about myself has helped me realize the kinds of geocaching adventures that will work for me and those that won't. Someone in another thread mentioned a "Century" challenge where the goal is to find 100 caches in a day. That would be dreadful for me. I wouldn't be able to write that many logs and do a good job on each nor would I have the time to observe and memorize the details of each place or translate our adventure into a narrative. Even doing 7 in a day resulted in shoddy logs and a splitting headache. So I know that's not for me. (Obviously for a person who wanted the thrill of competition or speed, the Century game would work for them.)

 

It also means that profoundly ugly caches (garbage dump caches) don't work for me because they offend the aesthetic sense that is so primary for me with this.

 

My beloved wants to hike far from people and is delighted at the number of places geocachers have shown us that we didn't realize existed. He also likes the hunt and the little games within geocaching. (Finding the oldest cache or finding one of each type or finding one of each terrain/difficulty level, or filling out the Delorme map, etc.)

 

We both like the puzzles in the mystery caches.

 

So that's what it is for us.

 

And really if you get truly lost when you are holding a GPS, sad pandas.

 

My pandas must be achingly miserable, then. We ended up lost for about six hours a mile from my house while using our GPSr. It wasn't that we didn't know which way to go, but the giant swamp that blocked us at every turn and the river on the other side prevented us from finding a safe path back. Plus, the foliage was so dense that it was wigging out the GPSr. It made for a great narrative, though with many pretty pictures.

 

Carolyn

Edited June 2, 2009 by Steve&GeoCarolyn

[+Steve&GeoCarolyn]

I also wonder whether the joy of finding is something quite different from the joy of hiding. I'm looking forward to hiding our first cache. I want it to be somewhere transcendentally beautiful. My beloved wants it to incorporate hiking and thinking. Obviously we pull from those things that provide joy to us in finding, but I suspect that the finding and the hiding will offer different things to us. Is this true for those of you who both hide and find? Is it a different experience?

[TM92]

For me geocaching is a time to get outside into nature and get some fresh air. I love fresh air.

[+jbar]

As a Cardiac patient it started out as a way to rehab and build up strength but I found I really enjoy the experiance.

[+bflentje]

I geocache so I can have access to an active forum that allows me to blast, insult, and smart off to people who are generally minding their own business.

 

No, really, I do it for the adventure, outdoors, high tech, what more could you ask for.

[+bflentje]

oh, you can get plenty arrested, and even with a GPS you can get plenty lost.

 

if you do not know these two things, i submit that either you are too naive to be let out of the house alone, or that you have not seen much of the geocaching experience that is available to you.

 

in today's climate a paranoid officer need only think you look like a terrorist because you took a picture on a bridge, or a landowner or utility company get really fussy about explicit permissions and you've got some 'splainin' to do. sometimes you are required to do your 'splainin' while in custody.

 

more than one cacher has been detained and cited.

 

likewise, it is of little use to know exactly where you are if you don't know how to get to where you want to be. when you're seeking that little treasure it is quite possible to end up on a road that doesn't go through and isn't on your map, or for you to take the wrong trail and end up several miles to the wrong side of the river.

 

if you've ever had to change your trail plans radically because of a bear or bull moose in rut and that swamp from the beaver dam isn't on your map and you think you'll save four hours on the return trip by making a bushwhack for a mile or so, you know what i'm talking about.

 

i don't know; maybe you don't ever get out of the suburbs and are never more than five minutes from a convenience store where you can buy fresh batteries.

 

out in the big wide world things can and do go wrong. it is folly to assume you are safe from these things.

 

even with proper preparation and equipment, it's a crapshoot. sometimes you roll craps. if you think you're safe from trouble, you won't be prepared when that happens.

 

The only thing worse than the naive comments you're responding to is your mean response.

[+bflentje]

.. dp

Edited June 2, 2009 by bflentje