Why would anyone Geocache? Seems pretty pointless doesn't it?

[+mithrass]

Am loving some of the responses that have been given.

 

I started about a year ago after being exposed to earthcaching at a teaching workshop. From there I did more research and started caching using my Blackberry. Since then I've progressed to using my iPhone and a Garmin as a starter GPSr. It has taken me to many places that I've never been, especially being a Social Studies teacher at one point, the history of areas that I've learned that I would otherwise not be exposed to.

[+bittsen]

I travel...a LOT! All over the place (worldwide). Before I found geocaching, I'd sit in my hotel room. I may go out for an hour or two, to look around, but that would be it. Now, I look forward to finding time during the trip to look for geocaches. I'm almost never in my room, unless it's dark and I'm going to bed. I forces me to exercise, it forces me to explore new places, it forces me to find new friends, thank God I found this hobby!

 

You just made me look back on all the times I was stuck in boringville wishing I had something to do when I was traveling

[+somegeek]

I travel...a LOT! All over the place (worldwide). Before I found geocaching, I'd sit in my hotel room. I may go out for an hour or two, to look around, but that would be it. Now, I look forward to finding time during the trip to look for geocaches. I'm almost never in my room, unless it's dark and I'm going to bed. I forces me to exercise, it forces me to explore new places, it forces me to find new friends, thank God I found this hobby!

 

You just made me look back on all the times I was stuck in boringville wishing I had something to do when I was traveling

 

+1 - I wish I'd known about this when I traveled more... woulda spent less time vegging in my hotel room.

 

Great OP btw... sums it up nicely. In a few years we'll be able to do this with our kids. One more reason to do stuff outdoors.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Am loving some of the responses that have been given.

 

I started about a year ago after being exposed to earthcaching at a teaching workshop. From there I did more research and started caching using my Blackberry. Since then I've progressed to using my iPhone and a Garmin as a starter GPSr. It has taken me to many places that I've never been, especially being a Social Studies teacher at one point, the history of areas that I've learned that I would otherwise not be exposed to.

That's what hooked me... discovering new places in a town I thought I knew pretty well sparked an interest in history.

 

One of my earlier finds was called Pig Iron Cache.

 

It's about 5 miles from where I grew up, so I had ridden my bicycle all over the area.

 

The listing stated that it was a Civil War-era historical park. I thought "Wait a minute, there's no historical park there!"

 

So I go and sure enough there is, right in the middle of a heavily populated residential neighborhood. I had passed the small dirt road entrance many times but never turned in to see what was there.

 

I knew that all of the streets in that area were named after Civil War events or places... Appomattox Drive, Gettysburg Lane, etc. and I am sure that I had at some point wondered why, but wasn't curious enough to find out.

 

Now I discover that this cache site was a foundry built by a fellow named McElwain.

 

But wait a minute... my kids were at the time going to McElwain School. Was this where the name came from? It had never occurred to me to ask! The plaque at the site said that he named this the Irondale Foundry because it was a dale (valley) where he could make iron. Huh, I live in Irondale and had never pondered where the name came from! I decided to research this lovely little-known park online.

 

This is what I learned by finding that geocache: When The War Of Northern Aggression was winding down the Yankees sent raiding parties through the South to find and destroy our infrastructure, not only to render us unable to carry on the war but to assure that we did not have the wherewithal to rise again. "The South Shall Rise Again!" was seen as a real danger, and the only way to prevent it was to plunge the South into a complete inability to fend for itself, much less to rebuild any time soon.

 

A Mississippi foundry owner named McElwain got warning that Wilson's Raiders were headed his way with the mission of destroying his foundry, which made cannons and farming materials.

 

McElwain quickly disassembled his foundry as well as the houses and belongings of his fifty employees, loaded it all on wagons and carts, and set off for a valley he had heard about in central Alabama which had the requisite coal, iron ore, water, saltpeter and hardwood trees required to make cast iron.

 

There were no roads, so he literally carved his way through the forest that 300 miles from Mississippi to Alabama. When he arrived here he found the materials needed to in fact be available so he set about building a new foundry. By hand. From rocks. He and his men tore out a hillside, built a foundry, dug mines to get the resources, all while rebuilding fifty family homes for the workers, hunting to feed themselves and all that it took to survive in those perilous times.

 

McElwain moved, rebuilt his foundry and was operational in a new land in seven months.

 

I got to thinking "I drove here on paved roads in fifteen minutes in an air-conditioned car. What must it have been like to do what these men did?"

 

I found where the name of my city, my kids school and many other places around me got their names. I learned that from these people's efforts grew Birmingham, Steel Capitol Of the World.

 

I was filled with a profound sense that the easy life I now lived was made possible by the sweat and blood of men such as built this foundry. I learned something about how costly were the things I took for granted.

 

I learned that geocaching would take me to many more places like this, places unknown to me, places I knew but knew not from where they came. Geocaching would take me to old cemeteries, where I would wander about in peaceful silence and ponder the life of those here laid to rest... and forever be grateful for what I have and how easy it was to come by.

 

Geocaching gave me history and understanding and appreciation, and I was hooked!

[+stargazer21]

Well, I went on my first cache hunt today. Why would I keep on doing this?

 

 

Look at the happiness on that boy's face after finding his first piece of "treasure", that is all the reason I need right there.

 

striker...I love that pic! You're right...pure happiness!

[+racingmissy]

Gives me and my son some good quality time together. Also I like the discovery of new areas. Now if only I could find a fellow adult cacher maybe I could do some of the night caches.

[+The Powerpuff Girls]

Something to do for a past time when I'm bored anf got nothing better to do... I also like collecting things. Soon, I will collect as many caches in all locations in the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality). I want to have as many to fill up a room... I've collected 4 so far.

 

So far, I only do it with my sister and friend, Stephanie. When I either get a GPS or upgrade my phone to Android (I have a really old phone now (SAMSUNG SCH-N150) and download the app and I will be Geocaching like crazy. Hopefully, I'll be getting my phone by the end of the week.

[+The_Incredibles_]

Amazing, but many of the people I know aren't crazy about geocaching. I think the #1 reason people stop is because they suck at finding them. Somehow, they thought it was all about the cache.

 

We get a TON of exercise as a family due to geocaching. It's actually a way to get my husband to go on WALKs and be around NATURE.

 

The other day while out caching with other families my daughter summed it up perfectly "Hey mom, when I run, it feels like I can run forever. What IS that?"

[knowschad]

About as pointless as watching a football game. About as pointless as catch & release fishing. About as pointless as listening to music. Pointless? Sure... but what's the point of worrying about that?

[+dfx]

About as pointless as watching a football game. About as pointless as catch & release fishing. About as pointless as listening to music. Pointless? Sure... but what's the point of worrying about that?

 

About as pointless as replying to a 2-year old thread

[knowschad]

About as pointless as watching a football game. About as pointless as catch & release fishing. About as pointless as listening to music. Pointless? Sure... but what's the point of worrying about that?

 

About as pointless as replying to a 2-year old thread

 

Are you trying to make a point?

[+dfx]

About as pointless as watching a football game. About as pointless as catch & release fishing. About as pointless as listening to music. Pointless? Sure... but what's the point of worrying about that?

 

About as pointless as replying to a 2-year old thread

 

Are you trying to make a point?

 

Yeah, this one here ----> .

[+5g]

 

QUALITY time spend..... Priceless.

 

Agreed!

 

Well, I went on my first cache hunt today. Why would I keep on doing this?

 

 

Look at the happiness on that boy's face after finding his first piece of "treasure", that is all the reason I need right there.

Awesome! Same reason here for my 3 boys.

[+aurght]

At 73 I need a excuse to wander around like I'm sort of lost and confused (out side of Senility or being Demnted)..........Cache On

 

+1 (71)

 

This is a great old thread. It needs new life.

 

I ran into one old guy who said he was running away from the hospital's tubes and wires.

[+Alkhalikoi]

We have a lovely reservoir here in town with a terrific, slight terrain paved trail. Whenever I got off my butt to try to get some exercise over the ten or so year prior to caching, I'd commit to walking around the reservoir and would do it 3-5 times a week for... oh... about two weeks. Bored me to tears. When I started my solo practice, I said something to my wife about needing a hobby that did not *also* involve sitting in front of a computer screen. I had a couple of friends that cached, although I had never been with them, so knew about caching in a general sense. When my wife had red about it on a blog she frequents, she suggested this and after finding one cache with an iPhone, snapped up a GPS in no time. 1207 caches later, I've:

 

* lost 25 pounds on a generally sustained basis; dropped my blood pressure 10 points; massively improved my general stamina;

 

* covered hundreds of trail miles in my county (Contra Costa, east of San Francisco) and adjacent areas that I had never been on before despite living in the Bay Area my whole life;

 

* gotten my kids to hike several miles at a stretch with rarely a complaint (although an occasional guarantee of a slurpee at the end hasn't hurt);

 

* cached in eight states but, more importantly to me, about 30 counties -- getting me to places of California, West Virginia, Nevada, and Oregon I'd never seen;

 

* cached in two countries while on business -- South Korea and Costa Rica -- in both cases just giving me an excuse to do something outside the conference center/downtown areas;

 

* made several new friends with whom I've gone on several road trips.

 

And for what? The cost of a couple of GPSs, several hundred dollars in gas, and many of the aforementioned slurpees.

 

Other than that, quite pointless.

[Pup Patrol]

Something to do for a past time when I'm bored anf got nothing better to do... I also like collecting things. Soon, I will collect as many caches in all locations in the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality). I want to have as many to fill up a room... I've collected 4 so far.

 

So far, I only do it with my sister and friend, Stephanie. When I either get a GPS or upgrade my phone to Android (I have a really old phone now (SAMSUNG SCH-N150) and download the app and I will be Geocaching like crazy. Hopefully, I'll be getting my phone by the end of the week.

Um, maybe I'm mis-reading this, but it sounds like you are physically collecting the cache containers themselves!

 

I hope I'm misunderstanding you.

[+AmphibianTrackers]

Am loving some of the responses that have been given.

 

I started about a year ago after being exposed to earthcaching at a teaching workshop. From there I did more research and started caching using my Blackberry. Since then I've progressed to using my iPhone and a Garmin as a starter GPSr. It has taken me to many places that I've never been, especially being a Social Studies teacher at one point, the history of areas that I've learned that I would otherwise not be exposed to.

That's what hooked me... discovering new places in a town I thought I knew pretty well sparked an interest in history.

 

One of my earlier finds was called Pig Iron Cache.

 

It's about 5 miles from where I grew up, so I had ridden my bicycle all over the area.

 

The listing stated that it was a Civil War-era historical park. I thought "Wait a minute, there's no historical park there!"

 

So I go and sure enough there is, right in the middle of a heavily populated residential neighborhood. I had passed the small dirt road entrance many times but never turned in to see what was there.

 

I knew that all of the streets in that area were named after Civil War events or places... Appomattox Drive, Gettysburg Lane, etc. and I am sure that I had at some point wondered why, but wasn't curious enough to find out.

 

Now I discover that this cache site was a foundry built by a fellow named McElwain.

 

But wait a minute... my kids were at the time going to McElwain School. Was this where the name came from? It had never occurred to me to ask! The plaque at the site said that he named this the Irondale Foundry because it was a dale (valley) where he could make iron. Huh, I live in Irondale and had never pondered where the name came from! I decided to research this lovely little-known park online.

 

This is what I learned by finding that geocache: When The War Of Northern Aggression was winding down the Yankees sent raiding parties through the South to find and destroy our infrastructure, not only to render us unable to carry on the war but to assure that we did not have the wherewithal to rise again. "The South Shall Rise Again!" was seen as a real danger, and the only way to prevent it was to plunge the South into a complete inability to fend for itself, much less to rebuild any time soon.

 

A Mississippi foundry owner named McElwain got warning that Wilson's Raiders were headed his way with the mission of destroying his foundry, which made cannons and farming materials.

 

McElwain quickly disassembled his foundry as well as the houses and belongings of his fifty employees, loaded it all on wagons and carts, and set off for a valley he had heard about in central Alabama which had the requisite coal, iron ore, water, saltpeter and hardwood trees required to make cast iron.

 

There were no roads, so he literally carved his way through the forest that 300 miles from Mississippi to Alabama. When he arrived here he found the materials needed to in fact be available so he set about building a new foundry. By hand. From rocks. He and his men tore out a hillside, built a foundry, dug mines to get the resources, all while rebuilding fifty family homes for the workers, hunting to feed themselves and all that it took to survive in those perilous times.

 

McElwain moved, rebuilt his foundry and was operational in a new land in seven months.

 

I got to thinking "I drove here on paved roads in fifteen minutes in an air-conditioned car. What must it have been like to do what these men did?"

 

I found where the name of my city, my kids school and many other places around me got their names. I learned that from these people's efforts grew Birmingham, Steel Capitol Of the World.

 

I was filled with a profound sense that the easy life I now lived was made possible by the sweat and blood of men such as built this foundry. I learned something about how costly were the things I took for granted.

 

I learned that geocaching would take me to many more places like this, places unknown to me, places I knew but knew not from where they came. Geocaching would take me to old cemeteries, where I would wander about in peaceful silence and ponder the life of those here laid to rest... and forever be grateful for what I have and how easy it was to come by.

 

Geocaching gave me history and understanding and appreciation, and I was hooked!

 

I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing the story. Has it been published?

[+jgc3]

I discovered geocaching because of a new gps we bought to go on a hike. Tried it, and as you said, enjoyed the

time with the family and the "thrill of the hunt"

 

Since then we've found some very cool places we doubt we would of gone without looking up geocaches in the area and built some very good memories of certain hunts.

 

So much so I spend a lot of my day now working with geocaching..

 

So geocaching has changed my life and almost all for the better.

 

Cheers

[+jgc3]

Awesome photo. Top answer to the question right there! Great stuff.

 

Well, I went on my first cache hunt today. Why would I keep on doing this?

 

 

Look at the happiness on that boy's face after finding his first piece of "treasure", that is all the reason I need right there.

[+dphickey]

I've had to move for employment reasons 3 times in the last 3 years.. The first move, I spent most of the year by myself in a 1 bedroom apartment. The second move was back home to my original starting place. I was forced into the unemployment line after 6 months and when my daughter wanted to do something on the 4th of July I somehow stumbled on the idea of trying out geocaching. It didn't cost anything and there was the whole treasure hunt aspect to keep her interested. There was a cache just down the street at a park in our neighborhood. We used my car NUVI 200W and found the cache. Then I got a job out of state and moved again. This time I brought the family right off. I was hooked from my first trip and my daughter would ask if we could do it again every now and then. So I bought a better GPSr, read up on the activity, and took the whole family out to one of the most popular caches in the area the first warm day in spring. It's a traditional cache hidden under a rock overhang in an old coal strip mine turned into a conservation park. The overhand has fossils in the rock. The kids and the wife enjoyed the trip and I was totally hooked.

I know more about this new location and have met new people that I would never had if I just hung out at work and home like I did that year I was on my own.

My kids and wife aren't totally sold on this yet, but every now and then one of them wants to go out with me when I head out to find that next fix..... We've spent a lot more time as a family outside than we ever have before.

[+Chief301]

Something to do for a past time when I'm bored anf got nothing better to do... I also like collecting things. Soon, I will collect as many caches in all locations in the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality). I want to have as many to fill up a room... I've collected 4 so far.

 

So far, I only do it with my sister and friend, Stephanie. When I either get a GPS or upgrade my phone to Android (I have a really old phone now (SAMSUNG SCH-N150) and download the app and I will be Geocaching like crazy. Hopefully, I'll be getting my phone by the end of the week.

Um, maybe I'm mis-reading this, but it sounds like you are physically collecting the cache containers themselves!

 

I hope I'm misunderstanding you.

 

Yeah, that caught my attention too...

[+Chief301]

Something to do for a past time when I'm bored anf got nothing better to do... I also like collecting things. Soon, I will collect as many caches in all locations in the HRM (Halifax Regional Municipality). I want to have as many to fill up a room... I've collected 4 so far.

 

So far, I only do it with my sister and friend, Stephanie. When I either get a GPS or upgrade my phone to Android (I have a really old phone now (SAMSUNG SCH-N150) and download the app and I will be Geocaching like crazy. Hopefully, I'll be getting my phone by the end of the week.

Um, maybe I'm mis-reading this, but it sounds like you are physically collecting the cache containers themselves!

 

I hope I'm misunderstanding you.

 

Yeah, that caught my attention too...

 

No, I checked his finds...others have found them since he logged them, so they're still out there

[+WarNinjas]

This is the greatest thing I have found to do! I love to get outdoors so I fish and love it. My daughter not so much. She loves this so it is something we can both do. I work all over and used to try and stop and fish when I had a short break in between jobs. It was hard and I usually would get stuck out to long trying to get that fish to bite and be way late to my next job. Still fun and I like it but can be hard to fit into most days. There is no problems stopping between jobs for a quick cache and if I have more time I can go for one more out in the woods! Really helps to break up the day. Now I save the fishing for the weekends that I don't have my daughter. Weird how it gives me the same satisfying feeling off sneaking off and catching a fish when I find a cache. I mostly only catch and release the fish I catch and this gets me out into nature just like fishing does but I can do it more easily while working. I'm so glad I found this hobbie!

-WarNinjas

[+Cybermew3]

Okay I admit it I'm a pretty big computer games nerd, but have always loved exercising and the outdoors. After I worked my way out of addiction to one game in particular (World of Warcraft) I found this and was instantly addicted to a new kind of 'game'.

 

Since then I have stopped leaving myself holed up in a room playing games, got back outside, and started to enjoy life and the outdoors again. I've met heaps of people along the way, people I will forge lifelong caching friendships with. I've been more inclined to visit my parents and little sisters (who now cache as well) and spend time with them, and just generally have more 'rewarding' fun.

 

So why do I cache? It helped get me out of a destructive gaming addiction (destructive being just relationships wise), and got me back out and about. Every cache I get I remember what my personal time was consumed with before and appreciate my new way of thinking

[+popokiiti]

Would I go for a walk without getting bored? Nah. Would I walk 7km and find caches on the circular route? Yes. Would I walk 9km? Yes. I get exercise, and fun. Can't be bad! It is a great way to spend time with the nearest and dearest too.......