yet another new person

[edg126]

Hi! I've been wanting to get into geocaching for a few years now, but couldn't justify the costs of the unit.

 

I'm 28 from King of Prussia, PA and I'm a long distance (marathon) runner, and a data analyst, so eventually gave in and bought a GPS watch to keep track of all my runs so I can pour over the massive amounts of data.

 

I tried to find my first cache today, which was supposed to be located in front of my apartment complex but couldn't find it (it was a nano cache) so I gave up. It was more a test to see how to configure the coordinates to navigate to the point -- and that part was a success.

 

My girlfriend and I like hiking, and I also have a gps enabled iPhone, so I figure this will be fun teamwork stuff to do -- one with the gps map, the other with better precision orienteering.

 

The cache I was looking for was in an urban area, and while staking these forums read alot about what you say when people are looking at you weird. I've already found that being a runner is great cover, as first they think you're odd for being soaked with sweat (and maybe the 80's length shorts, hah) but I just did my cool down routine / stretching by the coordinates and had a look around.

 

Also, runners when planning long runs sometimes stash water / gu gels along a set route before a run to rehydrate, so I'm used to looking for some hiding spots for this, or people thinking your shady for poking around.

 

So umm. 'hi'

[edg126]

Oh, and if anyone has found any caches in the philadelphia area and can recommend some awesome ones that will get us sucked into this I'd appreciate it. I was thinking of doing GC1AK5X as my first big one.

[+msrubble]

Hi, edg126.

 

I'm glad you have an upbeat attitude.

 

I think a lot of people start the way you did, by looking for whatever cache is closest to home or work. If I may, I would recommend that you look for something bigger than a micro, that has been found recently, and that is not rated as difficult. About a 1 or 1.5 difficulty regular or small would be good to try when you are just starting out. Nanos are often about as big as a pencil eraser, so there are many places they could be.

[+Herb and Beans]

Welcome! Not in the Philadelphia area, so I can't help you with cache recommends, but don't give up!

 

I think finding your first cache is tough, at least it was for me.

Here are some things that I found helpful to get going:

 

* You started in the forums, perfect! Go visit the Cool cache container thread in Geocaching topics forum.

* Read the logs on the cache. They may give some good spoilers.

* Pay attention to the size in the description. If you go perusing Groundspeak stores and look for what fits that description, you may get an idea of what to watch for

* If you can, go caching with someone that has a few under their belt.

 

Hope this gives you some kind of a start! Good luck, this game is really fun!

[+The Blorenges]

Welcome to The Game, from over here in UK.

 

MrsB