wow , never even knew.

[threebyfour]

Wow this quite the interesting hobby, I had no idea what geocache was until thursday evening.There i was observing worn down trails in the grass walking with my dogs when i noticed something didnt look quite right. To my suprise and enjoyment i stumbled upon this huge thing-geocaching.What a kick! tahnks cloguy, Im fricken hooked.One problem tho,,,,i dont have a gps. going try to find as many as i can before i have to buy one.left my name and a cheapy necklace from florida.

[+Touchstone]

Awesome!

 

Welcome and enjoy the ride.

 

It might help narrow your options to take a look at the GPS Reviews as well:

 

GPS Reviews

 

Good luck!

[+briansnat]

Welcome to the sport, or the obsession as some call it.

 

You can certainly find urban caches easily without a GPS and there are some people who have made a geocaching "career" out of caching sans GPS, even in the woods, so it can be done.

 

A hand held GPS will certainly make things easier for you though.

[+randco]

Wow this quite the interesting hobby, I had no idea what geocache was until thursday evening. There i was observing worn down trails in the grass walking with my dogs when i noticed something didnt look quite right. To my suprise and enjoyment i stumbled upon this huge thing-geocaching.What a kick! tahnks cloguy, Im fricken hooked.One problem tho,,,,i dont have a gps. going try to find as many as i can before i have to buy one.left my name and a cheapy necklace from florida.

 

Geocaching is a great hobby, game, exercise and plain old fun. I didn't have a GPS'r in the beginning either. I would put in our zip code and set the radius to 10 miles. Then when the list popped up, I would click on the MapIt icon. I looked for caches near some kind of reference point that I could see in the Satellite image. Something like a significant tree, or a telephone pole, a guard rail or something unique I could use to put my own coordinates together. We logged our first 38 finds without a GPS'r.

 

I used Microsoft Publisher to list information off of the cache page and I used the Snipping Tool in Vista to snip parts of the satellite view map, which I pasted into the Publisher page. I would put two to a sheet of paper. I went through several print cartridges printing out the information. I spent a hundred bucks on ink cartridges before I got my first GPS'r.

 

We were invited to an Event cache a couple of weeks after we started caching. The folks at the cache recommended the Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx and a PDA. On the way home the wife and I discussed buyng the 60CSx which we did. We didn't get the PDA because I thought it was going to run up my cell phone bill. Anyhow, when I got the 60CSx I tried using it but it was overwhelming to me, so I sent it back. Then I purchased a Garmin eTrex Legend. Nice little handheld that worked great except that it didn't have a street map, so I had to either print or write driving directions. So, I sent the eTrex Legend back and bought another 60CSx, which I was bound and determined to learn to use. I bought the City Navigator map package for the 60CSx and I got more information on the use of the PDA. I found out that the PDA was just a storage device for data I could download from my computer. I bought a Dell Axim 5 on Amazon for $35.

 

As a Premium member of geocaching.com I have a query emailed to me every Friday. I contains 500 files of caches that are near my home that I have not found and that are not on my ignore list. I use a program called GSAK to open the files. Then I export the data to my 60CSx, the PDA and to Mapsource. I don't use paper or ink any more.

 

The more caches you find, the more you will become hooked.

 

Good luck and happy caching.

[threebyfour]

thank you for the warm welcome everybody. this is very challenging to say the least, and yep i may have to break down and buy a gps, but im cheap so i will look around. looking forward to my next find!

[+t4e]

thank you for the warm welcome everybody. this is very challenging to say the least, and yep i may have to break down and buy a gps, but im cheap so i will look around. looking forward to my next find!

 

 

welcome!!!!

 

well can keep an eye on this section, there's something for everyone

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=13

Edited August 6, 2010 by t4e

[+hoagies]

thank you for the warm welcome everybody. this is very challenging to say the least, and yep i may have to break down and buy a gps, but im cheap so i will look around. looking forward to my next find!

 

Our GPS broke for a while (I had it in my back pocket when I "fell" down a little grade <sheepish grin>), and we spent a few weeks caching with Google Maps. As others have said, it works for all but the deep woods caches. I've counted trees in a park, and light posts in a parking lot, and blocks on the sidewalk, all to zoom in on a cache using Google Maps. And you can type a lat/long into the "Search" field on Google Maps and it pulls up an arrow right on the location.

 

Before you buy a GPS, consider your cell phone use in the next year or so. Any chance you'll be getting a smart-phone? We got Droids for business reasons, and rendered our GPS obsolete - good thing we had just soldered the old one's antenna back on and not sprung for a new one!

 

Also consider your car GPS use. A friend has a mid-range Garmin car GPS, and I used it when I visited her in Seattle without my GPS (pre-Droid). Many car GPS (but not all - check before you buy) have the ability to use them outside the car, especially if you don't kill the rechargeable battery by keeping them plugged in all the time for months/years on end. You'll need a way to enter lat/long coordinates, and a compass feature.

 

Welcome! Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself! We sure are!!

[+Brooklyn51]

Geocaching is a blast! Welcome to the sport. After we learned about geocaching and started using this site, we were kind of amazed by how many caches we had just been walking blissfully by before without a clue that anything was hidden there. Now, of course, whenever we're out and about, we think about what a great place that hollow tree or that out-of-way park would be to hide a cache or wonder if there's one behind that rock.

[Lissus]

thank you for the warm welcome everybody. this is very challenging to say the least, and yep i may have to break down and buy a gps, but im cheap so i will look around. looking forward to my next find!

 

It's a bit more challenging, but it is possible to hunt for geocaches without a GPS. As I stated in another thread, I'm broke right now, saving up for the iPhone4, but currently my phone is a 1st generation iPhone (no GPS at all).

 

What I do is look on the site for caches I might want to find in areas that I'm already somewhat familiar with, paste the coordinates into Google Earth and zero in on the location virtually, before heading out the door to actually hunt for them. That way I can view where I'm headed, before aimlessly wandering around once I'm there hoping to pick the right spot.

 

It's a bit more time consuming, and sometimes frustrating, BUT... it is possible. (and until I can afford to upgrade my phone or run across a really good deal on a GPS.. I'm working with what I've got)

 

Good luck. I'm a newbie too just getting hooked on this wonderful hobby, and on a real upnote..... it's been helping me get really motivated to quit smoking so that I can use that money to upgrade my phone (or buy a GPS) just so I can feed this addiction instead.

 

Have fun!

[hoosier guy]

Found our first cache w/o a GPSr. It was in an area I hiked frequently and the CO mentioned a landmark so we walked right to it. Looks like you have gotten some good advice from our fellow cachers so I won't pile it on. But welcome to the hobby and hope all is well with you and yours.