Very first day!

[jadennis1970]

My son found the app on his phone so we are going to give it a shot. Have been looking for something to bring us closer together hope this works. Its hard to find something for a 17 year old young man to do with his mom. Is there any advice anyone has for us? This really looks like a lot of fun and really excited to start.

[+succotash]

Welcome! Our advice is to start out looking for caches in places you like to be anyway - so you and your son will enjoy the experience no matter what. It is also helpful to look for "regular" sized caches and caches with a difficulty rating of no more than 1 or 2 when you first start. Very small caches, and caches with a high difficulty rating, can be hard to find even for experienced cachers. It's nice to have some success at the beginning! Also, remember that the GPSr/arrow will only get you close. Once you are in the area, start looking around. Sometimes the cache page will have a helpful hint to guide you.

 

Enjoy your time together!

[jadennis1970]

Welcome! Our advice is to start out looking for caches in places you like to be anyway - so you and your son will enjoy the experience no matter what. It is also helpful to look for "regular" sized caches and caches with a difficulty rating of no more than 1 or 2 when you first start. Very small caches, and caches with a high difficulty rating, can be hard to find even for experienced cachers. It's nice to have some success at the beginning! Also, remember that the GPSr/arrow will only get you close. Once you are in the area, start looking around. Sometimes the cache page will have a helpful hint to guide you.

 

Enjoy your time together!

 

Thank you!

[+niraD]

I don't have any suggestions specific to a mother-son team, but here is some general advice that I often offer newcomers:

 

A common recommendation for beginners is to stick with small size, regular size, and large size caches. Until you're more experienced, avoid micro size caches, some of which are smaller than most beginners can imagine (sometimes called "nanos"). Save those for later, after you have some experience.

 

Also, stick with caches that have a difficulty rating of no more than 2 stars . Save the more difficult ones for later. You may also want to choose caches with easy terrain ratings. (The difficulty rating tells you how hard it is to find the cache once you get there. The terrain rating tells you how hard it is to get there.) And it is often best to start with traditional caches, which will be at the published coordinates. Multi-caches or mystery/puzzle caches or other cache types can require more work just to figure out where the container is located.

 

Under ideal conditions, a consumer GPSr will be accurate to about 3m (10'). That applies both to your GPSr, and to the GPSr of the cache owner, so you may find the container 15-20' from ground zero under ideal conditions. Under less than ideal conditions, both GPSr readings can be much less accurate.

 

Go ahead and read the cache's additional hints (if provided), and read the past logs and look at any photos in the cache's image gallery. They may help you understand what you're looking for, and how/where it may be hidden. It may also help to look at some of the cache containers available online. For example, check out the cache containers sold by Groundspeak. Also, take a look at the Pictures - Cool Cache Containers (CCC's) thread in the forums.

[+popokiiti]

Don't forget events, they are great fun where you will meet other local cachers and can ask questions. Just like you did here!

Have fun, and please let us know how you get on.