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Why did you start caching?


EnderBoy

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Most of the geocachers are living in certain areas, mostly in the bigger cities (In sweden - Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö). That means of course that most of the caches are located in those areas aswell. I'm curious about how you came to start with geocaching and what can we do to spread the word about this wonderful sport. I first heard about it 'cause of HakanA's article in Wermlands folkblad. Thank you, Håkan. icon_smile.gif

 

~*Actl labores jucundi*~

Edited by Tahu Nuva
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I 1st read about it May 2002 and got lready interested, but forgot about it until my local newspaper published another article about it last September or October. I checked if there was any caches where I live, and since there was, I looked for one without GPSr. After finding it I just had to order a GPSr from the USA and here I am now.icon_smile.gif

 

- All you need is a sick mind and a healthy body. -

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My co-worker told me about geocaching while we had a meeting in Suomenlinna (in Helsinki) last summer. He had a GPSr and we tried to find one cache there (not very seriously - just testing the system), with no success. Anyway, i got intrested in this sport and after few weeks i tried to find Pirunlinna cache with my family and without GPSr. Well it was too difficult, so i borrowed the Magellan GPS12 from my father in law. So it started, my father in law gave the device for me and later i bought a better one (Garmin eTrex Venture). Now, after 7 months, we have found 103 and hidden 17 caches.

 

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I first saw a story in a local newspaper and thought that could be fun.

Later when I bought a GPS and was surfing for some advise on it I found the geocaching web site and here I am thinking which one should be abandoned:

Working (Then I'll have to buy an internet connection to home)

Family (Who would feed me and pay the mortgage if not my wife?)

Geocaching (?icon_redface.gif?)

 

Just kidding - I'd never stop cachingicon_biggrin.gif

 

Errare humanum ets.

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I bought my first GPS Etrex Legend because I travel a lot when I'm doing my work. It helped me a lot in new places when I was trying to locate hotels, customers and airports. Then I used it when I went fishing...

 

Once I was donwloading new firmware for it from garmin website, I noticed that in new software there was added symbols for geocachers. I got interested because it was first time in my life I saw that word and found caching website. I registered immediately but it took me some time before I found my first cache.

 

My first cache was found from Minnesota... there was lot's of those but I had only one weekend and it was really cold one. Next time I'll go to USA I know for sure what I will do at weekends if I don't have work to do. Before geocaching there was not too much to do because I'm not a type that likes to go shopping...

 

- Eltsu

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As many others, I also read a small newspaper article about the hobby ca a year ago.

The threshold to try was low, as my dad owned a GPSr already then. The first hurried attempt to find a cache didn't succeed, because I didn't have any idea that I should use some specific datum and then let the whole thing sleep for some months. But then I got to know about the necessity of WGS84 and that's where it then started properly. Later I've then bought a GPSr of my own and dad keeps caching with his. :D

 

But even if many of us have got to know about the hobby via a newspaper, it doesn't always seem to be such an effective way for recruiting. I was interviewed together with an other cacher later for an article, but on the area where the newspaper appears, only very few people seemed to get really interested (I got 1-2 new visitors to my local caches after the article was published...).

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I heard about geocaching from radio while I was travelling in a bus. That was in June 2002. Because I already owned a GPSr, and there was one cache in the area where I live, I decided to give it a try. I found the cache, but because there was no other caches anywhere near at the time, and the one cache was not placed by anyone living nearby, I left the hobby to sleep. After a year, I took a look at the geocaching site, and found out that many new caches had been placed near where I live, and started the hobby again.

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Harri red from some newspaper about geocaching in summer 2002 and checked the geocaching site. We don't know why we didn't start geocaching already then, maybe there wasn't so many geocaches in Finland yet.

 

Harri visited in geocaching.com again in May 2003 and noticed that there was a cache very near the place where we live. So one morning Harri left for the first hunt (Pyynikki Ridge) and was hooked immediately. At that time he couldn't really explain the greatness of this hobby to Kirsi. But when we went together for a hike to Nässynranta-cache, Kirsi was thrilled to find the cache :D and realized that geocaching is a great hobby :( . After that we have been caching together and Harjus means H&K.

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I found out about geocaching by accident. I placed a counter on my homepage and I went to check how high my site was on the top100 list. There was a link to a site with word 'geokätköily' (=geocaching) in it. I had never heard about such a thing before, so I decided to follow the link. I ended up to a site from Jyrki and Sari. They had written such an interesting story about their hobby that I had to try it out myself. Two hours later I had already found my first cache ;) . I have to thank Jyrki and Sari for introducing this wonderful hobby to me - thanks! :huh:

Edited by gemmatic
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After that we have been caching together and Harjus means H&K.

My colleague told me about geocaching during a lunch hour at summer 2002. From that situation I mainly remember the amusement of the lady having lunch with us. She was very amused about the idea "engineers in the forest: GPS and computers". We had later discussions about the topic and the idea started to seduce me so much I finally decided to try. And here I am.

 

When I signed in I was to use pseudonym "epl" (initals of my name) but either that was already reserved or I made some mistake - anyway it was not accepted so I had to "buy some vowels" and extend myself to "epeli". It would be nice to know how other cachers have created their pseudonyms - please tell if it does not jeopardize your personality too much.

Edited by epeli
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I read about geocaching in a Norwegian paper last summer. I was on fire immediatly, but since I am not a dedicated shopper at all, I spent most of the winter reading cachepages and forums and planning my own first caches. With no car and no caches nearby this seemed to be the only way of starting geocaching. I finally bought my GPS early in the spring and started placing the caches.

My caches gets visitors but still noone else places caches in my area.

 

I do read in the forums that a lot of people thinks it should be forbidden to place caches before you have found a lot of them. Who knows when I would be able to start geocaching if I didn't place them myself! With some common sence and good advice from rewiever and fellow cachers(still only in the forums), I think the caches are quite allright and I'm ready to spread the word about the sport. After placing a cache with my fourth graders (who are also going to send a travelbug to visit an american class of third graders in Ohio), it seems like some of the parents will take up the sport :huh:.

If not, I will soon have to make a call to the local paper.

 

:blink:

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I think this all started to realise last fall.

 

I had read about Geocaching much earlier and I used GPS year before on the trip to Lapland. No Geocaching on that trip though because GPS was slow and so on... Idea was anyway somewhere in my unconsious mind. Also the GPS was borrowed from my dad. I think it was spring of 2003 when he made a little trade and got himself Magellan Meridian. That was a big step!

 

Now when I had a good GPS in my hand this Geocaching came to my mind again. I talked about to my team mate, but idea didn't realise. At the fall of 2003 we were on the trip looking autumn colours. Somehow at the last day we decided to hide a cache. No idea what was a proper way to do it, but we did it anyhow. I registered us to Geocaching.com and added cache on the site. Next we waited whole winter and almost whole spring 2004. We didn't pay much attention to Geocaching and finally at late April I got message that our cache was found. That was the kick we needed and rest is history! ;)

 

BIG thanks goes to Harjus, because you found our first cache!!! :D

 

***M@TeamMH

Edited by TeamMH
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First a friend of mine (he wasn't and still isn't geocacher) told me about crasy sport called "geocaching" and how someone hides a box and others tries to look for it using GPS devices... how silly did it sound when I first heard about it ;)

 

Little later I was looking info and reviews about GPS devices from internet and got to geocaching pages. Finaly I ended up to Team Hapenottokerho's homepages and read about their geocaching "adventures". :D And that was it, THOK's pages had a big incluence for me starting geocaching.

 

After finding couple quality caches hidden by Knea I just had to search for more.

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I do not remember exactly when, early 2004 I think, but I just found myself reading the GC.com pages again until I was ready to search for the first cache ( DNF ofcourse, and still is , today 'temp. unailable'). I did not read any news or articles to guide me to GC pages, found by accident !! ???????????

I have had a GPSr since Aug 2002, useless until Geocaching !!

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