Collecting Treasures

[+Max and 99]

An excerpt from today's blog post:

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2025/01/celebrate-25-years-of-geocaching/

 

Celebrate 25 years of geocaching

Are you ready to celebrate 25 years of geocaching? Geocaching HQ has been busy preparing for this milestone, and we’re excited that 2025 is finally here! Our team remains focused on the incredible community of geocachers who built the game from the ground up. Like you, we’re still dreaming up creative caching experiences, bringing people together, and getting outside to explore and find the Treasure hidden all around us.

 

In 2025, cachers can look forward to:

 

Treasures: In March, players around the world will start finding digital Treasure when they log qualified caches, adding to the excitement of cache discovery! The ever-evolving game will have a new feature for you to enjoy!

 

And.....

 

Treasures: a new feature on Geocaching.com and the mobile app

Geocaching is often called the world’s largest treasure hunt. As we kick off the 25th year of geocaching, we’re excited to announce a new feature called Treasures!

 

The digital Treasures feature builds on previous limited-time campaigns you might remember, like the clues from Mystery at the Museum, the passport stamps from Wonders of the World, and the magic items in Signal’s Labyrinth. In those cases, digital treasures were temporary and disappeared when the promotion ended.

 

Starting in March 2025, digital Treasures will be a collectible game feature. Geocachers can collect these digital items by finding and logging caches that meet specific criteria set by HQ for each Treasure collection.

 

As the release date approaches, we’ll provide more details about how the feature works, where to find treasures, and how to share feedback. Stay tuned to the blog and newsletter for the latest updates—we can’t wait to share them with you!

Edited January 14 by Max and 99

[+thebruce0]

Personally, I like it.

Lots of blowback out there already about use of developer resources, and other common complaints whenever a new feature is developed - but you know, firstly, there are multiple development departments, so this could be developed without 'taking away' from other essential work; secondly, this is directing attention back to finding geocaches, the real spirit of geocaching. And with an increasing proliferation of small/tiny micro containers out there, this is at least a way to get people out searching for geocaches to still 'find' something, even if it's digital. It's not entering passcodes into an app to claim a "geocache find", eg

 

A couple hurdles I can see though:

* false find logging in order to gather treasures (especially if their locations are pre-known). If not playing for the treasures, it doesn't matter how many someone else or doesn't have, but if you earn them by posting logs, now the 'strategies' some employ could well affect other geocachers

* finding caches only for treasures and skipping out on revelling in physical experiences (like power cachers wanting the smiley instead of enjoying the hike, eg)

eta:

* also, being a game of discovering digital items, those are typically in location-based games that have quickly-recycled 'things' to find or locations to (re)visit, certainly not as long-term as geocache finds in a local area which can quickly be cleared out once found once. Similar effect as now disallowed date-limited challenges between new cachers (with oodles of unfound) and veteran cachers (who may travel great distances for their nearest)

eta:

* another - more potential proliferation of powertrails (love'em or hate'em) by owners who want to provide a smorgasboard of 'qualifying' geocaches to award treasures. I can see 'treasure fields' getting published a massive cache series of varying stats (legit or otherwise) for people to 'mine' for treasures. hm, whether that's good/bad maybe depends who you ask

Edited January 14 by thebruce0

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

* false find logging in order to gather treasures (especially if their locations are pre-known). If not playing for the treasures, it doesn't matter how many someone else or doesn't have, but if you earn them by posting logs, now the 'strategies' some employ could well affect other geocachers

* finding caches only for treasures and skipping out on revelling in physical experiences (like power cachers wanting the smiley instead of enjoying the hike, eg)

eta:

 

Yes, from a CO's perspective those points were the first thing that crossed my mind. I wonder if COs will be able to opt out if they don't want treasures in their caches.

[+garretslarrity]

When I first read the blog post, my initial thoughts were that this sounds redundant with souvenirs and with the summer promotions. Seemed silly to have another digital token. But after listening to Bryan on the HQ Podcast and on Challenge Talk, it's clear that Treasures have the potential to be much more. It sounds like they will mostly be permanent, not too easy, and will have more flexibility. Souvenirs have completely lost all meaning for me as they've become so common and the summer promotions don't excite me either, but I am looking forward to Treasures. Of course how much I actually care for them will come down to how much HQ develops the feature and builds on them, but I'm definitely excited for what they can be. Will they motivate me to go out and find caches more than I already am from Challenge Caches and of their intrinsic pleasure? I wouldn't expect by much, but maybe at the margins.

Edited January 18 by garretslarrity

[+Weber_and_Sons]

Sounds great in march I'm going to Europe! gonna get loads of treasures!

Edited January 18 by Weber_and_Sons
misspelled words

[+Max and 99]

From today's blog post:

The first treasure collections

 

Collection 1: Geocaching origins

This collection pays tribute to geocaching’s beginnings in 2000, when the U.S. government switched off Selective Availability, making GPS technology accessible to civilians.

 

The collection features four Treasures inspired by the early days of the game. To collect these Treasures, you must find and log Traditional Caches.

 

Collection 2: Celebrating 25 years

Once you complete the first collection, you’ll unlock access to the second collection, which celebrates geocaching’s 25th anniversary and the exciting Events planned for 2025.

 

This collection has five Treasures, including a disco ball—also featured in our 25th anniversary design. You can collect these Treasures by finding and logging any type of geocache with a difficulty rating of 1.5 or lower.

[+cerberus1]

I'll be the wet blanket and say I'm not a fan... 

There's numerous threads on "missing" Trackables., and many agreed a lot happened when this became the "world's largest treasure hunt", instead of the "language of location".  The idea that newbs looking for treasure, take that shiny bauble as treasure (or a consolation prize...).

With a couple sites talking treasure hunting, just mentioning Treasure (I feel) is an awful idea with new, especially young, members for a simple location hobby.

[Smilas]

I can't wait for this feature. Most of the caches in my area are boring micros, so it would be fun to have a digital element for finding caches instead of just "Cool I found my 40th bolt cache in my city", and have more excitement. I do wonder what collections they will release first. It will be interesting to see.

[+The_Jumping_Pig]

I was a fan until the collections were announced. Traditional caches? Difficulty 1.5 or below? Those are the most common types of caches... why couldn't it be Mystery caches or caches with a difficulty above 3? It would encourage cachers to find lonely and rarely found caches instead of, well... continuing finding the most common cache types. This is just encouraging more LPH hopping. 

[+JL_HSTRE]

While the various digital promotions like Signal's Labyrinth don't really interest me, the fact that Groundspeak has done variation of this promotion for as many years in a row shows Groundspeak clearly thinks they are having the desired effect on encouraging more geocaching or they wouldn't keep doing them.

[+barefootjeff]

9 hours ago, The_Jumping_Pig said:

I was a fan until the collections were announced. Traditional caches? Difficulty 1.5 or below? Those are the most common types of caches... why couldn't it be Mystery caches or caches with a difficulty above 3? It would encourage cachers to find lonely and rarely found caches instead of, well... continuing finding the most common cache types. This is just encouraging more LPH hopping. 

 

Today I did an 8.4km return hike over moderately steep terrain to hide a new 2/4 mystery cache, which I've just submitted for review. Perhaps I should have read the blog post first and placed a treasurable 1.5/1.5 roadside traditional instead.

[+x7Kevin]

18 hours ago, The_Jumping_Pig said:

I was a fan until the collections were announced. Traditional caches? Difficulty 1.5 or below? Those are the most common types of caches... why couldn't it be Mystery caches or caches with a difficulty above 3? 

 

This wouldn't make sense for the first collection. These collections are permanent, not a promotion. They will be around for years and every new user who signs up will see collection one first. I think of collections like achievements in a game, and collection one is the achievement everyone automatically gets (ex. open the game). 

 

The first two are probably the easiest collections that will ever be made, I think it's safe to say that every other collection coming out will most likely be more difficult/time consuming.

 

I am also curious what percentage of chance there is to find a treasure. I am pretty sure you get a random one in each qualifying cache, but I wonder if there is also the chance to get nothing or if you can get a duplicate treasure which will not count towards the collection? I also love how you have to complete collections in a sequence, so that will make it take a bit longer. Overall, I think this is an amazing feature and I'm excited. 

[+RCH65]

22 hours ago, Smilas said:

...so it would be fun to have a digital element for finding caches instead of just "Cool I found my 40th bolt cache in my city", and have more excitement.

 

Hmmm... and the 41st trivial cache (D<=1.5) will then be more exciting?

[+barefootjeff]

22 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

While the various digital promotions like Signal's Labyrinth don't really interest me, the fact that Groundspeak has done variation of this promotion for as many years in a row shows Groundspeak clearly thinks they are having the desired effect on encouraging more geocaching or they wouldn't keep doing them.

 

When I read that the themes for the first two collections would be "Geocaching origins" and "Celebrating 25 years", I expected the qualifying caches to be related to those themes, perhaps early caches for the first and community celebration events or caches published in 2025 for the second. But no, it's traditionals and D <= 1.5. It makes me wonder what the point of having themes for the collections is, if it's just about finding lots of easy caches.

Edited February 13 by barefootjeff

[+thebruce0]

I think it's important to remember that this feature is really geared towards collectors. Completionists. People who like to find things, and make sure they find all of something if there are groups of them. And if some are more rare than others, than incentive to keep going. Even if you've got 157 pebbles, you still want that super rare crystal gem. It's the whole basis of collectibles in retail.

 

And, if they are going to keep pushing geocaching as a form of 'treasure hunt', I'd rather they push it in the direction of digital treasures than physical, implying treasures are to keep, if they aren't going to strengthen promotion on the scavenger/adventure aspects of geocaching first.  If geocaching is a treasure hunt, then here is where the treasure aspect really has value, redirecting the mentality away from the physical swag keep'ems, which should be trade'ems.

[+r.e.s.t.seekers]

We are trying to figure out how this works.  Do we go find any traditional cache, then any D 1.5 cache?  Or are there specific treasures in each traditional cache, like the gems?  We're looking at cache listings and the map and see nothing different about found or unfound tradional caches.  Or is it that we need to find a specific number of any traditional caches to find the first treasure, and then more to find the next treasure?  We might like to join this hunt, but don't know exactly how.  We're having trouble finding these specifics beyond "tradional" and "D 1.5."

[+CaracalShan]

I have no idea either, do we have to find 4 traditionals to earn the first collection? It all is a bit unclear to me for the moment (it just rolled out), I don't even see the 'D 1.5', only 'Traditional' and 'any size'.

[+Hügh]

26 minutes ago, r.e.s.t.seekers said:

We are trying to figure out how this works.  Do we go find any traditional cache, then any D 1.5 cache?

 

20 minutes ago, CaracalShan said:

I have no idea either, do we have to find 4 traditionals to earn the first collection?

 

For the first collection, you must log any four Traditional caches. (Log them in the website, and after each log, you should see a little notification in the top right -- then visit the Treasures page to see the corresponding Treasure unlocked.)

 

For the second collection, which requires completion of the first, you must find any five <=D1.5 caches.

[+r.e.s.t.seekers]

Quote

For the first collection, you must log any four Traditional caches. (Log them in the website, and after each log, you should see a little notification in the top right -- then visit the Treasures page to see the corresponding Treasure unlocked.)

 

For the second collection, which requires completion of the first, you must find any five <=D1.5 caches.

Thank you!!  It's harder to find these details than any cache.  Is there a time limit?  Days?  Months? 

[+Max and 99]

Got the first one this morning. Three more and then I can start on the next collection. 

[+The A-Team]

4 hours ago, Hügh said:

For the first collection, you must log any four Traditional caches. (Log them in the website, and after each log, you should see a little notification in the top right -- then visit the Treasures page to see the corresponding Treasure unlocked.)

 

For the second collection, which requires completion of the first, you must find any five <=D1.5 caches.

 

Huh, that's not at all how I envisioned it working based on the info they've been putting out. I was expecting something like the Wonders of the World or Mystery at the Museum promotions from a few years ago, such that Treasures would be randomly assigned to caches and you'd need to seek out the right caches to find the four Treasures.

 

Instead, it seems like you aren't really collecting Treasures at all, but are rather just filling a counter to reach a set goal, with a Treasure "collected" at each increment. Therefore, the Treasures are pretty much irrelevant. The whole thing could just be framed as finding X caches to complete a specified goal. The Treasures just seem to confuse matters, and this is much like many of the souvenir promotions they've run in the past.

[+MartyBartfast]

30 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

I was expecting something like the Wonders of the World or Mystery at the Museum promotions from a few years ago, such that Treasures would be randomly assigned to caches and you'd need to seek out the right caches to find the four Treasures.

 

That's what I was expecting too, the way it has been implemented is pretty boring and pointless TBH.

 

[+NanCycle]

On 1/17/2025 at 6:44 PM, garretslarrity said:

Souvenirs have completely lost all meaning for me as they've become so common and the summer promotions don't excite me either, 

My feelings exactly.  We'll see how it goes with the 'treasures."

[+CAVinoGal]

I haven't been paying too much attention to this current "treasure hunt" promo - and now that it has started, I am pretty sure this will be one that I will not expend any extra effort on.  I'll just see what my "normal" geocaching gets me...we'll be on the road the last week of this month and first week of April, so caching will be happening.  And our local group is having an event tomorrow night, and I'm sure it will be a discussion topic.  I'll see what others in this area are thinking!

[+Max and 99]

A friend got a different one for his first treasure. He got GPS receiver. 

And I just realized you can get more than one of each treasure. 

So now! 

Original Stash

GPS

Big Blue Switch

Satellite

Edited March 17 by Max and 99

[+MamaHoof]

I found a traditional cache today but did not receive a treasure. Are the treasures not in every traditional cache?

[+Max and 99]

1 minute ago, MamaHoof said:

I found a traditional cache today but did not receive a treasure. Are the treasures not in every traditional cache?

I've mostly been finding mysteries today so I'm not sure if it's in every traditional. But I think I've got a treasure in the last three traditionals I found. It's been hard for me to keep track and I wish I had done better.

[+Max and 99]

I just checked and I found four traditionals today and got all four of the first collection of treasures. Maybe I just got really lucky! 

Edit: just logged my fifth traditional of the day and I now have five treasures. 

Edited March 17 by Max and 99

[+Team DEMP]

5 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

 

That's what I was expecting too, the way it has been implemented is pretty boring and pointless TBH.

 

It took away from all the podcasts that Bryan was on that it would start exactly as it has. And he said that over time they will be able to configure Treasures to support what the other promotions were able to provide, as well as more.  
 

[+Max and 99]

Okay, I got another treasure by logging a 1 T virtual.. but what surprises me is that I've gotten a treasure for every single geocache that I found that at the time met that collection's criteria. 7/9

Edited March 18 by Max and 99

[+The A-Team]

27 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

I just checked and I found four traditionals today and got all four of the first collection of treasures. Maybe I just got really lucky! 

Edit: just logged my fifth traditional of the day and I now have five treasures. 

 

See Hügh's post above. It sounds like you were expecting the same thing that I was, with different Treasures available in each cache and you'd need to get lucky or target specific caches. Instead, all you needed to do was find 4 caches that met the criteria for the first collection (Traditional) in order to complete that one. Then, since you unlocked the second collection, one of the later caches you found must have met the criteria for that one (D <= 1.5). That's all there is to it.

 

17 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Okay, I got another treasure by logging a 1 T virtual.. but what surprises me is that I've gotten a treasure for every single geocache that I found that at the time met that collection's criteria.

 

That's odd. Based on the order of your finds on your profile, you should have completed the first collection with Dearly Departed - Elmwood, and then the last two Traditionals and the Virtual should have all counted toward the second collection, since they were all D <= 1.5. It seems like only two of them did based on your screenshot. It isn't unheard of for things to not work quite right at the start of these promotions, so it may just be a teething issue.

[+Max and 99]

I did finish the first collection with Elmwood. And then the two at the Bowie knife both met the criteria for the next collection as well as one of the cemetery after that. Hence seven out of nine. I updated my post but not the photo. That might have been the confusion. 

So far every geocache I have logged today that met the requirement for the collection I was working on gave me a treasure. None retroactively. I found three geocaches after I completed the first collection. All three of those gave me a treasure towards the second collection. 7/9

[+MamaHoof]

1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:

I've mostly been finding mysteries today so I'm not sure if it's in every traditional. But I think I've got a treasure in the last three traditionals I found. It's been hard for me to keep track and I wish I had done better.

Thanks for your reply Max and 99, I've relogged the cache and have received a treasure now so it was probably a timing issue for me (in NZ)

[+Max and 99]

Ok, it worked 100% as predicted. 9/9, knowing which geocaches would qualify to earn a treasure.

Plus, you earn a souvenir for collecting all 9 of the available treasures. 

Edited March 18 by Max and 99

[+Max and 99]

I can see that some upcoming Treasures are going to be much harder to collect!

[+Om_and_Nom]

What kind of outcome is HQ looking for?  I don't think it's going to attract many NEW players - I think the majority will be current players seeing what the new feature is all about.

[+arisoft]

51 minutes ago, Om_and_Nom said:

What kind of outcome is HQ looking for?

 

Some players like to follow some kind of "program" for motivation. It works the same way as challenges do.

[+Om_and_Nom]

54 minutes ago, arisoft said:

 

Some players like to follow some kind of "program" for motivation. It works the same way as challenges do.

Oh sure, I understand that.  Just trying to think what benefit this gives HQ.  My mind goes towards, "how does this drive more premium memberships", and I'm not sure if it really does.  

[+barefootjeff]

2 hours ago, Om_and_Nom said:

Just trying to think what benefit this gives HQ.  My mind goes towards, "how does this drive more premium memberships", and I'm not sure if it really does.  

 

Perhaps they're looking at all the app-only players who sign up through the Google or Apple app stores with a monthly premium membership, then find a few dozen caches before deciding it's all too ho-hum, dropping out and moving on to the next phone-based game that grabs their attention. I'm not sure if digital trinkets will solve this though.

[+arisoft]

7 hours ago, Om_and_Nom said:

Oh sure, I understand that.  Just trying to think what benefit this gives HQ.

 

Some of those players who need motivation may continue playing because of the "program" and pays the Premium a bit longer. The benefit versus cost may be positive or at least it may give back valuable statistical information.

 

This new game, at least for me, caused me to switch to using the new dashboard. It seems to have evolved enough to meet my own needs.

[+CaracalShan]

I just noticed (after logging a mystery-cache) that the 2 new Treasure-collections for April are already live. Nothing too crazy, but it will probably take a bit more time than the first 2 (although it would be easy to finish them quick if I did some effort, but since it seems there is no time-limit, I'm not in a hurry to complete them).

[+barefootjeff]

Quote

Navigational tools
This collection celebrates the tools that explorers have used to navigate the world. The collection features fiveTreasures ranging from an astrolabe to a map.

You can collect these Treasures by finding and logging any Traditional geocache with a difficulty rating of 2 or higher, and a terrain rating of 1.5 or lower.

 

Yep, there are too many people doing those nasty high-terrain caches so we need to make sure they turn their attention back to all the needle-in-a-haystack urban micros.

[Nylimb]

What happens when I find a cache that qualifies for 2 or more treasure collections that I haven't completed?  Does it apply to both, or can I choose which one to use it for, or will the software pick one somehow?

 

For example, the Navigational Tools collection requires finding a traditional cache with difficulty 2 or more, and terrain 1.5 or less.  But such a cache would also qualify for one of the Egg Hunt treasures.

Edited April 4 by Nylimb

[+Max and 99]

You definitely don't get to pick yourself! From what I've heard, the system just picks one of the treasures that the geocache qualifies for. 

Of course it would only pick a treasure from a collection that is unlocked for you currently (as some are locked until you complete previous ones). 

[+Hügh]

It also turns out that if you find a cache, post a Found It (and earn a Treasure as a result), delete the log, and then re-post the same Found It log, you lose the Treasure and don't earn it back. I'm not sure why it's not deterministic that way (ie. if I found GCX and earned a Treasure, deleting and re-logging GCX should re-earn me that Treasure; whereas if logging GCX didn't earn me a Treasure, deleting and re-logging GCX should not earn me a Treasure.)

 

I didn't earn Treasure on some (but not all) of my logs on 1 April, so I deleted them all and re-posted them. Now, the Treasures that initially worked are gone, and the Treasures that didn't initially work do appear.

Edited April 4 by Hügh

[Nylimb]

8 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

You definitely don't get to pick yourself! From what I've heard, the system just picks one of the treasures that the geocache qualifies for.

Too bad.  I doubt that I'll ever finish the Egg Hunt collection, so I hope that my next 5 finds will get applied to the Navigational Tools collection instead.

[+Max and 99]

4 hours ago, Nylimb said:

Too bad.  I doubt that I'll ever finish the Egg Hunt collection, so I hope that my next 5 finds will get applied to the Navigational Tools collection instead.

I'm just stating what I have gathered from both my experience and those of others I've talked to about treasures. 

I've heard from multiple sources about someone logging the same cache as someone else and getting a different treasure, but we have not figured out how it determines which treasure to award. It seems to be random. You have a 50/50 chance of getting the egg or the navigational tool treasure for that traditional cache. Good luck!

[+elrojo14]

On 4/4/2025 at 5:38 AM, Hügh said:

It also turns out that if you find a cache, post a Found It (and earn a Treasure as a result), delete the log, and then re-post the same Found It log, you lose the Treasure and don't earn it back. I'm not sure why it's not deterministic that way (ie. if I found GCX and earned a Treasure, deleting and re-logging GCX should re-earn me that Treasure; whereas if logging GCX didn't earn me a Treasure, deleting and re-logging GCX should not earn me a Treasure.)

 

I didn't earn Treasure on some (but not all) of my logs on 1 April, so I deleted them all and re-posted them. Now, the Treasures that initially worked are gone, and the Treasures that didn't initially work do appear.

I saw that last month too. Not the end of my world, but yeah. 

 

More importantly. I just found two caches that should have given me a treasure each and nothing(https://coord.info/GC8XN76 & https://coord.info/GCB16ZM). I am using drafts. I am going to try my next one without drafts and see what happens. 

 

Logging it not from drafts did not change anything. However, one of the caches I logged earlier this morning just popped up. I think it is on a delay for some reason. Strange. 

[+CaracalShan]

Today I noticed that attending a CITO doesn't award you the 'event'-egg (although the descriptions says 'any event', and a CITO is a type of event...). The event after the CITO we attended did award us the 'event'-egg.

[+Max and 99]

18 minutes ago, CaracalShan said:

Today I noticed that attending a CITO doesn't award you the 'event'-egg (although the descriptions says 'any event', and a CITO is a type of event...). The event after the CITO we attended did award us the 'event'-egg.

Collect by attending any regular Event Cache

(From the blog)

 

I know it doesn't specify in the app, but the blog states it must be a regular event cash.