How Do You Explain Geocaching to New People?

[+hamsterdude10]

Okay, we’ve all been there—someone sees you crawling under a bench or poking around in the woods and asks, “What are you doing?”

 

So here’s the question: How do YOU explain geocaching to someone who’s never heard of it?

 

Do you give the short version? (“It’s like a treasure hunt using GPS.”)

 

Go into the full hobby breakdown?

 

Or just smile awkwardly and say “Looking for something…”?

 

 

Bonus points if:

 

You’ve come up with a clever way to explain it that actually gets people interested

 

You’ve had a really funny or weird interaction while trying to explain it

 

You managed to recruit someone into geocaching on the spot!

 

 

Let’s hear your go-to explanations—and your best (or worst) attempts at describing our favorite hobby.

[+kunarion]

Even when people insist they never heard of it, I simply say “it's a hobby where you use a GPS to hunt for hidden items”, and then they say “Oh, yeah, [so-and-so that I know] does that”. And they resist further elaboration.

 

I have a laminated business card which I've handed to land owners, and once to a Sheriff who had watched me walk onto the woods and walk back out. And I explained that he will also see whole families do the same.

 

But some people won't understand. I hunted for a Micro at a dead end in town, where the road ends for some reason instead of joining the intersection. Houses on both sides of the roads in that neighborhood. I was about to leave, when an elderly gentleman squared up on the street, and shouted, “Hey, what ya'll doin over there!”

 

Me: “Geocaching, it's a hobby where you use a GPS to hunt-”

 

He: “Geo WHATS-IT?!”

 

Me: “Geocaching.”

 

He: “Geo WHATS-IT?!”

 

Me: There's a tiny container to find at this sign post. It's a hobby. I try to find an item.

 

He: Ah. We get a lot of youths hanging around doing drugs.

 

Me: “Nope, I'm Geocaching.”

 

He: “Geo WHATS-IT?!”

 

Fortunately, he backed off, and I was allowed to leave. That cache got archived. I hardly ever hunt trashy little Micros in neighborhood settings anymore, specifically because everyone and his SWAT Team gets on my case if I attempt one.

 

If it's a spot where I need to "explain Geocaching" to someone's satisfaction in order to be allowed to pass, I likely won't put myself into the situation of needing to explain it.

 

 

Edited May 18 by kunarion

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, hamsterdude10 said:

Do you give the short version? (“It’s like a treasure hunt using GPS.”)

I specifically avoid using the term "treasure hunt" when I describe geocaching. I prefer terms like "scavenger hunt" or "hide and seek" that don't imply that geocaches contain anything with any real (monetary) value.

[+Wanderschuler]

Once I told a questioning muggle it was like Pokemon Go (a game on your smartphone), and that analogy satisfied them. Otherwise most people have at least heard of geocaching from a friend of a friend.

[+barefootjeff]

A couple of years ago I was doing a tree-fishing cache alongside a bike path through bushland near Newcastle. Just as I'd hooked the cache and was lowering it down, a muggle walking his dog asked me what I was doing. Not wanting to go into the intricacies of geocaching, I just said "Tree fishing" and showed him the hook on my pole and the hooped cache.

"What do you do with it after you've hooked it?" he asked.
"There's a log inside you sign to show that you got it."
"Cool, that's like geocaching, isn't it?"

[+Hynz]

11 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

"Cool, that's like geocaching, isn't it?"

Well, no, using a long pole to grab a pet-preform attached high above a tree is only a degenerated deviation of geocaching.

<SCNR>

[+HHL]

2 hours ago, Hynz said:

Well, no, using a long pole to grab a pet-preform attached high above a tree is only a degenerated deviation of geocaching.

You're right.

But that wasn't the TO's question. Hast Du grade Langeweile?

Edited May 19 by HHL

[+cerberus1]

On 5/18/2025 at 11:47 AM, hamsterdude10 said:

Okay, we’ve all been there—someone sees you crawling under a bench or poking around in the woods and asks, “What are you doing?”

So here’s the question: How do YOU explain geocaching to someone who’s never heard of it?

Do you give the short version? (“It’s like a treasure hunt using GPS.”)

 

This hobby is not like a treasure hunt.  Anyone who's lost Trackables (Geocoins mostly) realizes "treasure hunt" might be a reason.

Kids enter the hobby with their sorta-smartphones, one weekend and done, and finding Mcmeal junk. take that shiny coin as the prize...

This hobby used to be called the "Language of Location".  It fits...

[+barefootjeff]

On 5/19/2025 at 7:57 PM, Hynz said:

Well, no, using a long pole to grab a pet-preform attached high above a tree is only a degenerated deviation of geocaching.

<SCNR>

 

Sorry, I didn't realise tree-fishing hides were so despised. For the record, the one in question isn't a pet preform (I don't recall any I've done that were), it's a rugged 3D-printed container-within-a-container construction, with 16 FPs from 33 finds in the two years since publication. I'd much rather something like that than the ubiquitous (around here) rusty mint tin with its equally ubiquitous tattered and soggy log scraps inside.