Not A Game / Hobby But A Lifestyle?

[+5¢]

Found myself once again in this perdicament. I am going to St. Louis this weekend for a trip with my girlfriend, her brother and his girlfriend and the first thing I could think of when it was brought up was......yes you guessed it, wonder if there are any caches by where we will be? Last weekend went to visit my parents and yes the same question popped up. I ask myself this is geocaching a game or is it a lifestyle? I myself say it must be a lifestyle because it takes a large portion of my thinking and life. Just my 2 cents. Any thoughts?

[Azaruk]

Lifestyle.

And a damned good one!

[+JoGPS]

Yep, it’s a lifestyle, big time …………… JOE

[+Doggiewoggie]

A way of life, and an integral part of a happy, meaningful existence.

[+Wildwoods]

Ok I can't hide it any longer I am a Geocacher. I guess I have always known I was a geocacher. I have always felt like a geocacher trapped in the body of a father/husband/reliable employee.

As a young boy when no one else was around I would wander off into the woods looking for tupperware. Back then we didn't have those fancy GPSR things. We had to find our tupperware the old fashioned way, using the compass out of the Cracker Jacks box. You kids have it so easy these days.

The geocacher lifestyle is not a choice I was born one. I married another geocacher 6 years ago. Our friends and families have accepted our lifestyle, they even join us sometimes.

[+Planet]

Who doesn't do it!? I took over three weeks for what could have been a week and a half long trip to take Mom to the hospital for testing in FL, just so I could cache my way down. And that is why I have cached in 16 states now. Pyewacket in SC even offered to put me up for the night, and we had never met. Now we're friends. I stayed at my cousin's in VA, Pyewacket's in SC, a friend's in Savannah, friends in Santa Rosa Beach, Mom's in Nokomis, friends in Punta Gorda, and every single one of them went caching with me and I hit at least two caches in each state. I had to skip MD because of technical difficulites with the car at the beginning of the trip, but that's another story. Suffice it to say the Subaru place on Rte 9 in NY will never want to see my face again!

[+Sputnik 57]

I can quit any time I want to. I just don't want to. (And I missed last night's meeting)

[+Car54]

Wildwoods,

 

That is *too* funny!

[+Wildwoods]

[+PC Painter]

Heh....I'm just starting, but already I can imagine myself doing a LOT more traveling around, just for this reason. I'm usually the one that doesn't go vacationing or traveling much...but this adds just enough interest in it for me, that I'm sure I will. I can see it definitely becoming a lifestyle. I think it'll be one of the greatest ideas I ever discovered, because I can see myself going all over the country at times, and seeing things I just never got around to seeing, before.

[+Renegade Knight]

When I travel I make sure i have the local cache info handy. I may or may not get a chance to do them, but I'm ready. JIC.

[+sept1c_tank]

Have GPS

Will Travel

[+wimseyguy]

That's like asking the choir if they can sing! Of course it's a lifestyle, at least for the regulars and visitors in these parts.

Last month I was online at the gc.com website while my wife was talking to a girlfriend on the phone who invited us to go to Malaysia with her to visit family next spring.

Mrs. WG-"Won't that be a great adventure? Tropical rain forest, exotic scenery and food!"

Me- "Hold on; yup, about 50 caches there, when do we leave?"

 

I was at the doctor's office this morning for my annual. We discussed my habits, and health related issues. Since caching has become my main recreational activity, he ordered me to get out and do it more often, at least 2-3 days a week, not just on Sundays! She can't argue with doctor's orders.

Ain't life grand!

 

Lifestyle, definitly a lifestyle.

[+Milbank]

Have GPS

Will Travel

lol, I like that...

[+Team Tayjam]

Hi, my name's Mark and I'm a geocacher.

 

/12 step reference

[+C&C+COMPANY]

It's becoming more and more a lifestyle for me also.

[Mr. TSP]

Something must be wrong with me, I'm not addicted to caching (yet).

[+Ed Rad]

I say lifestyle/obsession/addiction.... FallenFaery and I have been together "officially" for about a month and we have gone out a fair amount of times but only one time has it been a non-caching "date". Go figure...

Put two cachers together and it's assumed that the weekend activities include caching.

Edited November 12, 2004 by Special Ed

[+greende]

Lifestyle, definitely. I'm getting a haircut tomorrow morning. there is a cache close by and a couple more that I didn't have time to do last weekend. I have them in my Legend and ready to go. Went to Myrtle Beach on vacation and cached. I'm not obscessed but I guess I'm hooked. Happy Caching

[+Ambrosia]

Has there ever been a time when there was no Geocaching?

 

What did I ever do before Geocaching?

 

The world will never look the same again to me.

[+fly46]

I even check areas that I would *like* to travel to to see if there are caches.

 

I'm visiting family for a weekend.

Want to guess what I did today?

[+superpowerdave]

Hobby or lifestyle? Lifestyle, without a doubt.

 

Addict? Hmmm... good question. Addictions are those things that you can do without, you simply choose not too. Geocaching is a necessity for me.

 

Give me some coords and a full tank of gas any day of the week.

[+Katydid & Miles Stone]

I consider it a sport of sorts - a lifestyle for sure. I'm looking forward to a caching-reality TV show we can all be in.... Enjoy the adventure!

[+Lone Duck]

Not a life style for me, I've simply lost interest for the time being. No idea what's behind that either. I decided to drop back into the forums here for the first time in a long time to see if I'm still interested. Perhaps if I find something new going on in geocaching....

[+MountainMudbug]

My significant other thinks my interest in caching/benchmarking is a borderline mental illness.

 

I think he has searchaphobia.

[+carleenp]

My significant other thinks my interest in caching/benchmarking is a borderline mental illness.

 

I think he has searchaphobia.

 

I plan vacations around/for caching, so yes, lifestyle.

[rescue557]

Just my 2 cents. Any thoughts?

Lifestyle. Though a good, healthy adventurous one.

[rebapac]

I think it's both and I'm not stradling the fence on the issue.

Caching is thought consuming, an obsession and enjoyable enough that I spend as much money as I can on it. It's the best of all worlds when life is your hobby and that's what geocaching has become for me. I run the emotional gamut over it.

[+Night Stalker]

I tried to figure out how many states I had cached in, but am not sure. I think it is 13 so far. Is there anywhere we can look to make sure? I hate to admit that my illness has reached the point where I can't remember all the places I have cached.

 

[Mvillian]

well night stalker according to your stats you have cached in 16 states idaho,Utah,Arizona,Montana,Texas,California,Missouri,Oklahoma,Colorodo,Minnesota,Nebraska,Iowa,Illinois,Oregon,New Mexico,Louisianna(event cache) and one moving cache listed in the Ivory coast

[Mvillian]

heres a way to keep track http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedstates

[+LthrWrk]

Ok.. I have only got 30 caches done.. would I say it is a lifestyle.. emmm well of late absolutely 9 out of 10 times I have left the house in the past few weeks has been with GPSr in hand.

 

I find myself promoting geocaching to everyone that says.. what have you been doing lately?

 

Carry the foldover cards and pass em out everychance. When the next SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) season gets underway in the spring will see just how 'addicted' I might be. Will have to think how to make sure to combine the two together.

[+Robespierre]

Me too! I can quit any time I want.

 

I will probably want to wear out my Vista, and then try one or two more styles. I will probably want to get some in-car navigation system like Joe and Shirley have. I might want to get a pda. maybe business cards, oh, and host an event in Crawford County...probably.

[+twqb]

whats all this nonsense talk about? geocaching is everything!!! i do everything in life to cache; i work to support my caching, i shop and spend more time looking for containers then i do actually buying things i need, i relax by going on the internet to look through the forums of www.geocaching.com, when i have free time im daydreaming about caching or about building a cool cache container, and when i go to sleep i dream about caching, the worst part about this is when my fiance asks me what im thinking i tell her nothing even though i know and i think she knows what i am really thinking about, do you?

ps and i have off tomorrow can you guess what i am going to do?

[+SerenityNow]

Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle!!!

 

We don't look for caches around hotels anymore...

 

Nooooooooooo!

 

We look for motels and hotels around caches!

 

[+JohnnyVegas]

How about when you plan a trip to city several hundred miles away just to look for geocaches there. I just heard about a cheap air fare to Las Vegas with two nights hotel included, Now I have to try and get it booked. Maybe that is when it goes beyond a life style, my girl friend says I am obsessed, but she is the one that will needs to be dragged away if we cannot find one.

[+GeoWombats]

We are heading south to catch up with family this Xmas and have a month up our sleeves. I've already checked all the cache pages around the places where the family lives. Have checked out the caches in areas around tourist places I want to visit LOL.

I want to end up on the Top Finders list for that state for December

 

[+Bear_Left]

We must admit to suffering from GAS...

 

Geocaching Addiction Syndrome

 

It means that walks through parks and bushland invariably involve looking into likely-looking treestumps and rocks for cache hidey-holes.

 

We rarely re-visit an area of this lovely land (South Island of New Zealand) until and unless there's a local cacher there who's placed new caches for us to find since our last visit.

 

The staff at the local 'cheapie' shops know us by name.

 

We have more plastic boxes than the local Tupperware warehouse. Better ones, too. Many of them pre-camoed.

 

A fairly local lat and long is almost as recognisable as a suburb or town name.

 

I'm about to fly to Australia to visit Mum for her 80th birthday. She gets about equal time with cache-hunting...

 

For me, caching isn't a life-or-death matter. It's much more important than that!

[+evergreenhiker!]

Lifestyle!!! Though I'm trying not to be so consumed by it anymore. Fishing has re-entered my life thanks to my two months stay in Montana. But Im still going out there almost daily now that Im back in the Seattle area even if it's just for a couple of boxes in the late afternoon.

[+ZackJones]

Lifestyle for certain. I always check out caches whenever someone talks about taking a trip somewhere .

 

Speaking of traveling for caching - can anyone recommend a web site for finding cheap airline tickets? What I'm looking for is a site where I could go look at what's flying out of Atlanta, GA and see what it would cost. I figure that way we could take off for a weekend to some distant town just for caching

 

Zack

[koz]

first thing i do when i hit a new town is to go to the library and get on the net so i can find local caches...in addition to those waypoints i brought w/me