Geocaching: How It All Started For You?!

[+The Jester]

Way back in history (April 2001) there was a short blurb in 'Backpacker' about Letterboxing and Geocaching. I already had a Garmin 12 and thought it sounded interesting. There was a cache on one of my standard training hikes, so I tried it the next time I was there. The rest is (more) history...

[+TexTrex]

My son, a few friends, and I go on ATV trips yearly in SE OK. The second trip there, we got a little lost, and got frustrated with the maps and the lack of road markers. Once we returned to civilization, I decided to research GPSr's to prevent having that occur again. When I first looked around, I decided it was too expensive. This year I finally had enough money to buy a GPS and went searching on the internet. I ran across this website and the forums and was hooked. Geocaching helped me learn how to use my GPS before I had to rely on it to get me from way out in the woods, back to my truck when riding ATV's. Now I often leave it in the car all the time just to play with, check my speed and distance, and have it handy for when the urge hits to go searching for treasure.

[+sept1c_tank]

This log chronicles one account (in the words of Quiddler, who introduced me to caching), and this is my log on that same first cache.

[+Nero]

im a ham radio operator and bought a gps for APRS, was setting up my station and reading about gps' and such and found some links about geocaching, i opened the page and hid it in the background to read about it later. and when i was looking at my stations position in acme mapper (a link i got from findu.com) on the bottom of that page it says find nearby geocaches. so i clicked it and began readuing all about it and was really interested, but went to sleep as usual at around 1-2am, in tje morning qafter i got up i checked for caches near me, plugged in the coords for one and went and found it before work. i was hooked.

 

told everyone i know about it and strangely enough no one else has seemed interested. wife tries to be not interested, but does get into some hunts with me. kids love it, they get stuff. lol

[+reveritt]

I was doing a Google search for "Weetamoo Woods", hoping to find an on-line trail map for my favorite local hiking venue. What I found instead was a cache listing. Looked pretty interesting, so I went to the main page and started reading.

 

I was amazed to find out that this sport was going un right under my nose, and that there were two caches within walking distance of my house! I already had a GPS for sailing, so I headed for the nearest park. I had my first find in less than an hour after first reading about geocaching, and my second find later that day.

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

We made several "WANTED" posters with a friends family picture on them & went to several remote telephone poles & one corral & stapled them up. We gave the coordinates to our friends & told them that if they wanted the posters down they would have to go find them. (don,t think they really thought it was as funny as we did).

 

We also took a commemorative stamp & buried it in a real neat spot for a one time find by a rock hounding club.....no one ever offered to hide anything for us to go find though....

 

So, when an aquaintance at work told John about a site on the internet that we could get waypoints to go find something....we got hooked. It was "Geocaching.Com".

 

Boy, how our lives have changed.

 

Shirley~

[+Scruffster]

A friend living in another city has sent me daily emails consisting of several unusual and humerous news stories for years now. I was reading one of those "odds and ends" emails about a year ago and somewhere between an article on a would be theif that got himself stuck in an exhaust fan and a story about an eel that was kept in a bathub in a Berlin suburb, there was this short description of a new "sport" that was sweeping the world. I really didn't understand the concept of Geocaching and I had no idea what a GPS was but curiosity got the best of me and I did a quick online search.

 

I found through a few local websites that there were hidden caches around the world and some within walking distance from my house. Without a GPS, I decided to hunt a few down with only a map printout. I found one! I found two! At that time I assumed the treasures were static. I didn't know about trading or signing the logbook so I just put them back for the next person. I ran into an avid geocacher when I was looking for treasure #3 and she explained the whole process and introduced me to geocaching.com

 

For the next year I met up with her for a periodic treasure hunt and I relayed the stories of adventure to my friends via email. On my birthday a month ago I received a GPS in the mail from them (one of which was the guy that originally sent me the geocaching article) and in that short month I have become a geocaching nomad, wandering from one park to the other hunting down treasures, signing logbooks and trading items. I wonder if my friends really know that they've opened a pandoras box. 50 finds in a month. I'm addicted.

 

Scruffster.

[IronMaiden]

Well my husband was looking at the geocaching website about a year ago. He thought it looked interesting. We already had a GPS'r that we had found trying to cross the road in Northern California back in 1999.

 

We went to look for a cache near our home. He was already decided on the name of Ironman 114. I thought it was fun so I became, IronMaiden.

 

When I can get out we have alot of fun together geocaching.

[+Two & the Zoo]

We were watching a pbs show (produced in Nashville, TN) called "Tennessee Crossroads". They had a segment on Geocaching featuring some of the members of the Middle TN Geocaching group. At first, I thought they were hunting Geodes. I wasn't paying very close attention until they put it back...and I thought "Why on earth would you hunt Geodes and then put them back?" So I started watching more closely and thought "Hey, this is so cool!". I ran and told my dear hubby that I thought I had found something really cool on tv. We googled it and 30 minutes later went out and found our first cache (without a GPSr). It took 2 weeks for the UPS guy to bring our Etrex. It was 2 weeks of pure agony waiting for the Etrex! We've been hooked ever since!

 

Big Thanks to the Middle TN Geocachers!

 

Two & the Zoo

[gumpy]

My wife bought me a gps unit for Christmas and I wanted it for Hunting/Fishing and I felt that the one she purchased was too expensive so I returned it and got a Garmin etrex Legend. I then quickly found out that it didn't support auto routing and when I returned it the sales man told me about the new Garmin 60cs that will be coming out shortly that did support auto routing, and he asked me if I knew about Geocaching. I said no, and he told me about the Website. (Funny thing is before I knew about Geocaching, I had already plans of testing out the unit by hiding an object and then letting my wife see if she could find it.) I decided to then put a deposit on the unit that was not yet released and checked out the caches in my area. I discovered a couple that I could try out without the Gpsr and quickly got hooked. Needless to say I was probably the first person to get that unit in Manitoba because I constantly nagged him until he gave me my unit before it even hit the shelves. I now use my Gpsr to navigate when I am traveling and for of course Geocaching. I do believe I did use it once for hunting but I was in such a familiar area that it was kind of useless.

[+Camo-crazed]

Actually, I muggled one but read the geocache paper on the way back and decided to put it back, ufortunately I missed by about 100m

[+Baxter-MD]

I wanted to guy a GPS device for hiking and while researching different brands and types I kept finding comments in reviews like, "I use mine primarily for geocaching." Being curious I researched geocaching. And being curious I went to find a cache close to home as soon as I got my GPS. That is all it took.