Geocaching 101 A Guide For Beginners

Geocaching, you may be asking what on earth is geocaching?  Or maybe you are already one of the enlightened few who know. I once saw a t-shirt on a geocaching website that defined it as "using multimillion dollar satellites to find tupperware in the woods". That does pretty much sum up the basics however, there are a lot of guidelines, tips, and courtesies that you should follow when geocaching.

Pictured below is the geocaching symbol, I do not own it, all rights reserved to oregonparks.org. 

This activity can be entirely free if you are determined enough. If you have a data phone chances are you already have a GPS. Most phones use phone towers to track your movement and that can be used to find the coordinates necessary to find a cache. Simple enough, but what is a GPS, what are caches, what are coordinates?

If you don't already know GPS stands for global positioning device and it will help guide you to locations or tell you where you are. Coordinates are a specified series of letters and numbers that are necessary when using a GPS or map to find locations. Did I mention that you can get maps of your local areas from the Forest Service and other places for free? I will get to caches a bit later. So your phone might have a limited GPS, you can use a map, or you could have a Garmin phone like I do(which I got for a penny) that has a real GPS system. By real I mean that it uses actual satellites instead of phone towers which is much more accurate. (There are other phones that use satellites too, I am just not sure which ones exactly) Or maybe you already have a handheld GPS or one for the car. If not older GPS models can often be found on Craigslist or online for very little money.

Pictured below is a Signal the Frog trackable found at  http://shop.geocaching.com/default/trackable-items/trackable-tags/signal-the-frog-travel-tag.html

Ok but what is geocaching? Geocaching is an activity where you find objects with your GPS that someone else has hidden. These caches can be any size, shape, and contain a myriad of different items or possibly no items at all. Its basically a giant scavenger hunt that covers just about every country on Earth.

So why would you possibly want to do that? Well its exciting; a massive treasure hunt with as many caches as you could possibly ever want to find! You can find and exchange treasures inside of the caches, track certain items from cache to cache, and its great exercise. Picture below is my Garmin handheld gps which does happen to be upside down, a travel bug, and a cachekinz. The travel bug and cache kinz have numbers on the back that allow them to be logged into different caches and can be kept track of to find out where they are, where they have been, and how long they have been there.

In order to geocache you will need to sign up with a site that lists caches with coordinates to find. The best one is geocaching.com and its absolutely free to sign up. Another great option is http://www.opencaching.us/ with is also free. Once you have your account you can see local geocaches in your area and also search for caches all over the world. I like to find caches along the way and in the places that I vacation at. After that you will need a map or GPS of some kind. Enter the coordinates and follow them to the cache. These will be hidden and some are harder to find than others. They each have ratings of how hard they are to find and how rough the terrain is so pay attention or you might be going on a surprise hike. Always read the cache description first to make sure its appropriate for you and your families needs. Yes there are even handicap accessible geocaches.

Pictured below is an ammo can.

Caches as I have said before can be any size. Some examples of geocaches are ammo cans, lock and lock containers, pill containers, soda preforms, prescription bottles, old spice jars, and many many other things. Caches should always be water proof, mostly rust proof, and never have sharp edges or be anywhere dangerous. Caches also often contain fun things to trade. This is called swag and you could either use some of those awesome samples that you are getting, maybe things you already have, make things yourself or spend little amounts of money on some cool stuff. Geocaching does have some rules and some of the most important are: Always put the cache back where you found it, never steal a geocache, never put food in a geocache, never put anything sharp or anything flammable in a cache, and always trade for something of equal value or trade up as in put something more valuable in than what you took. This helps keep the game fun for everyone and encourages caches to have better and more awesome stuff.
The contents of my swag bag pictures below

Examples of good swag: foreign coins, home made crafts, cheap jewelry, souvenirs, flash lights, stickers, mini tools, toys for kids, first aid stuff, novelty items, pens, pencils, compasses, anything that someone might like.

Examples of things you should NOT leave in a geocache: bells, googly eyes, rocks unless they are awesome or have fossils or something, trash, material not suitable for children, offensive material, advertisements, anything dangerous, so no knives, guns, drugs etc, anything illegal, no fuel, matches, or flammable items. No junk or stuff that no one will ever remove from the cache, no broken stuff, no coupons, and most importantly no animals alive or dead. Believe me people find weird stuff all of the time so its best practice to just remove the trash and put nice stuff back in.

Other items you will want with you when geocaching are a pen or pencil to write in the log. There are logs in every geocache. These help the owner of the cache to track who has come to the cache, when, and possibly what they traded. Always sign the cache because they do check and when you go to log them online they might take your log down. Its handy to carry a multi tool and tweezers these are great for getting the tiny logs out of the micro caches. I will explain micros later. Also bring a  flashlight in case it gets dark or for shining into dark places is also a good idea. Bandaids in case you get a scrape, extra pens to leave in logs that are without, possibly extra log paper and plastic ziplocs for caches that have water damage, and your camera. Geocaches are often in really beautiful areas and its always fun to get to take pictures of new places. It is very important to remember to bring extra batteries for your GPS. Otherwise you will be wandering around the woods, possibly lost, and you definitely won't find any caches. The GPS will lead you to the general area of the cache but its up to you to search the area thoroughly. Look for anything out of place like rock piles or often times there are pieces of wood on top of a cache or the cache will be wedged into something. Sometimes you will catch a glimpse of plastic under all of the camouflage. Be creative and ask yourself where you would hide it and most of the time that is exactly where you will find it.

 Top of the ammo can.
So why should you start geocaching? Its fun and relatively cheap. It is a great way to get exercise, often times you can just walk out your front door(if you live in town) and geocache on foot. Or driving out somewhere to take a nice walk or hike will definitely keep you and your family healthy and active. Its rewarding when you are the first to spot a geocache and then you get bragging rights until someone else finds the next one. You get to find cool items and leave fun things for other people to find. The best part is You Can Hide One Too!!

 Camo duct tape for disguising caches

All you need is a safe, water proof container such as the ones I have listed or another approved cache containers.  It will also require some swag, a log, and a pen or maybe just a log in some cases. Here is how you do it: Select a cache location that is at least .1 of a mile away from the nearest cache, it is not allowed to be any closer. Pick a safe location so not near railroad tracks, construction sites, ravines, etc. Geocaches are allowed on public lands generally without permission but you should always check and ask permission whenever applicable. If your location is on private property make sure you ask and get permission before planting the geocache.  Then put you cache in its location and start a new cache page on geocaching.com. Select the difficulty in finding it, you will want to hide it fairly well, and then select the terrain difficulty. Also select any applicable buttons such as length of hike if any, whether its handicap accessible, accessible to bikes, whether pets allowed etc. Put in a description, the coordinates, and then wait a few days for approval. Once your cache goes live people will be able to find it and your job will be to maintain it. Maintaining will involve checking your cache periodically to check on its container, replacing the log, and making sure that its still where its supposed to be.

Here are some other things not to go when Geocaching. Do not put geocaches in coffee cans or other cans that will rust, peanut butter jars are iffy, do not use plastic tuppperware from the dollar store or any other plastic container without snap lids. Do not use altoid cans, milk jugs, or other things that will be hard to retrieve the log out of. Don't let people see you find the geocache. You need to try and be stealthy so the geocache will not be stolen or messed with. Try and go to a cache when the area is the least busy and be discreet when removing the cache and signing it. On rare occasions geocachers are sometimes stopped by police and are asked what they are up to. Geocaching is 100 percent legal but sometimes it looks like loitering or you know just suspicious. Always be polite to police officers and tell them what you are up to and why. This should not be a problem for most of you and you will not get in trouble for caching.

Caches are ranked by size on their cache pages. There are micro, small, medium, large, and unknown. Large caches are often called traditional caches or traditional sized. You can search for them based on location, size, and popularity. Also, when you find them and log them on geocaching.com, the cache icon will turn into a cute smiley face. Micro caches are super small ranging from something the size of your thumbnail to a prescription bottle size. These often very difficult to find and only contain a log. Some are magnetic, some I have seen hung from trees or shrubs, and some are just hidden under rocks or grass. Small caches are things like soda preforms, and small tupperware, mediums are usually medium sized tupperware or nalgene bottles, or something similarly sized. Larges are ammo cans, large tupperware, and rarely giant caches like chests, barrels, etc. Unknown could any size but it might not be immediately recognizable as a geocache. These can be very very hard to locate. I have seen caches disguised as pine cones, (I even made one myself), caches that look like wires, solar lights, bolts, hidden in pieces of wood or stumps, disguised as animals, and other myriad super hard to find things. Its considered bad practice to hide caches on or near light posts or any other electrical outlet/station.

Other caches that are listed with a size might also be disguised or camouflaged as we cachers call it. Ammo cans  and tupperware sometimes have camo duct tape on them. Other times there are rocks, sticks, fake mud, fake moss, or even real moss glued or set on top of them. Some are painted to match their surroundings. It can be challenging and even frustrating sometimes but there is nothing better than finally finding that one elusive cache. Good places to hide caches are in parks, somewhere with a nice view, somewhere historical, somewhere involving a hike, a nice area that people might not know about, or somewhere sneaky which could be in full view and no one would ever know unless they knew to look for it. Geocaches are also hidden in downtown areas and in cities. These are mostly micros and are hidden well, so don't despair if you do not live near nature, there are caches for city folk too.

In summary geocaches are fun to find, a great way to get exercise, a fun activity that the whole family can enjoy (kids love it because they get to find treasure), basically free if you already have a gps and a willingness to make cool swag, and you will discover many places whether you live there or not that you never knew existed.

If you liked this post try This one, its funny I promise. 

Disclaimer: I do not speak for or work for geocaching.com all of my opinions in this post are my own as are any errors in information. I do not own the first two images, all rights reserved to oregonparks.org and to geocaching.com Please read the rules and regulations at geocaching.com and browse the forums for any topics you want more information on.  Happy caching!