Geocaching - A Family Friendly Treasure Hunt

Patch reader Carol Pelosi emailed me after my last article on budget friendly fitness activities for families to suggest that Geocaching would be a fun and inexpensive way for families to enjoy some outdoors time. 

I'd heard a little about Geocaching, but my knowledge extended only as far as knowing it was a treasure hunting game. I had no idea how to go about finding out where to start hunting, what to look for or what to do when I found it.

Luckily, Carol is a Geocaching enthusiast and was willing to spend an hour speaking with me about the process.  She explained how to join the game at the Geocaching site, how to find caches in my area by clicking on the Hide & Seek a Cache Link on the left side of the screen and how to go about logging my find after the hunt. 

In College Park, the Hide and Seek link shows over 50 caches.  Carol explained that I could either buy a handheld GPS, or just use my iPhone. Since I wasn’t sure what I would think about Geocaching I decided not to spend any money and go with the iPhone. 

Though Carol offered to take me out and show me the ropes, I did my normal “fly by the seat of your pants” routine and headed out the door with my iPhone and a pen for signing the log I was to find inside the cache.

While having Carol along to guide me would have made my first three experiences more enjoyable, by not taking her along I now have a list of hard learned lessons for anyone considering trying Geocaching for the first time.

1. Experienced Geocachers can find several caches in a couple of hours.  An inexperienced Geocacher could spend hours roaming the woods looking for treasure only to leave frustrated by her failure.
2. It takes time to find a cache in the beginning. Patience is key.  My first two attempts were failures because I tried to fit a little treasure hunting in between appointments.  The third time, which was a success, I had the whole afternoon and was committed to enjoying the experience.
3. Geocaching is definitely a game but it isn’t a joke.  The third time I went into the woods I knew I could be out there a while, but since I wasn’t thinking of it in the same way as I do going for a run or a hike, I didn’t go prepared. I had my iPhone and my pen to sign the log but no water or food for a long day in the woods. That was a mistake.  By the time we found our way back to the car my daughter and I were both in need of water, and any longer would have found us in need of food as well.
4. The cache is not necessarily going to be hidden under something.  It could be inside a tree trunk, inside a lamppost or up in a tree.  On the website and on the iPhone app there are logs that record the experiences others had when looking for a particular cache. They may contain spoilers that could potentially ruin the fun, but after spending three hours searching for our cache, I was willing to take that risk. The hint I was given was that they had to stand on something to find it.  Since we had followed the GPS to within 25 feet of our cache, my daughter and I spent the next ten minutes standing on everything we could possibly stand on until suddeny, Meg shouted, “I found it.”  The hint was perfect, giving us a little insight without making it too easy.
5. And finally the biggest and most important lesson we learned on our first trips out as Geocachers - know where you parked your car.  We may have spent as much time looking for our car as we did hunting for the treasure.  Because we were wandering aimlessly through the woods, not following a path and not really paying attention to our route, we realized after finding the cache that we had no idea which direction we had taken into the woods. 

Our first hunts were definitely interesting.  We found ourselves flustered and frustrated but the minute we found the cache, my daughter and I looked at each other and asked, “Should we find another one?” 

The excitement of finding our first cache has left us planning.  When will we go again?  How can we incorporate this into our vacation or even into our everyday lives?

In addition to enjoying the time in the woods and the time spent with my daughter, I enjoyed the fact that doing Geocaching adds a little extra fitness to our lives.  Clambering over downed trees and pushing through brush, my daughter and I discovered we had walked well over three miles.  We had jumped, hopped and walked our way through an afternoon without once thinking it was work.