Geocaching

Today we went geocaching for the first time!

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

I had heard about this before but never actually went on a hunt. However last week I found out there are so many of these geocaches and some even within walking distance of our house!

This morning we found our first one. It only contained a log sheet but the girls (and me) had a lot of fun hunting it down.

For more information you can go to www.geocaching.com

From Wikipedia the following definition:

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, and waymarking.

Geocaches are currently placed in over 200 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica, and the International Space Station. After more than 12 years of activity there are over 1.8 million active geocaches published on various websites. There are over 5 million geocachers worldwide.