What a fun little Hobby we have picked up doing as a family. I first did this with my daughter about five years ago but the sample class wasn't very informative and the app you can download on your phone wasn't as precise in its GPS location as it is now. Sometimes my phone will still get a bit turned around when I am opening and closing the app a lot but I just need to restart my phone and things seem to work itself out. What is the app you ask? Search for c:geo in your app store. It is a free app but you can pay for a premium membership. You are required to sign up at geocaching.com so that you can get coordinates and log them there.
You can automatically log your visit if you are in an area where you have internet connection or you can save your log to upload later when you are online. I am by no means an expert at all considering we have only found just over 20 different caches. This past weekend we had found our first micro cache and our first Earth cache as well as our first multi cache. Normally we have stuck to finding a regular cache which has typically been an ammo box period or we will find a small cache which is about the size of a peanut butter jar, just as a frame of reference.
Some people have gotten very creative with making their own caches. I did end up getting a book on intro to geocaching so that we can look up things as they come up to learn more about what this new hobby is about. Last time we went geocaching as a family we found a travel book. That was pretty exciting and I hope we find another one. I didn't know I could follow the travel bug online and get notifications when it gets moved when I first logged it in but I will do that the next time. You can buy your own set of Ford travel books on Amazon or the geocaching website for about $20.
We haven't quite gotten into making our own caches or buying our own travel bugs yet. Perhaps when we take our summer trip to some national parks we will buy some and bring along with us.
For the most part, so far this hobby has been relatively free. A free app To download and we usually find things around that the kids no longer want to exchange for prizes in the caches. Although after this weekend I went and bought a bunch of bags with a number of toys in them so we have a whole bag to bring along with us. The kids really like finding the caches where they can exchange prizes. It's like a treasure hunt trying to find them and you never know what you might find inside.
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