Geocaching. You may have heard of it, or maybe not.
Think of it as a worldwide treasure hunt, except anyone with a smartphone can access the map. It can be like a little secret society that involves terms like muggles and trackables and it appeals to adults and children of all ages.
I found my first proper cache with my wife and four year old, in a location close to me in Denmark, WA. I loaded up the App, found the general area, and off we went. Although the GPS shows you the general vicinity of the cache, it’s up to you (and your team) to find it.
Ours was noted as 1.5 stars out of 5 in difficulty, so was a great starter for our son. After about two minutes of looking around the obvious structure we found it.
Caches can range from tiny items no bigger than your thumb, to large containers full of treasure! In practice, the ‘treasure’ is generally small non-expensive trinkets. Geocachers are encouraged to find, take and replace these items. Because of the worldwide nature of geocaching, your item could have travelled from Europe or the USA! The one we found was a clear 200ml snap lock package containing a notebook, a playing card, and a domino.
We signed the book (which is the number one thing to do) and logged it in the app, however much to my son’s annoyance, he couldn’t take something as we had nothing to replace it with! So we put it back for the next intrepid geocacher to find. Whilst we were there we got to see a stunning view over the ocean, and it left us wanting to go and find the next one!
See examples below of some geocaching gear:
