Ok so you want to geocache huh? What do you need?

Well that depends on if you want to hide or hunt.

I Want to Hunt.

Cool, you are about to embark on the ultimate journey of hide and seek. Geocaching can range from taking you to the most remote of places, to simply searching in places in your own town that you wouldn’t have visited otherwise. All in search for your next cache.

If you are looking to hunt there are very few things you’ll need.

1. The first of which most people already have, a phone with GPS capabilities. If you don’t have a phone or if you’re still refraining from making that step to the smartphones and have an old flip phone, not worries. You can still become a Geocacher but you’ll just need to pick up a GPS instead to guide you to your caches. One of the most popular GPS for geocaching is the Garmin eTrex 20. Amazon sells them for pretty cheap but if you’re looking for something even cheaper you can go with the black and white Garmin eTrex 10.
2. The second thing you’ll need to do is sign up and become a member at Geocaching.com. Membership is free with the option to pay for premium membership. Once you sign up here you go to your profile, enter your home location and start by finding caches around you. You can add filters to what type of cache you’re looking for and even download their app to find caches around you while you’re travelling.
   • Once you find your cache log it on Geocaching.com so others know you found it and you can keep record of all your cache finds.

I Want to Hide.

You found some caches, now you’re ready to hide some and create adventures for others. Hiding caches will require a couple extra items though starting with the container and items you wish to hide. To hide you’ll need to following items

1. Your GPS so you can load the coordinates of the cache you are hiding. See which ones I recommend above.
2. A container. This can vary from a gladwear container to the more common ammo can container which is more sturdy and is weather and animal resistant. Something like the ammo can to the left would be fine.
3. Or you can take things up a notch and make the cache even harder to find by buying an official geocache container that resembles a natural element of the forest such as a Geocaching Log Container, bolt, rock, or small ‘nano cache’.
4. A logbook. You’ll need to place some type of logbook inside the cache with the cache name and ID# so that others can sign it and log it appropriately when they find it. You can find these logbooks on Amazon as well or from other geocaching sites. You can even just use a plain roll of paper as long as it has the information needed so it can be identified.
5. Some caches will have trinkets left in them for swapping as well. This is up to you on whether or not you wish to place an item in the cache. If so it’s usually something of small value (action figure, post card, etc.).
6. You can also buy ‘trackables’ to place in the caches as well. Trackables are items that have ID#s on them so that they can be traced along their journey. There are a few different types of trackables which I will go over in my next post focused on the various types of caches and the items you may find in them.

 

Now let’s get into the various sizes and types of geocaches here.