Geocaching: A Real World Treasure Hunt

The first time I heard about geocaching I thought it had something to do with rock hounding. Both geocaching and rock hounding involve hunting for something but they are quite different. Rock hounders look for special rocks and minerals and geocachers search for hidden objects using GPS coordinates. Geocaching is a “real-world treasure hunt” and there are close to 2 million geocaches worldwide that have been set up by members of the geocaching community.

There are geocaches everywhere! In fact, you’ve probably walked by a geocache before and not even realized it. Apparently, there are five geocaches close to our neighbourhood. Before going on a geocaching treasure hunt it’s really helpful to download the official geocaching app, which cost $10. The app allows you to navigate to nearby caches in real time using your cellphone. If you don’t want to buy the app you can still find a geocache by going to the Find a Geocache website.

Today our learning circle went geocaching, and it was our first time hunting for caches. We searched for three seperate treasures and found all of them. Two of the caches were in small plastic boxes and the other was in a film canister. If someone wasn’t deliberately searching for the caches it would be easy to pass them by unknowingly. All geocaches have log books that you can use to record your name and the date you found the cache. The film canister cache didn’t have a pencil so we weren’t able to leave a note in the logbook. The other two caches had some small treasures that we could take. The rule for taking things from caches is that you must leave at item of equal or greater value in its place, so we made sure to bring a few things to leave behind such as colourful feathers, marbles, lego, stickers etc.

My children were really excited about geocaching and it was a great way to explore a new area. My daughter doesn’t usually have great hiking stamina, but when hunting for caches she was keeping up to her older brother with no problem. I managed to carry Teddy in my beco carrier which made him quite happy and made me get some good exercise. I think there will be more geocaching in the near future. I don’t think it’s possible to get tired of hunting for treasure.