Guest post by Karrie from Happy Money Saver
Looking for a fun and inexpensive activity to get the kids outside while you discover new places and real “treasure”? Then you will want to check out geocaching!
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a fun treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices.
Basically you just search out and find hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. People from all ages are enjoying geocaching, as it is a great way to get out, have adventures, find interesting locations and enjoy spending time with your family or friends.
How to Start
After the one-time initial cost of a hand held GPS unit which ranges in price from about $50 to several hundred, you can geocache for free for years! These can be purchased online or at most outdoor stores (they are not the same as the ones in your car).
The geocaching website is free to use and there are no month-to-month fees for your handheld GPS unit. If you have an iPhone there is also a geocaching app you can purchase.
We Love It
Our family of six has geocached for years and found tons of interesting places and trails that we would have never have known existed. Plus we always take our GPS unit with us when we travel as there are literally treasure boxes everywhere in the world. I’ll bet there is one within a mile of where you live and you don’t even know it!
So what is in a geocache?
Geocaches come in many sizes and shapes. The most common being a Tupperware container, a military ammunition container or a pill bottle — usually something that is airtight (some are very small as to only accommodate a small piece of paper to put your name and date visited).
Inside you will find a log book for you to sign, a pencil and usually some kind of trinket or inexpensive toys to trade (this is the fun part for the kids). The rule is if you take something you must leave something. So make sure before you head out you stock up on a few fun and interesting but inexpensive things to trade.
Sometimes, you will find an item in the cache that is trackable, meaning, it’s an item placed into the cache that will have a serial number on it which you can input into the website and find out all kinds of interesting things about the item. You’ll see where it started, how many miles it has traveled, where it wants to go and maybe a story, or riddle associated with the trackable item (these are more for the adults in the family).
Interested?
Check out Geocaching.com and input your address to see how popular geocaching is near you. Click on a cache and look at the comments about that particular cache to ensure that it has been found recently. Nothing is more frustrating than going to find a cache that isn’t there!
Happy hunting!
Karrie is a chocolate-addicted busy stay-at-home mom of twins + two living in the Pacific Northwest. She has a recurring dream every night of finding something free while shopping. She blogs over at Happy Money Saver where you can find amazingly cool thrifty tips, recipes and hot deal ideas!
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{ 48 comments }
I love geocaching. It is such a fun way to see beautiful spots that you wouldn’t otherwise find. What a fabulous community of people too!
My girls are 2 & 4 and we LOVE it!!!!! great thing to do with the family!!
Yes! I just recently learned about this. I’m waiting for the weather to get better to try this, but I’ve read a lot about this and it sounds like a lot of fun!
We love Geocaching as a family! Glad you shared it. If you want to try it out, check with your Park District. Ours will loan you a GPS to try it and instruct you how to use it. Happy Caching!!
Letterboxing is a similar activity that you can do without the expense of a GPS. You follow clues that lead you to a hidden box that ususally contains a rubber stamp. You print the stamp in your journal and if you want you can leave a print of a stamp that you bring along in the letter box journal. You can find letterboxes in your area by going to http://www.letterboxing.org. My kids love to letterbox and to geogache. I love that it keeps them moving down the trail! Make sure that you are familiar with poison oak if you live in an area that it is prevalent in. We’ve unfortunately found lots of it on our treasure seeking journeys.
I love letterboxing too! A great way to spend a fun afternoon.
We love letterboxing! We tried geocaching and it just wasn’t as much fun – we love seeing the different stamps, seeing awesome sights, and meeting new people!
we love geocacheing too! It is truly a great way to get the kids out and about and searching for “treasure”.
I was able to download a free app for my iPhone just for geoecatching. So no need to buy another handheld GPS unit.
Interesting! I wonder if there is a similar application for the android.
Yes! I have the geocaching app on my Android and we love it. It’s completely free!
I just checked the Itunes site and it said that it was $9.99. Is there another that is free? More info please, I have an Iphone and would love to add this so we can try it!
The Geocaching website in the article has a second app that is free (I think it is called Geocaching intro). It gives you three geocaches near your location. It’s a good way to try it out to see if you like it.
However, I took my three girls out to try it the other day and we were unsuccessful in finding the two geocaches we were looking for. I don’t know if it’s a problem with the app or if it’s just because I’m a first timer!
We love geocaching and now thanks to Amy-I just found out that my husband can download an app for his iphone and we have no need buy a replacement! YAY!
We have geocached for 6 years now and have found hundreds all over the US. Geocaching has led us to lava tube caves, beautiful mountain vistas, and even an airplane crash site that we never would have found otherwise. This is probably the best concise article I have read on the subject (and I’ve read a lot of bad ones)! We started when the kids were 4 and 7, and while the older one would willingly hike forever until he dropped over, the younger one has never seen the point of a walk in the woods – unless she is geocaching! The above warning on poison plants (ivy, oak) is absolutely true – that was one of the things we learned our first year after bumbling through poison ivy to miserable results! Insects are the other main hazard – we’ve been stung, swarmed by mosquitoes, and covered in deer ticks – so take along the bug repellant and keep an eye out for wasps and bees!
We haven’t been geocaching but we do enjoy letterboxing. It’s the same basic idea : print directions from a website and follow the directions to a box. Only these have stamps and log books in them. You use your personal stamp in the logbook and use the box stamp in your journal. Fun and free!
Been geocahching for years. Last April we traveled for 3 weeks from PA to FL and back and geochached the whole way! The kids love it and it keeps them outside and active.
My fiancee and I just started doing this. It’s a great way to get outdoors. We’ve already found a couple in our neighborhood and Itunes has an app for it.
Any recommendations for a decent handheld GPS. Nothing fancy or the most expensive- just one that will work as we start this fun hobby!
Thanks!
We love to geocache and we just use our regular car GPS. Maybe one made for geocaching would work better, but ours does well without an added expense =)
Me and my family love to do this. My 6 year old thinks you can find the best treasures ever Geocaching!! We are planning a trip to Disney in June and plan to search for treasures along the way from Kentucky to Florida!!
I too just found out about geocaching on a homeschool forum. I am excited to try this in Europe.
Thanks for sharing!
Our family has been geocaching for several years now. It’s great fun for the adults and kids as well. Leanne..Thanks for the reminder. We are driving to Disney soon and will cach on the way!
Michele
I love geocaching! We were blessed that we were given a handheld GPS a couple years ago, so I was able to start geocaching as soon as I heard about it!
We’ve walked to MANY geocaches within a couple miles’ radius of where we live (a more urban area). Very fun!
I have also been thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to have a “Coupon Cache?” I would of course have to upkeep it adding cool freebie coupons to it, but I might have to do that someday.
Have any of you actually started your own cache?
What is a coupon cache? Anything that involves coupons gets my full attention!
We have one cache of our own and my in-laws (serious geocachers!) have about a dozen!
This is a fantastic activity to do as a family…I get a walk in the woods, my husband gets to play with the technology, the kids get a treasure hunt and we all get fresh air and family time.
We’ve planted almost 40 geocaches, 28 of which are still active. I’m the one in the family who enjoys planning a good cache plant. We have 2 series in two nearby parks, a series all over the county with a theme of how to pronounce strangely spelled places, a few creative ones, a few puzzles, and one that’s meant to be a challenge to find.
That is so cool!!
We love geocaching, even our youngest (she was 3 last year when we started). There are apps out there for other phones, not just the iphone, so it is possible to start without the added cost of a GPS unit. It’s definitely a nice way to try it without shelling out a lot of $ out of pocket!
My husband LOVES geocaching and he often takes the boys. The boys LOVE finding treasure! My husband uses his phone as a GPS, & it’s not an iPhone. We also stop on trips so that the boys can go find treasure! My husband has quite a few of his own caches!
We started geocaching as a family last summer. My kids (3,5,7) absolutely love it!
Our family enjoys this activity, we can aim for ones near parks so we can stop and picnic, or if we are on day trip we can plan some geocaching sites along the way.
Some of the state parks rent GPS units for geocaching in the park itself. No need to buy one!
I know someone who proposed by searching for a geocache in NYC. The couple loved to do geocaching. He looked on one side of the block while she looked on the other. Then he ran over screaming that he found it and handed her the little metal tube. She opened it and inside it said “will you marry me” and she looked at him and he was one one knee with the ring…. SO CUTE and special for them
I absolutely love this!
We’ve been geocaching for years now. We’re going to geocache on our anniversary while in port at Cozumel. We figure it’ll be a fun way to explore the island.
We’ve letterboxed and geocached, and my DD loves it. It’s not new; it’s been around for years. They’re not just in the woods — many of the places we’ve visited are in urban areas.
I wish they’d do away with the “leave a trinket” stuff. We’ve never found anything more than a McDonalds Happy Meal toy or some other piece of junk. But we do love reading through the guest book to see who else has visited and where they are from. Very interesting. And it’s fun to see personalized stamps.
We solved the trinket problem by letting each of our boys pick just one item per day (we often do four or five geocaches at a time) instead of one from each cache. When they get tired of playing with whatever they picked, it goes back into our “geo-bag” (with trinkets, a pen to write with, travelbugs, etc) to be left for someone else the next time. They get the joy of something new; I don’t have to deal with cheap toys all over our house.
My 27 year old son has been geocaching since he was in high school. This is the one hobby his girlfriends have also liked. It is a great family activity also.
Karrie – LOL at your recurring dream! I think I have the same one!
And, thanks for the post on geocaching – I’ve heard of it before but haven’t ever tried it.
We used to cache quite a bit until we landed in a nest of baby ticks! That really turned my girls off. I would like to do it more so maybe when the weather gets nicer! We have the garmin etrex legend and have found close to 200 with it. It is easy to use. You can find it for about $100.
We Geocache and Letterbox. Its ALOT of fun! The outings are very low cost, cost of gas and we pack a picnic lunch. We have gotten many friends into it and they in turn got their friends into it.
We have geocached for years. It’s great family fun. We geogache on vacation, too. Makes for great vacation entertainment.
I’ve never done this but I think my new (christmas gift!) gps does both car and walking. Nice to have a multi-purpose unit, so look into that.
You don’t necessarily need to pay for a GPS to geocache. A lot of times the caches have very detailed descriptions, or at least the lat/long which you can enter in any GPS unit or app. Google navigation on android is free, and you can enter lat/long in Google Maps and print out the directions if you are low-tech.
And there are plenty in towns and cities, so you don’t need to go far to have adventures – you could find a quick geocache on the way to the supermarket! There is/was one off a major street in my town that goes across two counties.
You don’t necessarily need to pay for a GPS to geocache. A lot of times the caches have very detailed descriptions, or at least the lat/long which you can enter in any GPS unit or app. Google navigation on android is free, and you can enter lat/long in Google Maps and print out the directions if you are low-tech.
And there are plenty in towns and cities, so you don’t need to go far to have adventures – you could find a quick geocache on the way to the supermarket! There is/was one off a major street in my town that goes across two counties.
I would love to know if there is a website specifically for geocaching with kids. The places I went with my kids were pretty much all near busy streets and/or not so safe places, especially with little ones. It would be cool if the geocache website had a way to sort the intended audience of the cache, don’t ya think? : )
Thank you so much for this post! I am so excited to do this with our children!!! Can’t wait for the weekend-there are a ton right around where we live!
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