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How did you learn about Geocaching?


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About two weeks ago, by complete accident, I fell down the rabbit's hole that is geocaching. I was out on a hike with some friends on a warm summers day and we came across a lackadaisically hidden letterbox on the bank of a river. Intrigued by the idea that throughout these woods there were hidden objects waiting to be found by those who sought them out, and only those who sought them out (with the exception of the one we found), I went home and researched. When I found various blogs and videos describing the geocaching experience, I was immediately hooked. I proceeded to download the app, send away $30 to the Groundspeak team in exchange for premium membership, and go out looking for my first few caches.

 

My first real opportunity came last weekend while I was staying in Boston. After a Red Sox game at Fenway my friends and I had some wandering time on our hands and were keen on seeing the most of the city as possible while we were there. It was the perfect chance to break out the geocaching app for the first time, and we had an absolute blast searching for a mystery cache near Boston Commons Park and figuring out the field puzzle that granted us access to the goodies inside.

 

Since then I've gone hiking when I could, and have found 16 caches to date (I know that is mediocre, but c'mon).

 

Anyway, I was curious about the ways in which other people from around the world have stumbled upon this hobby, so I created this thread to give you all the chance to tell your story and to possibly share some interesting 'first cache hunt' experiences that you have had.

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Copying from my profile bio...

 

I started geocaching in 2006 at one of my church's men's retreats. A friend introduced a bunch of us to geocaching during our Saturday afternoon free time, and we found 4 caches together. Once back home, I created a geocaching.com account and started finding caches on my own.

 

With no GPSr, I found hundreds of caches using the satellite images from Google Maps and compass/navigation skills that I learned as a Boy Scout. Eventually I bought a cheap GPSr from woot.com. Later, I started using various Android apps.

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In 2004, the techie columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger wrote a piece on geocaching. I had a yellow Garmin that I got from Marlboro, and decided to give this a try. Ah! There was a cache near the trail I was maintaining. About a mile in, with three-hundred feet of climb. Punched the coords in, and off I went. Took me about a half hour to find the darned thing. But I was hooked. So I blame everything on BrianSnat! Fourteen years and 5700 finds later, I'm still hooked.

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In 2004, the techie columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger wrote a piece on geocaching.

...

Fourteen years and 5700 finds later, I'm still hooked.

Unless my math skills have completely fallen apart, you've only been caching for 12 years, right? :laughing:

 

As for how I learned about geocaching, I realized I don't really have much to say. My brother-in-law was the one that mentioned geocaching and we went out to find a few using a Garmin Nuvi (a GPSr designed for car use), but I can't recall how he heard about it. I'll have to ask him sometime.

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In January 2015, I, a buddy of mine, and a friend of his I had only met a couple times, took a winter hike to scout out a new campsite. After spotting the perfect spot, we killed a few more hours roaming one of the big outdoors stores. After we got back, we were sitting around the table, using our phones to spot the new campsite on satellite images, then checking out satellite views of other things nearby. We found a waterfall that's nearby, then Doug, the guy I knew only slightly at the time, mentions there's a geocache there. Naturally, that led to "Geo-what?" and showing us geocaching.com. As it turns out, he had only signed up recently himself, and had never actually gone geocaching! Naturally, we now go out pretty much every time we both have the same day free.

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Many years ago my husband's buddy from college came for a weekend visit. Except for meals, I tried to stay out of the way, let them chat and catch up, play video games and reminisce about old times. While I was getting ready for work, I overheard the friend explaining geocaching to my hubby. "Sounds fun, wish I could go; but I'm off to work" I say. "You boys have a good time!" I asked my husband about it later; and he explained that we didn't have a GPS device and could not afford to buy one just then.

 

Fast forward to several years later at a family reunion. My cousin suggested that several of us hike to the location of our great-grandfather's first homestead site when he came to America in the 1880's. My cousin thought it be awesome to put a geocache there so future generations of our family could return and look for it. I was the only other person who had even heard of geocaching before, so I helped put it together. I suppose it is actually more like a time capsule since the location is only known to our family, and only visited every five years or so.

 

But it was that cache that really sparked my interest in caching and inspired me to invest in a GPS so I could create a Geocaching account and find 'real' caches that are listed online.

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I first read about it years ago but I couldn't afford the entry cost of a GPSr. Then recently someone on another forum made a post about geocaching and once I realized I could just use my phone and that GPS devices can be had for dirt cheap I jumped straight into it.

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I've been a long-time participant in amateur radio hidden transmitter hunts and also did a fair bit of orienteering in the 1990s. In the early 2000s one of my friends mentioned geocaching, but the impression I got at the time was of finding boxes of trinkets in drainpipes which didn't exactly appeal to me.

 

It wasn't until March 2013 when I read an article about geocaching in a bushwalking magazine that it dawned on me that it might be something I'd enjoy. Logging onto the website, I discovered there was a cache in a park only a few hundred metres from home, so using just the satellite image and a bit of guesswork, I dashed across and made my first find. I was hooked and the next day was a happy owner of a Garmin GPSr. Three years, 500 finds and 20 hides later, I'm still going strong and looking forward to it becoming a significant part of my imminent retirement from work.

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Back in 2008 at our local Playcentre (New Zealand parent run centre for preschoolers) another parent was talking how her older children were playing at edge of the gorgeous Te Waihou River (New Zealand) and accidently found "Birthday Girl" GC1AK0E. So I looked into it and signed up to find one in my local town "Good Shepherd" GC10F5G. Being a mother of 2 yound children life got in the way and I forgot about Geocaching until the beginning of 2016 when my son said "I saw this cool thing on Youtube, called geocaching" That rekindled my interest and have been keen finding over 100 in under 6 months. I know it is not alot. School holidays are coming in a few weeks and I don't work as much at that time, so we will get out and about a bit more. 1 week ago I finally brought a GPSr. I really enjoy the ones in the bush as we have some pretty amazing scenery here.

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In 2000-2001 or so I was a fairly active participant in a Usenet group called rec.backcountry. There were a lot of discussion in that group about navigation, including a bit of cross posting with sci.geo.satellite-nav. In rec.backcountry, however, there was still somewhat of a consensus that navigation via map and compass was still the way to go. Meanwhile, I was also an active participant in a mailing list called Paddlewise, a group that was all about paddling canoes and kayaks, and again the topic of navigation was common and the use of map and compass was still quite common even with consumer GPS units hitting the market. Even in 2004 or so, when I took a half day sea kayaking navigation class with a guy named Nigel Dennis (considered by many to be somewhat of a kayaking demi-god), we did it using map and compass and there was only a brief mention of using a GPS. A couple of years later I was invited on a sea kayaking trip on Lake Huron and during a planning meeting all the other participants brought their handheld GPS and exchanged waypoints. I decided then that I wanted a GPS and mentioned it to my wife. A few months later, in January 2007, my wife was looking at a web site for someone that was teaching a professional development seminar (she's a psychologist) and he had a "other interests" page which mentioned geocaching. She said that it sounded interesting so I said...."remember awhile back that I was saying that I'd like to get a GPS for kayaking?....We'd have to get one if we were going to try geocaching." I ordered a Garmin 76Cx (due to it's water resistance rating and that it alledgedly floats) and went out geocaching the day after it arrived. My wife was with me for those first couple of finds but really didn't get interested in it.

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March 2002, we were on our annual 10 day camping trip up at the lake when a Friend showed me a newspaper article about geocaching. It looked like something that would be a lot of fun and since i already had a gpsr that i used in the boat, couldn't wait to give it a try. Got home after camping, joined gc.com, and found that there were 4 or 5 geocaches placed within 50 miles of the house. Took off the next day to try for the nearest which was about 20 miles away.

 

I remember being in the woods for close to an hour before finally finding the ammocan stashed at the roots of a downed tree. Was so excited and i just had to leave something good in the cache for the next person who came along. Yep, my trusty Case folding pocket knife (don't think it was a guideline violation back then).

 

The cool part to this is that i was asked to adopt the cache a couple of years ago. It's still going with the original ammocan!

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As an avid mountain biker I was interested in getting a GPSr to create maps of the local trails in South Jersey and those that I frequented in western PA. Susancycle got me a Garmin 76Cx (note to NYPC it DOES float as does my 78sc) in late 2006 just before we took off for a biking trip across the Andes in Argentina and Chile. I kind of figured the basics out as we went along and it was pretty cool knowing where we were even when we were "en medio de la nada"

When we got home from Patagonia I started looking at the Internet to learn more about using the GPSr and I discovered the geocaching website. Looked like a great way to extend out biking and kayaking passions and so it has been.

 

Still haven't been back to add Chile and Argentina to our "countries cached" list, though :(

 

Someday!

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In 2004 a college friend of mine told me about a new game he found called geocaching. I thought it sounded fun, but we never got the chance to go. Fast forward to 2015; My family was camping at a state park in PA and we were looking for things to do. My wife saw geocaching on the list and we gave it a try. They actually let you borrow a GPSr and gave you a paper with co-ords for several geocaches in the park. After finding them we were hooked and enjoy going as a family.

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Bought a GPS unit so I can hike and find my way back, since finding hiking buddies is pretty tough. It had a geocache tile on it. I had heard of that before and it sounded fun. Within days I found my first cache and I was so excited to find that little rusty tin with mushy moldy stuff inside!!!! Now I'm hooked.

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I pretty sure it was Wired magazine like in 2002/2003 when it was still mainly only message boards, maybe a site or two. Didn't sign up until 2010 and then got very deterred by a cache I just couldn't find near my office in NYC though I knew where 3 others were, I didn't want to find them until I found the first one. Fast forward 6 years and I saw someone mention it in an article so I decided to try again and now I'm 165 days into a streak since I started.

Edited by IOError
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6 Years ago I bought a smartphone ... well, I'd call it a slightly smart 'phone , a Nokia running the now defunct Symbian operating system.It had GPS capability, but no instructions on how to set up or use the facility . I searched online for information on how to navigate with it, and the first few links on the list included the word 'geocaching', which I'd never before heard.

 

Intrigued I read up on it, and discovered there were quite a few caches not far from home. After a few dozen finds using the laborious and inaccurate device (I had to make waypoints and input co-ords myself through an annoying interface, and wrote hints , size and any other info. down in a notebook which I carried with me. 13m was as accurate as the 'phone got, and that was out in the open on a cloudless day) I decided this game was for me, and got my first GPS.

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After a couple hurricanes, realized that the rivers, creeks, and most game lands areas were changed from what I remembered.

Took the other 2/3rds to a game lands I've hunted on for years (rhodo in bloom) and almost got lost.

Heard about GPSrs, decided we were gonna pick one up, got two instead on sale.

Those blue legends came with info, thought we'd check the hobby out, and our first (a virtual) we've already been to a few times. :)

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Purchased a blue Garmin Legend GPS because I liked the technology. Looked on the internet to see what else I could do with it and found Geocaching. I was in the habit of supporting shareware and after using the Groundspeak program a couple of times realized its usefulness and decided to join to support the company. I have been a happy user since 2003.

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I was looking up information on the website for a nearby conservation area I was planning to visit, and on the page with the map and GPS directions explaining how to get to the park I noticed the geocaching logo. Having no idea what it was, I clicked it, and the page briefly explained geocaching and noted the presence of a geocache in the park (there were, in fact, quite a few). It sounded like something I wanted to do, so I signed up for the free geocaching membership and sent off for my first handheld GPS. I ended up trying out geocaching a little closer to home first, and dragged my roommate along to find a few in a park near my house, but later in the summer I did end up getting to go to the conservation area and found a few caches there too, including my first earth cache.

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Back in September of 2000, I read an article on Slashdot about Geocaching. I thought it sounded kind of geeky and fun, but back then I was so broke I couldn't afford a GPS, just to look for buried buckets of toys in the woods. Yea, that's what I thought it was. Besides, there weren't any geocaches in South Dakota at the time to look for (the closest were in Colorado and Kansas), and I wasn't foresighted enough to think about putting one out, so "if you hide it, they will come." So, I dismissed the idea and moved on with my life. Oh, if I could go back in time.

 

Fast forward to July 2009, we had purchased a car Nuvi for traveling and vacations. One day after work the wife and I were bored, looking for something to do, and she said, "What's that thing that people do with GPSs and they go out and find stuff?" Well, one thing led to another, we got online, and a few days later found our first LPC in a parking lot... with the Nuvi... after 2 previous attempts to find it. Who know those things lifted up.

 

6200+ finds, 230 hides and 5 GPSs later, the rest is history.

 

:ph34r:

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I was doing IT support in a school and the Geography teacher asked me to price a data cable for their Garmin eTrex

 

When I found out how much it was, I made one by hand using instructions I found on the internet. To test it, we needed to send data to the unit and he showed me this website.

 

Downhill from there.

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I think it was a news article about someone who hid a cache that looked enough like a pipe-bomb that someone called the police to destroy it. That was back in 2004. I researched it and made an account. I looked for a few local caches, but managed to DNF on them all. Since I was busy in college, I let it slip, since gps units were expensive. Then in 2013, I got upgraded from my flip-phone to a smartphone. I discovered it had a gps chip, something my old phone didn't have. I'm not sure how I remembered geocaching, but I found it was still going. I couldn't remember my old password, so I created a new account. This time I was actually able to find a cache, and it went from there.

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My daughters and I started geocaching because of girl scouts. My younger daughter is a Junior girl scout and one of their badges that they can earn is the geocaching badge. I downloaded the app and brought the girls out to find their first cache so that my youngest could earn her badge. They both loved it so much that I bought a membership and now we try to go out at least once a week.

Now we are started to get together some proper gear and one day the girls want to hide a cache of their own for others to find.

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Approximately 2010 a work colleague told me about it, he had been doing it with his teenage son. Then in 2014 another friend had been doing it, and we went and found one, I took out a premium membership that night, then my son and I went and found a few more the next day - now we have found 615.

Funny - in 2005 I bought a GPSr, just because I wanted one, and loved using it navigating around New Zealand, creating waypoints etc..... If I had found out about geocaching then I'm sure I would have jumped in..... still disappoints me I never found out about it back then.....

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I started Caching by accident. I was out for a walk with my wife and brother in the New Forest and we found a relic from WW2 - a submarine pen (in the middle of a forest). Anyway my brother went off into the brush and my wife and I went up onto the sub-pen. "Oh look there is a fox hole" I said, to which my brother came charging out of the brush, up the side of the pen and dropped to his knees. In went his arm, up to the shoulder and out came an ammo-can. Then he told me what Geocaching was. That was in 2007, since then I am an avid searcher of Tupperware and other containers.

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In June 2005 we had a special guest speaker at our church's young adult service. Before service we were playing around on the computer. Google had recently launched it's satellite view and we were geeking out over it. The guest speaker started telling us about the "game" he'd just learned about and had us go to Geocaching.com . We saw there was some caches in our area and he suggested afterwards we go find one.

So we did service and everyone hung out for awhile. By now it's almost 11pm. We go to take the guest speaker to his lodging and he reminds us about finding a cache. It's late, but its summer in Alaska, so it's still light out. So off we go. A half mile walk into the woods and we bag our first cache; a well hid ammo can.

The next day I was responsible for keeping him entertained, so we headed off to find some more caches. He had a Garmin GPS and we bagged three more finds.

A few nights later we were at the store and they had a Magellan GPS on sale. So we bought it and did a few more finds. The next weekend was the 4th of July weekend. We hadn't been loving the Magellan, so we swung by and got a Garmin. We used them both side by side and returned the Magellan.

Now, 11 years later we have almost 1,100 finds. We go in spurts on caching activity. But we love it. For the wife it gets her mind off of work, family, etc.

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I first heard about geocaching about 6 or 7 years ago when my brother told me a college friend of his was into this new game/sport/thingy. I always thought it sounded fun and wanted to give it a try, but it wasn't until early 2015 that I actually started myself. I've loved it and have been caching ever since.

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My caching chronology shows 5 caches found in Jan 2011 followed by 3 in March 2012. Our daughter introduced us to the game in 2011 and it was a case of "Yes dear, very nice - now let's go and do something interesting". However, a second foray in 2012 started things off and I haven't looked back since.

 

One local cache asks finders to write a 250 word story in their log. Gill decided to write "How we started caching" and it can be found here

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I was at work, amd one of my coworkers offered me a local newspaper to read, which I normally never read. There was an article on a local geocache near a historic antebellum home. I thought it sounded cool. That was around Wednesday. By Friday I had bought an eTrex for about 100 bucks at wal-mart, and Saturday found me and a friend finding our first geocache. I thought it was awesome. We spent the entire rest of the day trying to navigate to cache #2 with no luck. I'm glad that wasn't the first one we tried or I may have given up.

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