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Special Feature: Geocaching 101

ByJessica McSavage

Adventures await!

Did you love scavenger hunts as a kid? Were you a champion at hide-and-seek? Why not join Geocaching, a growing phenomenon ascribing to those interests.

So, what is geocaching you may ask? It is a worldwide scavenger hunt made for the modern adventure-loving person! Using a GPS enabled device, players may search for, find, or hide ‘caches’ almost any place imaginable on earth. Caches may be as small as a bolt magnet designed to blend in when perfectly placed on a street pole, for example, or large plastic containers hidden under fallen logs in the forest. Once found, you sign the logbook (often just a strip of paper) with your username and the date found and then log the find online. Caches are not always physical; some are virtual, requiring a visit to a location and taking a picture, or unknown, meaning that the player must solve a puzzle at the location of the coordinates to reveal a final location or information they must communicate to the cache owner in order to log their find. Others are event caches, meaning that geocachers get together at a location for an event and must register with the event owner to secure their log.

Found a cache at the top of a hiking trail which gives this beautiful view of Kobe.
Found a cache at the top of a hiking trail which gives this beautiful view of Kobe.

Since all caches are hidden by geocachers, you can often find some pretty neat places known to the local geocachers that may not be on your favourite travel site. I have geocached in Canada, Japan, and South Korea and have some pretty spectacular photos from places I have visited. Often, geocaches are hidden in locations with high muggle traffic (geocachers affectionately refer to non-geocachers as muggles).

A geocache is located on this art piece in Kobe’s Merikenpark.
A geocache is located on this art piece in Kobe’s Merikenpark.

This has occasionally led to interesting looks from passers-by as I duck my hands underneath a bench or phone booth in search of a small magnetic cache. I love when this happens because it can sometimes lead to a conversation where I get to share my adventures with a new friend.

Besides finding caches, players can also send out Travel Bugs, key chains with a trackable code, to travel the world. Players can specify a certain goal for the Travel Bug and watch as fellow geocachers take it from cache to cache and player to player to achieve its goal. I found a Travel Bug in Canada that wanted to travel the world, so I brought it with me and dropped it in a cache in Kobe’s Meriken Park. It has since travelled to Tokyo and will hopefully reach another country soon!

A Travel Bug I found in a cache across the road from Ni-jo castle in Kyoto.
A Travel Bug I found in a cache across the road from Ni-jo castle in Kyoto.

Geocaching is a low cost and high reward activity; there is a free app and full version app offered by Groundspeak, owner of geocaching.com available for smartphones. Membership on the website is 100% free, although premium memberships may be purchased at a low annual cost for extra perks. Geocaching.com has amazing video tutorials and resources for geocachers of all levels and posts regularly on Facebook, Instagram and the geocaching blog.

So, if you ever find yourself with a free day and need an excuse to get out of the house, want to rediscover a frequently visited spot, or are just looking for some adventure at a new site, why not give geocaching a try! I am always available to go on a geocaching adventure, so send me a message at jmcsavage@gmail.com or look me up on geocaching.com as jem383!

Jessica McSavage

My friend’s first ever geocache find, it's a recycled mint container!
My friend’s first ever geocache find, it’s a recycled mint container!

 

 

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