Geocaching has been around for approximately twelve years now; so, a fair amount of people know about it worldwide. But not everyone. I’m not going to tell you about what Geocaching is or its history or how to play the game or anything like that. You can learn all about the game at the official website as well as many other sites.
What I am going to tell you is WHY I like it when traveling with children and what the benefits are.
Discovering the cache contents
We are a very outdoorsy family. We’ve been on numerous roadtrips and camping trips since we had our first child – now about to turn 16! My wife and I have always loved hiking and that didn’t stop when we had kids. But kids are not always passionate about the things their parents are. Eventually, we heard those feared words of rebellion, “Not another hike!” “Do we have to go on a hike?” “Can’t we do something fun instead?”
You need to see the world through their eyes. When my sons would pick up sticks and bushwhack every living plant in site along a “boring trail to nowhere”, I would sometimes yell a command to “stop killing the bushes”. But that only bred deeper discontent. I then learned to pick up a stick and engage them in sword fights while I walked backwards up the hill. They never realized we were hiking up. Of course, they are like their parents and are always seeking something newer and more exciting.
One day, instead of asking them if they wanted to go on a hike with me, I asked them if they wanted to go treasure hunting. I was bombarded with a million questions.
The biggest benefit that geocaching has is that it is always something new. Each cache contains unique trade-able items and even, sometimes, trackable items such as geocoins. Sometimes you may only find a micro-cache which contains nothing but a log book. Sometimes the cache is nowhere to be found because it has been muggled. Similar things can be said about a simple trail, but kids don’t always see it that way. Geocaching will take you to places you wouldn’t have otherwise thought to go.
trackable Smokey Bear Geocoins
Geocaching will teach you how to explore your world. In geocaching, you are basically given a set of latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates for the location of a hidden cache. But, things aren’t always as they seem or as they should be. The coordinates given are from a particular person using a particular GPS receiver on a particular date in time. When you plug in those coordinates to your different make and model GPS receiver on a different date and time when different satellites may be operational, when it might be cloudy or not cloudy, after a hundred other geocachers have found and re-hidden the cache, you may end up with a location 20-100 feet off of where the cache should be. So, you will learn to take your experience into account each time you go out. It will teach you to look closely at things, look for evidence of things. It will teach you to think of things as others might view them.
Geocaching can be played anywhere. It’s great out in the wilderness along hiking trails, but it’s also a great suburban and big city game. It can be played anywhere. Anywhere that is, that is out in public where one is legally allowed to be.
Geocaching takes you off the beaten path. You will still be on some path or trail it just won’t be the one a million other people are on. Or perhaps you will be, and that will be a fun challenge as well.
Geocaching teaches kids to be discreet when encountering strangers. One thing you want to do as a geocacher is avoid and prevent muggles – a non-geocacher who steals or destroys a geocache. So, when you are hiking along a trail and you encounter people you do not know, the last thing you want to do is blast out to them, “we’re geocaching!” as exciting as it might be to share your new hobby with them. So, I’ve taught my kids the difference between lying and not volunteering unnecessary information to strangers. This will help them later in life when they travel away from home. Strangers who might mean you harm can be disguised as the most pleasant of people, and offering them information which they do not need to know can sometimes get you into trouble. So this teaches them a valuable life lesson while playing a simple game.
Geocaching teaches them technology skills. Your basic tool is a GPS receiver. Many people also enjoy taking a camera along. Any smartphone will serve both of those purposes. When you get into the more advanced stages of the game as well as it’s spin-offs such as Waymarking and Whereigo, then maps and Google Earth will become very useful.
When planning a roadtrip, camping trip or any vacation or even a simple day trip, pre-loading geocaches into your GPS receiver for that trip can add a little spice to the adventure. On long road trips, I load all the geogcaches along the interstate we will be driving on. I never plan to stop and find everyone – we would never arrive at our destination. However, when the time comes to pull over either for gas or a simple rest stop, locating a nearby Geocache can make even the rest stop an adventure.
Turn your ordinary trips into adventures. Start geocaching now!
Filed under: Geocaching, GPS Games, Traveling with Children Tagged: geocaching, geocoins, Global Positioning System, Google Earth, GPS, GPS navigation device, Hiking, million questions, outdoorsy family, sword fights, Trail, treasure hunting, Waymarking, Wherigo
