Thursday, August 21, 2008

Nice Article On Geocaching

As I've said before, I subscribe to a lot of blogs. One that I really like is call Wise Bread. They have several authors that all write about ways to be frugal. I noticed an article in my reader today about Geocaching.

I like the idea she mentions about leaving American type swag when geocaching outside the US. I think I'll look for some "California" swag to leave on my travels. It also mentions Letterboxing and Orienteering. Here is the bit about Geocaching. You can read the entire article here.



Geocaching (geocashing)

Geocaching is a little more complicated and can be much more challenging than letterboxing, but it's still an inexpensive activity. To get started, you'll need access to a GPS devise, a notebook, and a few treasures to leave at boxes that are designated treasure caches.

Geocaching is a recognized sport all over the world, and some of the caches are quite elaborate. If you plan to visit a cache in another country, try to leave something American, such as a Boston subway or San Franciso trolleycar token.


Like letterboxing, the website Geocaching.com has all the basic information and search help you'll need. Just enter your search parameters (can even be latitutde/longitude figures), then enter the given coordinates in your GPS, and you're good to go. According to the website, there are currently 635,478 active caches worldwide including one recently placed at the Beijing Olympics!

Geocaching often involves more remote locations and rugged outdoor terrain than letterboxing does, but it is an excellent teaching activity and is now part of the math curriculum in many American middle and high schools.


Thanks to Mary Webber for the article.

3 comments:

Paul Myers said...

As far as being frugal, I think you could combine GeoVexilla (capture the flag) and GeoDashing very easily when you Geocache. I've been combining all three since April. I like the part where flags show up randomly, so it gets me a little bit out of my comfort zone to cache in areas I haven't been to before. The caches I found on the Palos Verdes Peninsula were found because of a Virtual flag out there. Check it out.

P.J. said...

Interesting article. Oh yeah, thanks... I looked at that blog and now I'll have to bookmark. Just what I needed... another blog!

HooHaa Blog.

go_man said...

We have 2 swag bags, one for regular swag and one for Canada swag. When outside of Canada we always leave something Canadian like a flag pin. We also have Nova Scotia swag that we will leave in out of country caches as well as in out of province caches. It's not that we feel we are Geocaching ambassadors, it's just that we like to collect pins from other places and believe there's other out there that like to too! :)

Geocaching Online

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