As I was stuck at home last weekend, trying to think of ways to beat boredom, I started obsessing about geocaching. The trouble is, geocaching requires being able to go somewhere.
A specific somewhere, actually. Geocaching is an activity that forces you to tromp around for hours, makes you actually read the manual for your GPS unit, and rewards you for your skill and perseverance with small, useless trinkets. Yeah, that’s probably not a really good advertisement for geocaching.
It’s actually a lot more fun than that. Sure, you need to know how to run your GPS, but for most of the caches you’ll find, you won’t need to know any special functions. You really only need to know how to do the things you’d probably want to know while you’re hunting, fishing, or hiking. So it’s a great way to bone up on your GPS skills between hunting seasons.
As for the caches, those are your goals in geocaching. They’re just ammo boxes, Tupperware containers, or other small boxes people have hidden out in the wilds. Those people then logged the location on Geocaching.com. You can go to the site, get the coordinates for caches close to you, then go out cache hunting. Take along something to put in the box, and feel free to take something from it before you leave. The stuff in the boxes isn’t valuable, but the real prize is just finding the cache.
Now that I can get out of my driveway again, I’m thinking it’s about time to start geocaching again. If I get around to hiding a cache of my own, I’ll let you know. Until then, visit Geocaching.com and get a feel for it yourself.
It’s a good excuse to get outside, and like I said, it’s a great way to keep your navigation skills sharp.
