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Couldn't find any threads about my favourite (and basically only) outdoor thing I like doing: geocaching! Touching other people's lunchboxes in public places! Hopefully there are other goons who enjoy geocaching that might have some fun stories about cool caches you've found, the most effort you've gone to to track one, the wierdest place you found a cache, that miles-long trek you went to find one and then realised upon finding it that you didn't have a pen to add your name to the log-book (this has happened to me more than once, shamefully), the strangest thing you've found in a cache etc. Let's talk about lunchboxes and camera film canisters! Official Geocaching site: https://www.geocaching.com/play Geocaching Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoGeocaching Geocaching app on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id329541503 Geocaching app on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/...d-out-home-page Watch this nerd talking about geocaching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-4q6sYuyfY Poo In An Alleyway fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 7, 2021 20:11
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I've never been, but it looks like fun. I did find one one time but I wasn;t looking for it. I was working in a school yard, that was beside some train tracks, and had to take a leak, I went in to the bushes in an attempt to remain off the sex offender registry and I found one. I didn't pee on it.
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Oct 8, 2021 00:16
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Hell yeah, I love caching. I’m not a fanatic about it but I do it from time to time. A friend and I do it on motorcycles every couple months since we don’t like to ride fast anymore. I like to use Nalgene bottles for the ones we hide since they’re more watertight and stronger. I put stickers, rocks with holes in them, and little polaroids of my pets in them.
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Oct 8, 2021 01:52
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I think this one is the best one I’ve found. I wasn’t even caching. I got caught in the rain on a bike ride, so I ducked under a tree at the entrance to a driveway into a government office complex to wait it out. I saw this perfectly cylindrical hollow log, so I got down and looked inside it and found: There was that little creepy gnome and a container with a trackable, a notepad, and some random junk.
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Oct 8, 2021 02:04
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This seems like it would be fun how do you get in to it?
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Oct 12, 2021 23:19
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zXzC0C0zXz posted:This seems like it would be fun how do you get in to it? Buy a GPS. Maybe buy a book about it or look up online about it. There are "rules" somewhat. Like don't be a dick, and vandalize caches, respect private property etc.. You can try here too. https://www.geocaching.com/play
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Oct 13, 2021 00:36
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zXzC0C0zXz posted:This seems like it would be fun how do you get in to it? Download the Geocaching app. You can pay for a subscription to get access to the more challenging ones, but there are usually plenty around you that are not behind a paywall. I think it’s kind of bullshit that a decentralized and kind of socialist pastime that is built on being open and welcoming to everyone has the largest service trying to gouge the users but that’s capitalism I guess. But anyhow, use the app, follow the description and hint for each one, leave some useful notes when you log your find. I try to clean up caches that are getting messy, tidy up the area around them, and make them nice for the next person. When you come across one that’s adjacent to private land, do not cross fences. These things have people visiting them frequently, and private landowners figure out pretty quickly if one is there because they’ll notice a different stranger showing up every couple days and poking around that same fence post. Since a lot are in public places, show people what you’re doing if you start getting weird looks. Every time I’ve shown people why I’m on my hands and knees under a bush next to the bike path, the response has been “Hey, that’s really cool!” Kids love it. I took my kid out geocaching last weekend and she found her first one!    We left some neat beans in the ones we found. HenryJLittlefinger fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 05:28
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The iOS app is sorta expensive for one-off annual purchase yes, but outside of that it’s a great app for exploring. There’s a built-in compass that will signal you once you start getting closer to the cache you’re looking for, plus people will generally leave notes on the app about that cache if they had difficulty finding it (without outright telling you where it is). Also, bring a pen. You’re gonna need a pen. Just always have a pen anyway in your daily life but you’ll certainly need it for caching. HenryJLittlefinger posted:Since a lot are in public places, show people what you’re doing if you start getting weird looks. Every time I’ve shown people why I’m on my hands and knees under a bush next to the bike path, the response has been “Hey, that’s really cool!” Kids love it. ^^^this. I’ve gotten a few curious looks and inquiries from people who were perplexed and/or worried about why I was paying a great deal of attention to one lamppost in particular on a street. Once you mention the words “global treasure hunt” their faces tend to light up.
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Oct 13, 2021 08:41
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Download the Geocaching app. You can pay for a subscription to get access to the more challenging ones, but there are usually plenty around you that are not behind a paywall. I think it’s kind of bullshit that a decentralized and kind of socialist pastime that is built on being open and welcoming to everyone has the largest service trying to gouge the users but that’s capitalism I guess. I’m pretty stoked not gonna lie it’s been a while since I have done something new I’ll post what I find around me.
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Oct 13, 2021 13:01
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zXzC0C0zXz posted:I’m pretty stoked not gonna lie it’s been a while since I have done something new I’ll post what I find around me. I think you'll be pretty surprised the first time you load up the map and see just how many are around you. Another thing of note WRT the premium subscription on the app: You don't need a subscription to see all the caches on a web browser. So if you see some around that are greyed out on your phone, pull up a web browser and get the coordinates, or make a list of them from a computer and then have that with you when you go in the field. I've found that in a lot of cases when you get to a spot with a cache (at least in rural areas and public lands), you can figure out pretty quickly where it's going to be before you even have to look at hints. Boulders, sign posts, little pile of rocks at the base of a tree. Bridges and guardrails will pretty often have a magnetic box like a hide-a-key.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:46
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Never really found anything too interesting, but there was one in the forest behind my house, and it was neat finding out that one of my crushes from High School checked out the same one and left her name in the guest sheet.
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Sep 4, 2022 01:27
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Geocaching is so much different than it was before you could have everything instantly available on your smartphone. I miss having to look up and write down any necessary information beforehand, then figure out how to get to the location with just a paper map and a distance/heading on the GPS screen.
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Sep 9, 2022 22:29
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I've been geocaching (very occasionally) since 2003. The weather has been spectacular the last few days, so I went out with some friends and found some caches. The novelty of taking/leaving items has worn off, plus most of the enduring caches tend to be tiny "micro" caches with just a paper log to sign. I'm happy just to find and log them. Geocaching is definitely not as popular now as it was in the mid-to-late 2000's, but there are still tons of caches in my area. Anyone still getting out and doing this?
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Apr 10, 2023 17:59
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I geocache occasionally, but I moved somewhat recently to north Minnesota and the winters here are not conductive to it. I try to grab at least one geocache when I'm traveling, just to get credit on the GeoCache app for a new state or province.
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Apr 10, 2023 19:46
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I go through fits and spurts where I get really into it for like a month or two then lose interest for one reason or another only to come back to it six months later. Currently in an active time (like, trying to fill out my grid and wondering to myself if I can find the 100 caches this month for the gold souvenir active). If it weren't for puzzle caches I don't think I'd be as into it though, some of those can really scratch that puzzle-solving itch.
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Apr 10, 2023 20:02
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I have already found about 50% of the ones in my city and am waiting until the weather's consistently good to go out and find more. I do still make a habit of finding a handful in whatever town I'm visiting when I'm on vacation or on a work thing. So far I've managed to find some in Leuven in Belgium, London, Dublin, Amsterdam and I think one in Iceland.
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Apr 10, 2023 22:11
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I always forget to go Geocaching when I travel. Apparently I've only found caches in my home states (at the time), and for some reason, several places in the Bahamas. I think the thing that has killed some of the magic for me is that GPS on phones is more accurate than on the old dedicated GPSr units. They can use WiFi signals, cell tower triangulation, and other tricks to figure almost exactly where you are. With a clear sky and strong cell signal, my smartphone can often get me within five feet with +/-5 feet error radius, so I spend a lot more time staring at my phone screen. Plus, assuming the coordinates are accurate, the maps on my phone are so good that I can often tell exactly where the cache is, down to the specific tree or bench. In the old days, you'd import (or manually type!) coordinates into your GPSr, head toward the general area of a cache, and about 30-50 feet out, you'd put it away and just start searching. I know, I don't have to do it that way. Heck, I still have my old Garmin GPS (with 20-year-old road maps loaded on it). But the app is there, and easy to use. By lowering the barrier to entry through technology, finding a tricky cache feels less like an accomplishment. Or, more likely, I'm just old and jaded. But it's still fun to go out on a nice day and go hunting for caches with friends.
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Apr 11, 2023 15:46
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I still am getting a hang of "geocacher logic". My GPS may put me right on top of a cache, but it's still going to take me 5 minutes of slapping my hands on various objects before I find it. I'm assuming there are only so many ways to hide a cache that you start wanting extra difficulty on finds.
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Apr 11, 2023 22:12
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I do get sick of the same common hiding spots, especially in urban areas where I do most of my geocaching. Light pole skirts I’m looking at you.
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Apr 12, 2023 02:03
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schwein11 posted:I do get sick of the same common hiding spots, especially in urban areas where I do most of my geocaching. Light pole skirts I’m looking at you. The first light pole cache I found absolutely blew my mind. Now when I see a likely LPC in the app, I usually skip it. The novelty is gone. Plus street lights tend to be where people are around, and pulling up the skirt on a street light looks sketchy as hell to "normals". Last weekend we found a cache hanging from a hook inside the top of a chain link fence pole. I suspect this might be a common hiding spot, but it was new to me, and it seemed ingenious at the time.
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Apr 12, 2023 14:14
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I found a neat cache with a Schrodinger's Cat theme. At the time of hiding, the owner placed 100 small cardboard boxes inside the cache. Each box contains a "cat" (a small wooden token with a picture of a cat on it) that is either alive or dead -- a 50% chance. Each finder is instructed to take a box, and either open it or not, their choice. The box also features a QR code you can scan to register whether you opened your box, and whether the cat inside is alive or dead. I didn't open mine (so my cat is equal parts alive AND dead), but my caching partner opened hers: her cat was dead, and it had a "death certificate" absolving her of any responsibility to the cat. It was a fun theme that took a fair amount of work from the creator. A welcome change from the standard "pill bottle covered in camo tape hanging from a random tree" caches that I tend to find.
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Jun 5, 2023 22:03
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WhiteHowler posted:I found a neat cache with a Schrodinger's Cat theme. drat that's a great one! I really do wish people would get that little bit more creative with caches. Their only limit is their imagination for the most part, and yet all I keep finding are film roll canisters in walls.
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Jun 5, 2023 23:33
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Went out for the first time ever with my wife and kid. A downed tree blocked our way about 30 feet into some brush so we didn’t find anything but it was still a lot of fun.
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Nov 3, 2023 09:41
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Well Played Mauer posted:Went out for the first time ever with my wife and kid. A downed tree blocked our way about 30 feet into some brush so we didn’t find anything but it was still a lot of fun. It's a bummer you didn't find it, but keep at it! It's a fun hobby and a great excuse to get outdoors. Use the map on the Geocaching website to scope out your local parks. Often there will be several beginner-level caches in a typical city park, especially ones that have wooded walking trails. If one has gone missing, there should still be others around to find.
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Nov 3, 2023 19:24
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Yeah for sure, I think we’ll keep at it. He’s 5 so anything much beyond a pretty easy path to something is a bit of a challenge for him still, but he’ll get better the more we do it.
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Nov 4, 2023 01:48
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Second time out trip report: success! Kiddo was disappointed we couldn’t take anything so next time I’m gonna be sure we bring something small to trade. I’m liking this applied walking exercise.
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Nov 4, 2023 23:04
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Second time out trip report: success! Welcome to the  Kiddo was disappointed we couldn’t take anything so next time I’m gonna be sure we bring something small to trade. Children automatically reckon this hobby is a treasure hunt, and I'm not sure they're wrong. My nephew considers a cache too small to contain any swag to be low effort, unless the location absolutely demands something smaller (for example, he approves of magnetic bolt caches, which are old hat to many, but definitely have their place). Re: swag, I now carry on me at most times (ie, when I'm carrying my backpack): a novelty pencil eraser, a realistic plastic beetle, a blister-pack perfume sample in a 1ml vial (a weirdly popular cache find with kids; I'm in the UK, and Avon is my primary source for these), and a rubber monster finger puppet.
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Dec 2, 2023 02:10
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I'm not crazy militant about caching but I always make it a point to grab at least one cache every time I go somewhere new. I have gotten caches in all 50 states + DC, and in Asia is pitifully represented in my stats. 
Accipiter fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 15:44
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That's impressive work. How many total caches does that put you at?
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Apr 17, 2024 15:47
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CmdrRiker posted:That's impressive work. How many total caches does that put you at? Thanks. Not many compared to some. A little over 300.
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Apr 19, 2024 21:01
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Accipiter posted:Thanks. 300 is a lot! I'm sitting at 11 right now for comparison. I started geocaching this year to a) get out more and b) learn my city's geography more intimately. I'm fine just doing regular caches but for some reason I keep torturing myself with puzzle caches. So far I have accomplished 7 which are all three star ratings or under, but still requiring a fair amount of research and thinking for weeks on end. Oh I guess one was 3.5, I'm proud of that one. CmdrRiker fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Jun 1, 2024 |
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Jun 1, 2024 15:45
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CmdrRiker posted:300 is a lot! I'm sitting at 11 right now for comparison. Oh nice, you're really new to it. Welcome! You have really good reasons for doing it too. GeoCaching is effective as a motivator for activity and exploration. When I first started I was super into it. My first year alone got me nearly half of my current total: 141 caches. That was back in 2012, so I've been at it for a while. I definitely still enjoy it, but it's farther down the list of things these days. But when I'm traveling I make it a priority. I was in Ireland last week and got 5 more while I was there. I'd been to Ireland once before but it was in my pre-caching days, so it was nice to bring my cached countries closer to parity with my visited countries. Since you're so new to the game I have a few suggestions:
  (There were more.) Most of all though, have fun. Some of the caches have the potential to end up being great travel stories. 
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Jun 1, 2024 18:44
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Accipiter posted:
quote:
A few other tips:
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Jun 2, 2024 15:16
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Keep in mind that not reacting to poison ivy / poison oak is temporary, you can start to react after you get exposed enough times. I work with a bunch of volunteer trail maintenance weirdos and there are a million "poison oak never bothered met until it did" stories.
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Jun 2, 2024 18:33
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Accipiter posted:
Haha, thanks! I read this advice too late. I tried my first 3.5 terrain last weekend and I underestimated my skill in scaling down a steep muddy river bank. I was still far away from the actual river, but scraped myself up and got muddy. I am very unsure if I want to return with more skill or what. I also walked down a somewhat steep but defined trail and found a bunch of tents of people living down there while the weather is still warm. I felt like I was intruding. Accipiter posted:
Oh def. I already found some caches and realized "gently caress, I forgot to byop!" So I'll just come back later and mark it and log it. WhiteHowler posted:
Still too embarrassed to log my missed caches. WhiteHowler posted:
Yeah, most of my caching is urban caching... uh, I'm trying my best but I'm not sure how you can stealthily feel under every bottom railing of a fence on the corner of a busy street until you finally catch it. I'm sure as poo poo not coming back under the cover of night. I kind of accept that some people will notice, but most are too busy with their lives to notice or do something. I'm a white lady and also walking a chihuahua most of the time. CmdrRiker fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jun 3, 2024 |
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Jun 3, 2024 16:23
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I forgot to say thank you for the advice: THANK YOU! And it is really weird just randomly getting into this hobby without a seasoned veteran to show you the ropes. My first month was just utter confusion but I managed to figure out 1) What's a beacon? 2) what is the calibration of difficult/terrain 3) how the gently caress do people solve these puzzles with such little context? Anyway, thanks again.
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Jun 3, 2024 16:32
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CmdrRiker posted:Still too embarrassed to log my missed caches. Don't be embarrassed, especially if you're still new. We all miss a few. I missed a 1.5/1 not long ago. One that little kids had found. No big deal, I just didn't think to look in one specific location. Not Found logs give the cache owner some valuable feedback: - Is the cache's Difficulty or Terrain rating too low? - Was the cache moved slightly, by nature or non-cachers or carelessness by the previous finder? - Could the cache be missing? One Not Found report usually isn't cause for alarm, but a few in a row warrants checking on the cache. I know it's disappointing to report you couldn't find something, but it may not be your fault, and logging everything really does help out the community. In many cases I've had cache owners reach out after a Not Found and ask a few questions to try to determine if I was looking in the right place (to see if the cache might have gone missing). Sometimes they'll even ask if I'd like an extra hint!
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Jun 3, 2024 17:12
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WhiteHowler posted:Don't be embarrassed, especially if you're still new. We all miss a few. I missed a 1.5/1 not long ago. One that little kids had found. No big deal, I just didn't think to look in one specific location. Those are some good points. How about if the most recent find was like 20 days earlier? I feel like that is a good enough heartbeat, but that's true that someone could have watched THEM and ruined it... Also, do you still go after caches that go MANY months between finds? I am just now starting to learn those are not great caches to go after unless I am in a super good mood to try and possibly fail. And additionally additionally, there is a cache in my area that was planted 14 years ago. Since then there has been a lot of construction that made the find more difficult by traveling up a left hand departure lane on a state highway. (provided you solve a puzzle in the first place) Is that OK? Or should I reach out about that? I really don't know and the maintainer lives in a different state now.
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Jun 3, 2024 21:05
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CmdrRiker posted:Those are some good points. How about if the most recent find was like 20 days earlier? I feel like that is a good enough heartbeat, but that's true that someone could have watched THEM and ruined it... quote:Also, do you still go after caches that go MANY months between finds? I am just now starting to learn those are not great caches to go after unless I am in a super good mood to try and possibly fail. quote:And additionally additionally, there is a cache in my area that was planted 14 years ago. Since then there has been a lot of construction that made the find more difficult by traveling up a left hand departure lane on a state highway. (provided you solve a puzzle in the first place) Is that OK? Or should I reach out about that? I really don't know and the maintainer lives in a different state now. I'll note that cache owners are expected to be able to check on and maintain their caches regularly. If an owner has moved out-of-state and can't easily access the area anymore, they really should have retired (and removed) their caches.
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Jun 3, 2024 21:49
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