Hiding a Geocache

Members of the geocaching community are responsible for creating and maintaining the thousands of geocaches out in the world. Anyone who has an account with geocaching.com and a little bit of imagination, and patients, and a good location in mind, can place a geocache in the world. There are a few simple rules to follow when making a cache that must be followed in order to place the cache properly.

• Above all it is important to have the land owners permission to place the cache if it is on private property.
• A geocache is never to be buried
• Wildlife must not be harmed in the placement
• Geocaches are not to be placed on school property
• Geocaches may not be placed on military bases
• Geocaches are allowed in space on moons or other planets.

Once you have a perfect location set it is time to stock and place your geocache. Inside of the geocache you must have at the minimum a logbook or log sheet for the treasure hunters to sign their name. You may also want to stock the container with the first prizes. Once the cache is stocked it is time to take it to the location and place it. When you hide the cache it is important to hide it well, you don’t want it to be too easy, however you don’t want it to be impossible.  Hiding a geocache is a fun way to be involved with maintaining the continuing popularity of the game. Remember that when you place a geocache it is up to you to keep it clean and keep the log book up to date.

“If you hide it, they will come” 

Types of Geocaches

Geocaching involves exploring and finding items hidden in a cache. There are various different types of caches that come in many shapes and sizes. Below you will find a list with descriptions of the various types of caches that can be found out in the environment. First are the sizes of the various caches.

Micro – The smallest of all caches.  Typically a small container no larger than a stack of ten pennies. The cache is only large enough to hold a tightly rolled up log for initials or signatures.

Mini – A film canister that has a folded up and rolled piece of paper as a log book.

Small – The size of a sandwich container.

Regular – A container roughly the size of a shoe box.

Large – A five gallon bucket or larger.

Along with different sizes there are many different types of caches that range in difficulty.

Traditional – A single cache that is found near the location of the coordinates given.

Multi-cache – A series of two or more caches where one will have a clue to lead you to another until you ultimately find the prize cache.

Virtual Cache – A virtual cache is about discovering a location rather than a container. There are varying degrees of completion, such as taking a picture of an area where the clues took you.

Event Cache – An event cache is set up for a specific date and time to attract multiple geocachers to a location as a gathering.

Finding all the different types and sizes of geocaches offers a unique challenge as you enjoy the outdoors. 

What to take

So what do you need?

At the minimum all you need to be a successful treasure hunter is a GPS enabled Device such as a cell phone or other specific unit. There are many devices to choose from but all that is needed is a device with the ability to impute coordinates and see a map to that location. There are however, GPS devices with special abilities like tracking distance traveled or even allow you to connect to a computer to download coordinates directly from the website.

After you find a GPS unit that you like, you are almost ready to get out and go play. There are a few other items that are useful to have when you are out hunting treasures. It is always a good idea to have a pen or pencil with you so that when you find any of the geocaches you will be able to sign the logbook with your name and date. When collecting treasures from a cache it is a rule amongst geocachers that you must leave another item of equal or lesser value in place of the item you took. So if you plan on collecting any treasures it is important to have a couple of little prizes in order to replace any items you take. Prizes range, anywhere from McDonalds happymeal toys, baseball cards, golfballs, basically any small item you can think of can be hidden for other geocachers. For long hikes it is always a good idea to have water and perhaps a snack for the journey. All of the items can be stored in a backpack to make for easy transport while exploring.

Now that you have all your items ready to go it is time to get out and go explore.

What is Geocaching?

                What is geocaching? In short geocaching is an outdoor worldwide treasure hunting game that utilizes global positioning system (GPS) technology. The word geo meaning earth, and cache which means hidden provisions. Out in the wilderness all around the world are hundreds of thousands of hidden caches waiting to be found. A cache can be the size of a small film canister to the size of a five gallon bucket. Inside of every cache is a log book for the geocachers to sign their name and log the find. Also inside of any geocache there could be small prizes for the finder to exchange for, as long as they replace the item with something of equal or lesser value. Along with signing their name in the cache logbook the finder also logs their find on the website geocaching.com. Geocaching.com is the host website for members of the geocaching community to look up and log their finds and experiences.

                So what is so fun and challenging about going to a set of coordinates? Well GPS technology is not one hundred percent accurate, so what does that mean? A geocaher uses the given coordinates to get within 15 meters accurately and then the search is on. The only rule is that the cache can not be buried. The idea behind geocaching is to get out and go play, the prize that may be found may not be the true treasure, the treasure is the adventure that you take out in the wilderness to find the geocache.