It is the start of the second week of the school holidays, and for parents another week to occupy the kids whilst juggling all the things you have to do (like work!).

A great way to engage the kids, discover places you didn’t know existed in your own neighbourhood, and get some of your things done – all for free, is to go ‘geocaching’.

Geocaching involves using a GPS, (or the website maps.google.com and a bit of lateral thinking as we did to start with) to discover hidden treasure located in public places. Or as I saw it described on another website – “using multi-billion dollar satellite technology to find Tupperware hidden in the woods”.

The basic idea is to find hidden containers, which are called ‘caches’, without getting spotted by ‘muggles’ (non-geocachers). These containers generally contain a log book and ‘swaps’ – anything from junk plundered from the kids’ toybox, through to ‘travel bugs’ and ‘geocoins’ which travel the world from cache to cache.

Once a cache has been found, it is rehidden in the same place for the next person to find.  ‘Finds’ are also logged at the geocaching.com website, where you can also research what geocaches are hidden in your area. You may be surprised to find that parks you visit frequently are also home to hidden caches.

When I last looked at the geocaching website there were over 700,000 active geocaches around the world!

The website had 97,989 ‘account holders’ – people or teams registered to look for geocaches. In one week over 90,000 logs were written.  So while you may not have heard of geocaching, there are plenty of people around the world who have.

Kids really enjoy finding the caches, deciding what to swap, and writing in the log book. Combine a search for a geocache with a trip to the supermarket or a less popular excursion where you can’t avoid taking the kids.

Tip: choose the easy ones for your first ‘finds’ or if you have kids with short attention spans. There is nothing more off-putting than searching under bushes for 10-15 minutes and finding nothing! Caches are rated for difficulty by the number of stars at the top of each cache page on the website. You can also read the logs of others who have found the cache, and decrypt the ‘hint’ just incase you get stuck and need help to find the cache.

Support the ‘Cache in Trash Out’ initiative, and whenever you see rubbish lying around at any of the cache sites, pick it up and dispose of it thoughtfully.

www.geocaching.com

Posted on April 20th, 2009 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: Total Trivia