July 30, 2001

11:14 AM

Geocaching is a way to put your useless GPS device, and your lazy internet to work for your important fun needs. People hide Stuff on earth, and mark the spot. Publish the coordinates, and you go find the stuff. Sometimes toys and cameras are involved. Link via my good friend J.Bu, who probably did not realize he was giving away a perfectly good Old School style MeFi post.
posted by thirteen (26 comments total)

My wife and I have been Geocaching since January. It's loads of fun, and makes hiking and camping that much more interesting.
posted by darren at 11:21 AM on July 30, 2001

It does look like fun, but I don't have a GPS device. This is kinda sorta a double post.
posted by binkin at 11:23 AM on July 30, 2001

Only, as I meant to add before I accidentally hit the Post button (darn people walking up behind me), it's not the same link. Just the same topic. So... um... yeah.
posted by binkin at 11:26 AM on July 30, 2001

This is me, at the start of a Blair Witch like adventure into the woodiest part of Chicago I have ever seen. Here is some nature graffiti, cause I know some of you loves the graffiti. Here is some more, the spray paint, make the natural surrounding all the more beautiful. Thank you brave, brave graffiti artists!
posted by thirteen at 11:27 AM on July 30, 2001

My question is, why don't they make a GPS that can fire bullets?
posted by daveadams at 11:27 AM on July 30, 2001

Eek, it is close enough to the old link, that I would not have gone for it if I had seen it. Congrats to jjg and Rebeccablood BTW.
posted by thirteen at 11:28 AM on July 30, 2001

My question is, why don't they make a GPS that can fire bullets?

They do. They're called missiles.

(I assume you mean GPS, as in a GPS navigating device, not GPS as in the satellite array itself.)
posted by Mo Nickels at 11:29 AM on July 30, 2001

GPS as in the satellite array itself

You are right, but that would be even cooler.
posted by daveadams at 11:30 AM on July 30, 2001

thirteen: something about the forest preserves around Chicago always freaked me out. Go downstate young man. :)
posted by jbelshaw at 12:01 PM on July 30, 2001

If I tried this, I'd be scared that the items were placed there by a murder who was attempting to lure people into the wilderness.
posted by jragon at 12:05 PM on July 30, 2001

It was pretty cool. I found some jawbones, photographed moss, slimemolds, and 9 different kings of fungus. I saw spiders that looked like they had sea shells on their backs, saw ducks squirrels and racoons, and heard what I thought was a rabbi, but the wife claims was a deer. This was 3 miles from my house! I never knew.

I did not find the cache however. I was right on top of it I am sure. The coordinates jump, and when I got home and checked the hints, I realized it was under one of the rotton logs I did not feel like touching. I will go back some night this week.
posted by thirteen at 12:07 PM on July 30, 2001

and heard what I thought was a rabbi, but the wife claims was a deer

Well, now, there's a misidentification for you...Oy!
posted by briank at 12:09 PM on July 30, 2001

The one I was looking for is a take a toy, leave a toy site. Peoples comments reveal that they were leaving candy in the box. I don't think I will be eating the candy. Last person who logged in said they left mint green tic tacs, which I have no interest in.
posted by thirteen at 12:10 PM on July 30, 2001

Oyyyyy. I can't spell. I am on my deadline, and juggling stuff. Sorry.
posted by thirteen at 12:11 PM on July 30, 2001

Candy left in the wild. Hmmmm.... Something about it... No. What is it? Oh. Yeah.

Yucky candy!

But on the whole, this sounds like a lot of fun. I would definitely hike more if there was a game like quality to it. I think that says something bad about my personality, but at least I realize it.
posted by J. R. Hughto at 12:21 PM on July 30, 2001

I used to geocache... used to.
posted by tomplus2 at 12:29 PM on July 30, 2001

Heard a radio program recently where someone brought up the point that geocaching is akin to litter - you take something out into the wilderness where it doesn't belong and leave it there. In an effort to make finding caches more of an adventure, caches will be put into trackless wilderness instead of travelled trails. Animals, with a keen sense of smell, will be able to smell the human scent from the cache and stay away which probably would affect wildlife populations and hunting patterns.
posted by dithered at 2:05 PM on July 30, 2001

It should be noted that as with so many things online, intellectual property disputes are not far behind: the owner of one geocaching site fought with the owner of another. Owner A didn't want his maps used by Owner B, and Owner B didn't want anyone else using "geocaching", as he has trademarked the word along with the domain. Or something like that.
posted by dhartung at 4:16 PM on July 30, 2001

Thanks tomplus - reading that post gave me a feeling I haven't had since I was 8 years old, alone in the dark, and convinced that my Yoda lamp was coming to kill me. I'm 27 and sitting in a busy office. You suck :)
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:10 PM on July 30, 2001

that's a killer story, tomplus... great way to ruin geocaching for me, though.
posted by lotsofno at 6:09 PM on July 30, 2001

Whats the challenge? Anyone with time and money and a UPS can find the cache it takes no brain power. And the reward is a booby prize of tic-tacs or whatever. Someone needs to expand on the GeoCache idea.
posted by stbalbach at 4:03 AM on July 31, 2001

Sounds like a whole heap of fun to me. I like the fact that some of the descriptions on the site actually give a history, looks like there is a meaning behind the mirth in some cases. If I had a tourist spot I would be caching every minute.
posted by kramer_101 at 5:17 AM on July 31, 2001

Whats the challenge?
It is not like you get there and there is a big X. I arrived at the coordinates, and spent 45minutes searching, and did not find mine. The trees are thick, so the reading kept jumping, and it is really only good enough to get you in the approximate area. There were 3' high weeds everywhere, and I think this was hidden pretty good. The prize is symbolic I think, the searching was the fun part.
posted by thirteen at 8:15 AM on July 31, 2001

Well thats even worse then.. not finding the cache.. was the cache stolen? Maybe it was never there. You never know.

Is there some kind of contest or game around GeoCache? I could see a real game evolve if the stakes were high enough just need a good model.
posted by stbalbach at 10:31 AM on July 31, 2001

was the cache stolen?
I considered that it might have been taken, but I unencrypted the hints, and realized it was probably under a rotten log I did not want to touch. I did not want to look under.
posted by thirteen at 11:33 AM on July 31, 2001

Whats the challenge? Anyone with time and money and a UPS can find the cache it takes no brain power. And the reward is a booby prize of tic-tacs or whatever.

So have you actually looked at each the thousands of geocaches on the site or are you just assuming that none have any challenge? Sure, some can be very easily found, but many can't. Some require physical challenges (i.e. climbing mountains), some require a non-physical challenge, some are multi-stage caches that incorporate little puzzles, and some are simply meeting places for events.

And while most cachers aren't in it for the goodies in the caches, the items in a cache are usually better in quality than tic-tacs. Go out and look for some and report back to us.
posted by gluechunk at 2:01 PM on July 31, 2001