Geocaching!!

[TheSolMan]

Actually looks like fun...

Have any of you guys ever heard of this or tried it? It's basically a good-will treasure hunt. Someone will host a hidden object, give you the geographic coordinates, and you have to go find it! The hidden objects can vary in size, but a typical "cache" is an ammo box containing items that you can trade. If you take something, you have to leave something. Most items are just junk and trinkets but it's more fun just finding it.

Some boxes have themes, like football teams. Sometimes you find trackable items or "bugs" that have a serial number and a mission to reach someplace. All of these items can be tracked/logged on the website, and it's encouraged to tell your story of where the items have been.

All you do is search by your zip code, type the coordinates into your GPS, and go find it! Some users provide clues, such as "off the trail 10 feet under a dead tree" to help. The road only takes you so far, and then you switch your GPS settings to "offroad" and walk the rest of the way on foot.

Make sure you watch out for "muggles" - people who might see you and wonder what you are doing poking around the woods!

It's a lot of fun and allows you to discover hidden areas of your city/state that you normally wouldn't go to. Plus its FREE, minus the cost of the GPS unit.

Check out this website for more info:
http://www.geocaching.com

I'm gonna check the zip codes around here and see what's hidden!

[006r]

Guy I work with does that, he says it's really neat. Lots of areas around here to go.

[TheSolMan]

Yeah I guess UWSP actually has a geocaching club on campus that does it too, there's pages of things to find here in 54481

[DSM Girl]

Sounds like fun!

[devlish]

there's only one close by. the others are not far, but a decent drive. 1hr+ if i recall. looked it up recently, just don't remember what was around here.

[TheSolMan]

hhhmmm I looked it up today and there were a ton of them around here. a lot of them were found recently too, so they still do it on a regular basis or so it looked

[SPSRA]

My wife and I occasionally do this with the kids. There actually is one just down the street from our house. It's kinda interesting. Sometimes you might get stupid ones that have you traipsing through mud and shit just to get to them. At that point I don't think it's worth it, and it makes you feel like you just wasted a bunch of time.

[TheSolMan]

I want to find some good porn, or a bunch of money, or maybe someone will hide a dead body and put the location on geocaches!!! Yeah this could be interesting

[SPSRA]

Don't mean to sound pessimistic here, but it's not quite like that. The biggest thing we've found so far is a small coffee can. It had some stuff in it like key chains and little knick-knacks that your supposed to exchange with something of your own, and a little log book. Most of the time, it's just a container of some kind just big enough to hold a log book.

The one that was down the street from my house ended up being a camera film canister, with a bunch of little pieces of paper rolled up in it to right your name and date down.

[TheSolMan]

Yeah I figured that much. It's the hunt that's fun though!