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Geocaching is a fun sport my friends told me about.
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a fun hobby, sort of. It's like a scavenger hunt that takes place every second of every minute of ever day of every month of every year... basically, it goes on forever and ever.
How do you Geocache?
Well, you would go to Geocaching.com. Get a free membership and you get all the areas that you put into a GPS system. See, people have hidden little tiny boxes all over the world. The best way to find them is to enter your Zip Code on the site and find the ones near you.
Is it hard?
Sometimes, yes. One person hid a geocache box in the wall of an alley way. It was pretty obvious, considering the brick was sticking out. Other people have hidden Geocache boxes under roofs and inside metal poles that require a screwdriver to get out.
What do you do when you find a Geocache box?
Well, the person who hid the Geocache box puts a small thing called a users log where people right down their names, date, and jsut about whatever else they want to write that doesn't take up too much room. This gives you a bit of recognition. BE SURE TO BRING YOUR OWN PENCIL! Now, the owner has also put a prize(s) in the box. What you get to do is take that prize. WHOO! But, you also have to put a prize back that is equal to or greater than that prize. (You aren't being watched, but it is kind of unfair if you find a 100 dollar bill and put in a penny.) BE SURE TO BRING YOUR PRIZE! Bring a variation of sizes of prizes, so they will fit in the box.
Are there any other types of Geocaches?
Sort of, yes. There are Geocoins which you can locate to find other Geocache boxes and there are Geobugs (something like that) that you put a story of your life in and pass it on to another Geocache box. Your story is passed on throughout other people.
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a fun hobby, sort of. It's like a scavenger hunt that takes place every second of every minute of ever day of every month of every year... basically, it goes on forever and ever.
How do you Geocache?
Well, you would go to Geocaching.com. Get a free membership and you get all the areas that you put into a GPS system. See, people have hidden little tiny boxes all over the world. The best way to find them is to enter your Zip Code on the site and find the ones near you.
Is it hard?
Sometimes, yes. One person hid a geocache box in the wall of an alley way. It was pretty obvious, considering the brick was sticking out. Other people have hidden Geocache boxes under roofs and inside metal poles that require a screwdriver to get out.
What do you do when you find a Geocache box?
Well, the person who hid the Geocache box puts a small thing called a users log where people right down their names, date, and jsut about whatever else they want to write that doesn't take up too much room. This gives you a bit of recognition. BE SURE TO BRING YOUR OWN PENCIL! Now, the owner has also put a prize(s) in the box. What you get to do is take that prize. WHOO! But, you also have to put a prize back that is equal to or greater than that prize. (You aren't being watched, but it is kind of unfair if you find a 100 dollar bill and put in a penny.) BE SURE TO BRING YOUR PRIZE! Bring a variation of sizes of prizes, so they will fit in the box.
Are there any other types of Geocaches?
Sort of, yes. There are Geocoins which you can locate to find other Geocache boxes and there are Geobugs (something like that) that you put a story of your life in and pass it on to another Geocache box. Your story is passed on throughout other people.
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A good, trusty portale GPS. I recommend a Gammin brand.
Number two pencil is recommended. Pen, marker, crayon can be used, but they usually take up too much space on the log book.
Any prize is good enough. I usually bring money or small trinkets.
Number two pencil is recommended. Pen, marker, crayon can be used, but they usually take up too much space on the log book.
Any prize is good enough. I usually bring money or small trinkets.
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...and I still followed the "be nice" policy :P
Most of the respondents were not happy with the quality of geocaches. It shows that there is more to knowing how hide and find geocaches than just doing it. A lot of it is to do with having an attitude of knowing how to geocache with quality.
Anyway, check out the results of the survey at: www.progeocaching.com
Don't get a SirfStar-based GPS. Almost every bluetooth model using this chipset is configured for static navigation mode, which makes it almost completely unusable at slow walking speeds. Also, trying to reconfigure the GPS, or changing the baud rate as gpsd normally does, will usually crash the GPS rendering it unable to send data until you reset it by completely draining the battery. And this is the one time the "10-12 hours" of battery life quoted on the box *isn't* an exaggeration.
A $40 phone you buy from your cell phone operator, even though it's advertised as having bluetooth, most likely won't work, at least without some modification. One reason is the J2ME "security" model, which usually means you can't install a java program that's allowed to access your phone's file system or bluetooth connection unless the network operator has approved and signed that application. And depending on who you bought the phone from it may have had all sort of other crippling done to it. Your best options are to buy an unlocked phone somewhere (for roughly the price of a high end GPS) or flash a cheap subsidized phone with the manufacturer's original firmware.
Gocaching.com likes to charge money for features like downloading GPX waypoint files, but there's an easy way to get the coordinates into software or hardware that expects GPX without being a premium member: download your search results as a .loc file for free and use GPSBabel to convert them to GPX or whatever else you need.