Memorial Day Weekend turned into a nice little weekend for my little family. As you may already know, I have two teen aged boys. Being a single mom (even with a live in boyfriend) it can be rather expensive to do many things that are fun and educational. For 4 people, even the "low cost" activities can get out of hand. So I'm always trying to find something to do that is fun, educational AND free! GeoCaching happens to be one of the few things that we can do together that fits all three criteria, AND even my teens love doing it!
What is GeoCaching? You can find out more about it on the GeoCaching website. Although the activitie and website itself is free (you can upgrade your account for a nominal monthly or yearly fee for more features), you do have to have a GPS to participate. Once you have an account on GeoCaching.com and a GPS device, then you can start caching.
It's like a treasure or scavenger hunt that the entire world participates in. You go to the GeoCaching website, search for caches by zip code, download a list of the caches into your GPS device, and then off you go hunting. You can do this for whatever area you are in, whether it's local or in another city or state... there are even GeoCaches in other countries! So where ever you are, where ever you go, you can go GeoCaching. This makes for a great way to get to know an area in ways that most travel guides or tours don't give you.
Each Cache is a little different. Some are "Micro-Caches", which are generally little pill bottles, film canisters, or other small containers, with a "log book" (which is just a long peice of lined paper rolled up) for you put your user name and date on. Others can be as large as an ammo can or tupperware container. The large containers will have "trade items" in them. These are little items that you can take for yourself, but you have to leave an item in it's place. There are "Multi-Cahces" which are like little clues leading you from one cahce to the next. These can be easy or very difficult depending on the person who set the Multi-Cache up.
The "Trade Items" are really what my sons love the most about GeoCaching. Even though they generally keep the item just long enough to trade it in another cache, it's still like burried treasure for them. The type of items left in the cache depend on the cache itself. There are some caches that have a "theme", such as one we searched for was all about aliens, so the items inside the container were all aliens or alien themed. Another cache we searched for had a theme of wilderness survival. It was a "memorial" cache for a young hiker who had gotten lost and died near that spot. The person who set up the cache did it to remind people to be careful and prepared when they go hiking. Inside the cahce were items such as a rain poncho, compass, a small poket knife, and other small survival items. It was a great conversation starter with the boys for sure!
On Monday, the boys, Steve and I all went out GeoCaching around our neighborhood. It was a nice day to do it too! We set out to find the nearest one to our house, which was at a local park which is right by our house. The next one we went to was by a man made lake, which I didn't know was so close to our house! It was in a beautiful neighborhood, but unfortunately we couldn't find the cache itself... but we did find a great place to go when we want to cool off and feed the ducks. There was even a family of baby ducks there!
The next one we went to was in a park behind our local library. A part of the park that we hadn't been to before. It was a good one that was difficult to find, but my youngest son found it which made him feel really good because of how well hidden it had been. Another nice thing about GeoCaching is that it gives kids an incentive to think logically and outside of themselves to find something someone else hid. It's great exercise for the brain for sure!
This is one of my favorite outdoor activities to do with my sons. We will usually take a picnic, plan out where we're going to go, and then just travel from one cache to the next for the better part of the day. We've gone hiking in the mountains looking for caches, and just jumping out the car in a mall parking lot. They are all fun for all ages!
Once you've found a few caches, you might also like creating one with your kids too. Get them thinking of a great place to hide it, figuring out either someplace that no one knows about that you all love to go to, or someplace that will have an interesting theme to it. Then pick out the size of the cache, micro, small, medium, or large and then the items for trading, if any. No matter what age your kids are, they'll have fun creating this little treasure hunt that will last a long time. Then once you've placed your cache you can watch all the people who have found it through the GeoCaching website.
I hope you'll try it out and have fun!
