Tag: Geocaching

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Geocacher Spotlight : College Cacher

Geocachers come from all walks of life from babies stuffed in backpack carriers to people older than your grandma. I think it’s safe to say that of all stages of life, few of our single-years are as active as those in college.

Lia with an ammobox cache

Lia Steinberg is a remarkable student at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (you practically need a degree to put that entire phrase in a conversation). She’s a consistent Dean’s list achiever and is a Barack Obama Scholar, so she’s so busy you wouldn’t think she has time for any extra-extracurricular activities… but she happens to be a geocacher. She even maintains the blog College Cacher where the college-aged geocacher can garner tips and ideas.

Paurian: As a repeating Dean’s list broadcast journalism major, a Barack Obama Scholar, and a very active participant in extracurricular activities, do you consider your experiences with geocaching an augment to your overall life or as more of a relaxing hobby?

Lia: As a busy college student, I rarely have a moment to relax and do the things I truly enjoy. That’s why geocaching is the perfect hobby for me. I can take ten minutes out of my usual routine and do something exciting and adventurous. If I have an hour before my next class, I can whip out my GPS and find the nearest cache without taking too much time out of my day to have fun. It’s a great way for me to unwind and enjoy my surroundings even on the busiest of days.

Lia going geobikeching

Paurian: Your blog is really great for young and first-time cachers, with videos, helpful tips and interesting polls. What prompted you to build it?

Lia: Last semester, I took a class called Online Media that focuses on building an online identity and visual communication. For an assignment, we were required to start a blog about a hobby or interest that we felt we could be an “expert” in. I thought geocaching was the perfect subject to blog about because not many people are familiar with the hobby and thought it would spark some interest. Even though the blog was required for a grade, I did not view it as such. I thoroughly enjoyed blogging and sharing my adventures with people who share the same interest. Now, even though the class is over, I still continue to blog as much as possible.

Paurian: What was your first geocaching experience?

Lia: My first geocaching experience was about a year ago with my boyfriend. I heard about geocaching on another blog I read and it really amazed me how there were so many caches in my area that I never knew existed. I immediately tracked down the nearest one and found it about 15 minutes later. The rest is history.

Paurian: What types of swag do you consider cool … what about lame?

Lia: I really enjoy finding travel bugs because I like to see where they have traveled to. I don’t really find the toys or coins very thrilling, although I still don’t mind if I find them because it gives me an idea of what kind of people have found it before me.

Lia geocaching with friends

Paurian: What is the most helpful non GPSr geocaching tool that you take into the field?

Lia: The most useful non GPSr geocaching tool would definitely have to be tweezers. They have saved my butt a few times when I simply cannot retrieve the log book if it’s squished inside a micro. Otherwise, just having someone else to help find geocaches is great because they sometimes give you a different perspective that you might not have thought of.

Note: Lia has a helpful list of extras on one of her blogposts titled “Geocaching Essentials” .

Paurian: Do you or your friends have any experiences or thoughts on caching with the non-groundspeak services, such as terracaching.com, navicache.com or Garmin’s opencaching.com?

Lia: I have never heard of those websites before, although now you’ve sparked my interest to check them out!

Paurian: What is the collest geocache hide you’ve ever gone after or heard of?

Lia: The coolest geocache I discovered was just a couple weeks ago when I was visiting family in Tampa, FL. The GPS took me to an old shed located next to a baseball field. The size of the container was not specified the hint was “not a glue.” As I was searching near an electrical box, I noticed a pipe coming from the ground with a gardening hose attached. I pulled the pipe right up from the ground and found the cache inside. So clever!

Paurian: As mentioned before, you’ve got great advice all over your blog for newbies. To date, what one post do you feel has been the most helpful.

Lia: I try to keep my posts interesting for new geocachers as well as for the well-experienced. I think my post labeled “The Thrill of the Hunt” pretty much sums up my entire view on geocaching. It gives my opinion about why geocaching is rewarding and fun, as well as gives special tips on how to have a pleasant experience.

Paurian: What excellent feature/element/idea/thing would you like added to the geocaching experience?

Lia: If I plan on geocaching all day, my preferable mode of transportation is a bike. A bike with a geocaching GPS on the handle bars would be amazing because I always get annoyed at having to stop all the time to see where the GPS wants me to go.

Lia signing a log

Paurian: You mention on your blog how you introduced a good friend to geocaching. How many others have you personally introduced to the world of geocaching and which was the most memorable experience?

Lia: I have introduced many of my family and friends to geocaching and it has been such a fulfilling experience for me to enjoy my surroundings with the people I love. Caching (in my opinion) is way more fun with a friend than doing it alone. I have always loved to hike with my family, and now we can have something to hike to besides a beautiful view. Also, through my blog, my fellow classmates and professor were very interested in learning more about geocaching. They couldn’t believe a hobby like this existed and I feel passionate about sharing my new favorite hobby with people who are eager to discover it as well.

You can read more about her geocaching adventures and pick up tips and advice that appeal to any age (you don’t have to be in college) at her College Cacher blog.

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Your Large is Smaller Than My Small

Many times, Geocaching is a challenging seek-and-find game. You are given GPS coordinates that are near the cache, but often don’t mark the true location.

Still being green in the sport, I often miss cleverly hidden caches because I’m looking for the wrong type of container.

In the last excursion, my family went searching high and low and found several caches, but three of them eluded us to the point that we gave up and labeled it a DNF, or “Did Not Find”.

It turns out that they were all smaller than I felt they should have been based on the descriptions.

The first was labeled “Small” instead of “Micro”. It was a compact 3″ hide-a-key size-ish container that was only large enough for the logbook.

The second was marked a “Normal” size cache but was the size of a 28oz peanut-butter jar, which I consider “Small”.

The third cache was marked as “Large” but was only a regular sized coffee can.

I’ve hunted for geocaches from the west coast to the east coast and have seen a relatively consistent trend that differs from what I experienced in the last hunt. The ones we did find in the area were more consistent with the national definitions of cache sizes.

Here’s what I’ve seen, but remember that I’m still under 100 finds, which means I’ve still got much to learn.

Nano

Currently considered as a subset of the “Micro” category.

Size:
From the size of a large pea to the size of your thumb.
Shape:
Nearly always cylindrical, though on occasion they appear flat like the magnetized outlet cover.
Markings:
They rarely have any markings that identify them as a geocache. Some containers sold by the geocaching community are an exception, with groundspeak’s “lackey” logo painted on them.
Log Type:
A sheet of paper rolled into a tight scroll.
Swag:
None. The scroll is so tight you sometimes have to pull it out with tweezers.
Trackables:
None.
Geography:
Urban areas where there’s high traffic and their miniscule nature becomes vital to existance. Think about the movies you’ve seen of New York city.
Cloak:
Some have magentic ends that stick to metal. Some have chains from which they can dangle. Magnetic ones are often stuck to the back of signs or under lamppost skirts. Dangling ones are often attached to a larger item that covers the cache-hole; occasionally they are dangled from a branch in a tree. These can be cleverly disguised in or as writing pens, cigarette butts, chewed gum wads, at the end of rebarb, under lamppost skirts or within/as magnetized nuts/bolts.

Micro

Size:
From the size of your thumb to the size of a wallet/mint tin.
Shape:
Popular cases are 35mm film canisters, match tubes, Altoids tins (round or rectangular) and magnetic hide-a-key cases.
Markings:
Because of the popularity of this size for film and candy canisters and the popular hide-a-key varieties, few Some containers sold by the geocaching community are an exception, with groundspeak’s “lackey” logo painted on them. Clear 35mm film canisters might have a geocaching logo that appears from the inside.
Log Type:
Flat types, such as the popular magnetic slide-door hide-a-key box have folded pieces of paper or small notebooks laying flat. Cylindrical types have sheets of paper rolled up.
Swag:
A few times I have seen tiny trinkets such as pathtags, rings or plastic coins but they can’t hold more than that.
Trackables:
Because of the size and shape, I’ve only seen geocoins in the larger variety of these.
Geography:
As with the Nano size, the Micro size caches are popular in moderate to high-traffic urban areas. Sometimes they’re used in rural areas to increase the challenge.
Cloak:
Micro caches are usually not magnetized, with the hide-a-key cases being an exception. The non-magnetic canisters are usually attached to trees with a wire, stashed inside another item, hidden in fenceposts, or disguised in the open, such as the hide-a-key rock. They are also often stuck under metal signs or other low metalic fixtures (like drains), in small tubes, in a tree or a bush.

Small

Size:
Small caches are around the size of a 12oz coffee mug to a 30oz jar.
Shape:
They are usually small tupperware-type containers with watertight lids. As such, they can be square, rectangular or cylindrical, with the “Jar” variety being quite popular. Of all the containers, these can get the most creative. For example, holiday decorations or toys can be hollowed out to build containers.
Markings:
Most of the time they’re covered with camouflage duck tape. Sometimes they’re painted comouflage. They can often be uncameo’d at all, just hidden away from where people usually look. About half the time I see an “Official Geocache” label stuck or painted on the container.
Log Type:
Small spirals are popular, but I’ve also seen them contain folded sheets of paper.
Swag:
Path tags, small toys, party favors. Popular swag are bracelets, rings, hot-wheels, and most toys that comes with a “happy meal”.
Trackables:
Travel bugs and geocoins.
Geography:
Brushy areas in parks near neighborhoods. Rarely in urban foot-trafic areas, but sometimes in bushes near moderately busy streets.
Cloak:
They can be cleverly hidden inside tree holes, large pipes, birdhouses or boxes that appear to be part of the landscape. They are also be hidden under piles of rocks, leaves, branches or within bushes. A popular hide is within junpier bushes. I have found a few that are in plain sight where you just need to look up or under something to find it.

Regular

Size:
Sizes range from a regular sized coffee can (about 100 ounces) to a large 50-caliber ammo can (about 235 ounces).
Shape:
Cylindrical to rectangular-box shaped with ammo cans being quite popular.
Markings:
Cans might be covered with duck tape for both protection from rust and hideability. They are sometimes camouflage painted. Ammo cans are usually already painted in a forest-green color but are sometimes repainted. You nearly always find these with an “Official Geocache” label stuck or painted on the container since the sheer size invokes fear in muggles who happen to glance by when a cacher rehides it.
Log Type:
Small to medium spiral-bound or glue-bound notebooks are popular.
Swag:
Small to reasonable sized toys are often placed in these. I’ve seen hand-dolls, action figures and larger “happy meal” toys as well as bigger selection of the smaller swag (mentioned in the “Small” type cache) stuffed in these.
Trackables:
Travel bugs and geocoins.
Geography:
These containers are out in the folliage or rocks away from civilization, though they are occaisonally found in parks or off jogging trails. Either in the rural areas or in rural spaces in suburban areas.
Cloak:
They are often found under piles of rocks or stacks of branches.

Large

Size:
Sizes range from around 1 cubic foot up to 160 cubic feet or more.
Shape:
Usually box-shaped, like the large rubbermaids.
Markings:
I haven’t seen (pictures of) any without a marking of some kind – usually painted on. Due to the size, the larger they are, the less likely they are cameo painted.
Log Type:
Medium to large notebooks.
Swag:
Only having found one of these before, I can say the swag is pretty much the same as a normal size. There are a few additions such as reading books, coloring books and larger toys, but that’s it.
Trackables:
Travel bugs and geocoins.
Geography:
These containers are out in the woods or off the beaten path, so to speak.
Cloak:
I’ve only seen or heard of them being hidden in plain sight or under large brush.
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Virtual Geocaches for Education

My first day of geocaching was while I was on a business trip in Washington D.C.. Paranoia is marked with secret service men and armed guards nearly everywhere you go. Other than the Spy Museum’s caches (which get muggled pretty often), there’s only room for two types of caches in the monument endowed city: microcaches and virtual caches. I had not known of virtual caches before, just that there were little ghosty things on the map that made the DC area look more like a mortuary than a cacher’s paradise.

Had it not been for the good nature of two other cachers, WizardOfMD69 and Suzanne, who took me under their wing that day I might have missed out on a good thing. They introduced me to the world of virtual geocaching. We went to statues and monuments and plaques across the city that I hadn’t been to before. The questions took us down paths of politics, history, architecture, art, science and biographies that I hadn’t delved into before, or if I had, it wasn’t with that detail. Then the thought came to me that virtual caching is really a big outdoor field-trip. You go to places. You learn things. You experience things. Then you take a pop-quiz and get credit.

The main deterrent for virtual caches is that it’s a chore to go through the geocaching.com or geocaching app interface to send that person a message with the answers. Some answers require you email them directly with a picture attachment, which geocaching.com doesn’t allow from their messaging interface. Some cache owners are so strict that if you post your “find” before emailing them they’ll erase it. After finding the virtual cache, the experience goes downhill… so much that I gave up on posting my half-dozen virtual caches discovered that day.

There are ways Groundspeak could improve this experience and make it just as enjoyable as treasure caches. I already know one way which would be simple to implement and make a world of a difference… I won’t go into right now. That’s not the purpose of this post. But I will say it’s a shame that because of their kludgy interface and lack of forethought, virtual caches are being thought of as a lesser cache when in reality they’re often better. In the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the final treasure was knowledge. Virtual caches are that knowledge… only with freaky ghosts to mark them instead of freakier alien skulls.

Whether you home-school or public school, virtual caches and earth caches are a fantastic way to get children excited about learning. Two weeks ago my family went to an event happening in a park downtown. That park happened to contain a virtual cache so I got to introduce virtual caching to my family. The children ran around the monument to take it in where they might of otherwise ignored it. It didn’t take long for my wife, who has an education degree, to come to the same conclusion I did. Virtual caches rock!