Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Geocaching- A Fun Family Activity

Geocaching is an outdoor game that uses a GPS receiver (or a phone that has one built-in). It's an inexpensive, interactive experience that has players finding and hiding containers called caches. It's a scavenger hunt, with a high-tech twist. You can sign up for free at http://www.geocaching.com/. Enter your zip code and how many miles you'd like to venture from home (or from the town you are visiting). Press Go and you'll find a slew of listings- often hundreds or nearby caches. A quick summary: Caches are containers that have been hidden by fellow geocachers- anyone can do it. The person who initially hides the cache posts its GPS coordinates on geocaching.com, which is how you know where to look. Caches are everywhere- there are 900,000 worldwide! Most smart phones these days have a GPS system which makes this activitiy easy, or you can buy one, such as the Geomate.jr ($70) which actually comes preloaded with about 250,000 geocache coordinates. The Garmin eTrex H ($100) is also a popular choice. *Note from Barb: We have not tried this yet as a family, but have friends that have been hiding and searching for geocaches for years and LOVE it.

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