As the weather's warming up now, I thought I'd do an outdoor activity review to fit with my indoor activity one of Junk, and it's a review of one of my favourite activities, something I've been doing for nearly six months now and it's very addictive. Hope you like my review, and if you try Geocaching, enjoy that too!
Geocaching
When they're very young, everyone wants to find a tiny bit of treasure languishing in a hidden corner of beautiful countryside (and, in some cases, cities). But, sadly, not many of us manage to achieve that dream. However, thanks to the twelve-year-old, international craze of Geocaching, just a few of us just might do. The most basic form of Geocaching involves walking around an area (usually the countryside, sometimes urban areas), using a GPS device or smartphone to find containers (ranging in size from film canisters and the occasional diamond-encrusted 3cm tub to large buckets and ammo boxes) of small trinkets (such as keyrings, plastic toys and Trackables, which are trinkets created to pass from cache to cache) known as caches hidden just out of plain sight, and subsequently registering your find on the Geocaching website. And of course all the best things in life are two-way processes, so Geocachers can also create their own caches in their local area for others to try and find, and best of all, the whole basic membership, containing opportunities to both hide and seek caches, is absolutely free (there is also a premium membership, costing $30 - approximately £19 - but there are few obvious benefits). In the time between now and when it started, Geocaching has grown to be much more complex, with current cache types including Cache Series (an often themed route of several Traditional Caches), Event Caches (a formal or informal meeting of Geocachers) and Virtual Caches (intangible caches involving going to a location and answering an online question about it).
Geocaching is an ingenious idea that makes all walks considerably more fun, and even the most un-outdoorsy person will never tire of endlessly searching around and rifling through Tupperwares. If I had to say one thing against it, it would be that geocaches are always impossible to find in cities, for ever-present tall buildings seem to make it difficult for the GPS to find the satellites, so I think geocaching is better off just done in the countryside. However, now I've become so addicted to it, I also ponder how much I was missing never knowing about it.
- DP :)
Go to www.geocaching.com to sign up now.
Check out Dramatis Persona's (geocaching alias daftydodo) Cache Series Stour Path Sidetrack.
Geocaching is an ingenious idea that makes all walks considerably more fun, and even the most un-outdoorsy person will never tire of endlessly searching around and rifling through Tupperwares. If I had to say one thing against it, it would be that geocaches are always impossible to find in cities, for ever-present tall buildings seem to make it difficult for the GPS to find the satellites, so I think geocaching is better off just done in the countryside. However, now I've become so addicted to it, I also ponder how much I was missing never knowing about it.
- DP :)
Go to www.geocaching.com to sign up now.
Check out Dramatis Persona's (geocaching alias daftydodo) Cache Series Stour Path Sidetrack.
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| A geocache - this image isn't mine |
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