Geocaching

When we decided to retire at an early age, everyone told us we would get bored in no time at all. While it is true that the time could get log, we have not had that problem yet. We have our home projects and our hobbies. Hobbies are an important part of having a successful retirement, but like our last blog post mentioned you do need to budget for your hobbies as well.

One of our favorite hobbies is Geocaching. Geocaching is a worldwide game played with a GPS or a smartphone to find containers or caches as they are known that hold a log book for you to sign. Geocaching is free to join although you can get a paid membership that gives more tools and options. Once you have signed up for your free membership you then enter your postal or zip code or a town name into the search and you will be shown a map with the caches in your search area. The unfound caches are represented by an unopened treasure chest. Once you find a cache in the real world, you go back to the site and log the find online and the treasure chest changes to a smiley face on the map.

Abandoned stagecoach road in Nova Scotia

  The real fun of geocaching, for us is the places that it has taken us. Geocaches are hidden all over the world, chances are you have walked within a few meters of one and never even known it. They are hidden in urban settings with much skillful camouflage to rural settings with many hiding places to choose from. We find that geocaching takes us to someone's favorite spot in their area and we have found places that we would never have known existed otherwise. We love the long walks on abandoned rail lines and discovering a new waterfall or seeing a spot that is off the beaten track in a tourist area.

Fishing boat and fish house, The Tittle, Nova Scotia

Fort on Lokrum Island, Dubrovink, Croatia

    

Finding the geocache requires you to load the coordinates of the cache into your GPS or use an app for a smartphone to do this. Once you start your GPS, a pointer will aim you toward the cache location and there should be a distance indicator to tell you how far away you are. Most GPS units are accurate to 3-4meters(10-12feet), so in searching you need to have a radius of search about that wide to account for the accuracy of the hiders GPS as well. The next step is to search for the cache. The majority of caches hidden now are listed as a micro, which as the name suggests are small. They are easier to hide in urban settings to remain hidden from the general non-caching public(muggles). Inside the container is a slip of paper to sign you geocaching nickname and the date to prove you were there. Other sizes for geocache are regular, which could be an old ammo can or peanut butter jar, a small which could be a tupperware sandwich keeper to a large, which could be as large as an oil drum.

In Nova Scotia, we have the first geocache hidden in Canada, it was hidden on June 28, 2000 and to date has been found by almost 1500 people. It is on most people's must do list of caches. It is an easy cache to find as it is along the highway and only a short walk to get to this spot.

Geocaching also has different types of caches to appeal to different types of cachers. There are multi-caches which require you to find different legs of a journey to find the final location. Puzzle caches as the name implies have yo solve puzzles at home or in the field to discover the cache coordinates. There are geocaching events, where geocachers from far and wide come together to share their experiences and put faces to nicknames. CITO events are Cache In Trash Out events where geocachers get together and do a garbage cleanup in an area. There are also Earthcaches which have you learn about the geology of an area to claim your smiley face on the map. Letterboxing is a sport that predates geocaching by many years and has now been incorporated into geocaching. In letterboxing a person is given dierections to follow, like a story to find the final container. This container will hold a stamp and pad. A letterboxer will stamp the pad in the box with their stamp and stamp their pad with the stamp in the box.

Geocaching is many things to many people and there are as many ways to play the game as there are people playing it. It is a good combination of hobby and exercise that does not carry a huge price tag. We love this hobby and hope that others can join in and enjoy it as well.