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Geocaching

Recently I heard from my good friend Albert about a very geeky but still very cool new hobby that has emerged with the prevalence of GPS tools called Geocaching. The official website for Geocaching describes the whole thing very well, but in short, the idea is that people leave “caches” (think buried treasure, not fast-access memory) hidden anywhere in the world and post the geo-coordinates along with a bit of information on the Geocaching website. Users can then get coordinates and hunt for these caches (like pirates). When you find a cache, you can replace it with a cache of your own, so someone else can experience the joy of Geocaching too.

Albert was telling me about this because another of our friends actually found a geocache in Ithaca recently. Here’s the story in her own words:

“I’ve recently found two caches in the Ithaca area. The first one was located near the clock tower and the second one was by Ithaca Rd. Both caches can be found without the use of a GPS handheld device [e.g. using Google maps] although the task may be easier if you had one (since they provide you with the coordinates).” “When I was looking for the Ithaca Rd. cache, I had walked into a park where a father was playing lacrosse with his son. I tried not to be too obvious as I walked around the park in attempt to locate the cache. When I found it, however, the father walked up to me. At first, I thought he’ll probably think that I am a freak, but he kindly introduced himself and asked whether or not I was ‘geocaching’. And I nodded, excited that someone else knew about it. He told me that he was actually the one that hid the cache that I had just found and ended up having a short discussion on the other caches that are quite accessible without a GPS located in the Ithaca area. He told me about a guy named FoxPro who is quite notorious in hiding caches around Ithaca. Upon looking him up, I found a series of geocaching missions that are set up by him. So, if I still have some time, I may embark on another treasure hunting adventure!”

To be honest I would prefer to just be a full-fledged pirate, overtaking ships, hunting for treasure, and downloading copyrighted media, but Geocaching is about as close as I can get to that without breaking the law. And now that I have heard about this, I’m definitely going to have to give it a shot when I get to Virginia. Have any of you tried Geocaching? Share your experiences and/or coordinates here.