Exploring the Outdoors

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches,” anywhere in the world.

To children it’s a treasure hunt using your GPS or iPhone, which gives the opportunity to explore the outdoors while hunting for treasure like a real pirate. Wake up your child to the beauty of the world. You should look, listen, smell, touch, and sometimes taste nature to experience its wonder. Look for plants, animals, and insects while hunting for the caches. Listen to the wind and water, smell the tree bark and look for the small details that make the world interesting. Incorporate developmental learning goals for your child’s age such as balance, climbing, counting or over/under/up/down differentiating.

There are several different levels of difficulty, start with an easy one. Remember, not all geocaches contain treasure, some have only a logbook. The treasure is usually little inexpensive trinkets or toys, like bouncy balls and stickers. Be prepared to supplement a treasure for the caches without a trinket. A find and no treasure is not fun for any child.

To get started, you should download these Apps for your smart phone: Geocaching and Geocaching Toolkit (for iPhone or Android) and GPS Kit (for iPhone). Besides your smart phone, you will also need a pen or pencil to sign the logbook and trinkets, treasures to swap and an account on geocaching.com to find the locations of those near you. 

Caches may be hidden anywhere, in old logs, tied in trees, camouflaged under bushes and attached to benches and newspaper stands. That’s the adventure in geocaching, you never know what to expect. When you find the cache, open it up and examine the contents. If there are trinkets, you can exchange one for one of your own. The rule of geocaching is that if you take something from the cache, you must replace it with something of equal or higher value. Don’t forget to sign the log book.

Your child will love the hunt if you show your enthusiasm. If you see geocaching as something fun, adventurous, and exciting, that enthusiasm will pass to your child and he/she will want to be a part of the fun.