If memory serves me correct I recall seeing a post about geocaching a few years back on some forum (QRZ.com, maybe?). At the time I know I did not own a GPS unit, either hand held or for the car, so I really did not pay too much attention, but I thought the concept was rather interesting.

As from the Geocaching web site, “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment. Search for a geocache below or learn more about getting started.“

My son, who is 4 years old knows what the GPS is for, we always follow the red line and it takes us to our destination. While he doesn’t understand what a cache is, he does know what “treasure” is, so I told him we are going on a treasure, which is what Geocaching really amounts to. So with our TomTom in hand and the coordinates loaded we went in search of ‘Pump You Up‘. It was not the easiest cache to search for as our first geocache, being relatively small it could cause problems.

We spent the better part of 20 minutes searching the immediate area and could not find what we were looking for. My son was excited while we were looking for it, but when we were done, empty handed he was somewhat disappointed. I told him we would go back out and look for it again and hopefully find it the second time out.

I was quite surprised to see the amount of caches in our immediate (1 mile) area. Even more if I move out to a 5 mile radius. So this should be a lot of fun as he starts getting older. He can help input the latitude and longitude coordinates, as well as decrypt the clues on the Geocache web site. Looks to be a fun hobby and I noticed there were a GPS & Ham Radio Forum on the Geocache web site. What better way to combine hobbies!