Vicky Duran is a homeschooling mother from near Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has two children, ages 11 and 4, and is also known to educate other children through homeschooling at her house. Vicky and her family discovered geocaching about a year ago and have a great time exploring parts of their area they had never explored before.  This week we will feature a 3-part series where Vicky shares about geocaching as an educational family activity.

Hey there, I keep hearing this word “Geocaching,” but I don’t know what it is, can you tell me?

Geocaching is word that came into existence nine or ten years ago when the military opened up the Global Positioning Satellite system for public/commercial use. Geo comes from “Of the Earth,” and “Caching” means to hide or store away. So we have “to hide away on the earth.” Geocaching started when GPS enthusiast Dave Ulmer hid a navigational target in the woods, and posted the coordinates on a GPS users group online. The idea was simple: Hide a container out in the woods and note the coordinates with a GPS unit. Someone with a GPS unit copied his coordinates down, and then searched for his hidden cache using only his GPS unit. Ulmer’s idea was a hit, and geocaching was born.

Tell me more.

Geocaching is a family-friendly activity with two parts – hiding caches and finding them. Let me explain. With the increasing popularity of GPS units, in particular camping and trail devices, it is easy to hide a container containing small trinkets and a logbook somewhere in the world – generally close to where you live.

It sounds like this might be a pretty expensive activity – you’re talking GPS units and “hiding containers.” How much is all this going to cost?

Well, as with any activity, there is some cost to it, but getting started is not as much as you may think. You do need a GPS unit, of course; a kid-oriented Geomate Jr. runs about $70. For something more programmable, a Garmin ETrex is about $99. The price of a unit can go up from there. As far as containers go, you can use an empty peanut butter container or even an empty 35mm film canister. Some people get creative and use empty fire extinguishers, or even a cheap water bottle inside a hollowed-out stump. For fun, some people buy “trick” containers such as fake rocks or even fake outdoor faucets.

Inside the container, would be at minimum a log book of some kind. Larger containers would hold trinkets for trade – often little toys from party favors, from kids’ meals at fast food joints, or things you would find at a dollar store.

That doesn’t sound too bad. But what do you with all of that stuff?

First of all, let’s talk about finding a cache since that is the way many people begin. Let me share what our family did. Like you, I had heard the word “geocaching” kicked around in various conversations and once in the while, the news. My husband and I finally decided to stop at one of our state parks on the way home from a camping trip. There, we checked out a unit and went on our very first geocaching adventure. It was a multi-cache, meaning we had several stops to go to (like a treasure hunt) before we finally found the real cache. Managing the GPS unit was simple as we programmed in the various coordinates….

Wait, that is the second time I have heard coordinates from you. Can you explain that?

Sure, you know about lines of latitude and lines of longitude. That is what I am talking about. A GPS coordinate is a series of numbers that indicate your latitude and longitude down to the minutes and seconds. Dave Ulmer’s first cache was hidden at N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800.

I understand. Go on…

Anyway, we finally found the cache located tucked away in a washed up log on a beach at our state park. The cache was an old military ammo box which is very popular in caching. Inside were trinkets of all sorts, most of which were of very little value. There was also a log to sign as proof that we really did find it. Once we signed the log and made a trinket trade, we made sure to rehide the cache exactly as we found it. That was our first experience.

There was one more step. When we got home, we logged our find at www.geocaching.com.

Tomorrow – Hidden caches and Travel bugs