I’ve found quite a few caches with my 3 yo - it’s fair to say he loves it. Total amazement that there’s buried treasure to be found out and about. For grown-ass men I’m not so sure - it seems a bit lame and I couldn’t see myself ever doing it on my own.
I think it probably makes more sense in cities or places that are not obviously ‘the great outdoors’ . I do a lot of riding in the hills and the idea of stopping and looking for a cache up a mountain seems ridiculous. Just a completely superfluous activity.
In fairness my experience of caching is limited to just finding them with the kids, looking at the assorted shite within then signing the logbook. I realise there can be more to it if you’re more involved.
I’ve certainly found a few lame ones, but the few that counted really counted. I found 2 waterfalls within a 5 minute drive from my house that I didn’t know existed. How is that even possible to not know they’re there? They are like 20-30 footers, nothing that really even shows up on a map. The best caches take you someplace that very few people ever see.
Most of the ones I’ve pursued didn’t just give you the GPS coordinates, you had to solve some minor puzzle or get a reference from another cache to actually get the numbers. A few I’ve found were hidden so well that we’d be literally within 2 feet of it and still had to search really hard to find it. Some of the puzzles can get really intricate and hard, but they will warn you of that ahead of time.
I used to go through a laborious process with my old Palm and a real GPS, now it’s super easy with an app like Opencaching. That one gives you all sorts of filterable info to make sure you get a worthy target.
I try to pick ones that sound interesting, I don’t want random city ones because I don’t care to see a paper box (a micro is in one somewhere along the train line). That’s why I prefer earth or ghost caches a little better, and it works for traveling. I seem to like it a little more than my son but he gets enthusiastic enough when he finds one with lots of treasures. It can be what you make of it, I use it like a way to find interesting spots, if the ‘story’ about the location isn’t interesting to me I pass.
Newbie here. What are “Earth” and “Ghost” caches? We’ve been curious about this as I like to do a little “off-roading” (boots, bikes, 4-wheeler, and sometimes truck). We’re considering trying this on our next trip to the boonies.
Earth and ghost caches show up as little globes and ghosts on the geocaching map. They don’t have a physical cache with a paper for you to sign saying I was here, they are natural places along trails or stop offs along the road that to prove you were there (if you want to mark it on the website) you answer questions about what was on the informative boards and/or take a picture of yourself or gps.
I think there is a website different from Geocaching.com that will give you all of them. I’m on my phone but I’ll see if I can find it later.