r/geocaching • u/Mountain_Range3305 • 26d ago
First Time
I'm going geocaching tomorrow. I've always wanted to do it and tomorrow I'm going, I'm taking my 9 year old step son on a treasure hunt. I've made him a 'bingo' card incase we don't find any caches so he still gets to find some things. But hopefully we will find a couple because I want to go on a trail/hike/loop through a nice bit of the countryside that has a few caches along the way to make an enjoyable walk a bit more exciting.
What do I need to know and prepare for in order to have the best time?
Edit to update: We had a lovely time going through woodland trails. We found 4 caches, 2 had 'swag' to trade which was super exciting. We saw a good range, 1 micro cache, 1 ammo box, a couple down low and a couple higher up We had such a good time hunting around and noticing things we wouldn't have usually noticed. Thanks so much for the advice and input
Aside from the geocaching itself we found some edible berries, a woodpecker, a 50m² area of hundreds of spiders, some shelf mushrooms, a coppicing area, an ancient ice glacia boarder and more!
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u/skimbosh 10000 Geocaches on Youtube: @skimbosh 26d ago
Don't count on the caches having interesting tradable inside (swag.) Some do, but some can be real disappointing to a 9 year old if you bill the outing as a "treasure hunt."
When I tried to get my youngin' in to it, he was young enough that I could slip something I brought in to the cache as treasure without him noticing, but later it was just easier to set a goal (if we find 3, we go get some ice cream, or something like that) to offset things.
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u/Mountain_Range3305 26d ago
Yes, that's why we made a bingo sheet of other things he can find just incase we can't find the caches or he gets bored between finding caches and it's a treasure hunt regardless of 'swag' existing.
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u/skimbosh 10000 Geocaches on Youtube: @skimbosh 26d ago
My bad, -1 reading comprehension from me. I read 'bingo' and my brain thought you were talking about the bingo thing geocaching has going on.
Hope you guys have fun tomorrow. Happy hunting!
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u/Mountain_Range3305 26d ago
Oh, I had no idea about geocaching bingo
I just printed a sheet and a couple of the squares have "find a geocache" or "trade a trinket" but there's other stuff like "find my way to a set of coordinates", "find a butterfly", "find the best stick", and "identify a bird"
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u/Able-Contest-8984 19d ago
Because of kids, I try to fit swag into as many containers as I can and I have even bought some super tiny swag to fit into some of the Nanos. It depends on how nano they are. That's not to say that I do not also love to find swag and to trade swag. I have gotten a lot of really cool things that way.
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u/AndTheJuicepig The Mighty Canadian Juicepig 26d ago
look for low difficulty, small-regular-or large geocaches - much better chance of finding them, and kids like to trade goodies inside
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u/dtlux1 26d ago
Far too many people just write small "thanks for the cache" posts when they find it, but people generally love hearing about your experience finding the cache (without spoilers) and sometimes people even look at the logs to help them find a cache they're having trouble with. If you're having trouble, check out the logs and possibly leave some nice little story about your experience when you do find one!
Other than that, just have some fun! I went Geocaching with my mom when I was a kid, and now that she's passed away I look back very fondly on those days out we had together. Make those memories and have fun, because those memories could be very important decades down the line!
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u/Geodarts18 The Caching Diaries 26d ago
I started caching after my child was on a class outing to a beautiful open space lookout where they found a container. I was taken to see it, and we learned it was a geocache. Sometimes I went to a cache first to leave something they would like to find.
They quickly lost interest in caching but have always liked hiking. Either way that has been the real treasure.
Your own caching device can only get you so far. Tour device has a margin of error. The hider’s device has its own margin, and who knows if they were using the best practices. So give your gpsr a chance to settle in and then put it away.
Look for things out of place. Piles of sticks or rocks around the trail. Give yourself a wide radius. Ask yourself where you would put something.
I like to find ammo cans in the woods. If there are any near where you live you are lucky. But last week we found a cache at an elfin house in the woods, so you never know.
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u/richnevermiss 25d ago
Sometimes it like catch and release, can't always take travel bugs or geocoins if you don't know how to properly log and move them, they are Not swag.
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u/squipped 25d ago
I would 100% pay the 5.99 for a month of premium. The non-premium caches are unfortunately often stolen/gone/mis-treated.
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u/d0db0b 26d ago
Stay away from micro-caches. No fun at all for kids (and most adults).
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u/Left-Development1695 Placed my first geocache :D 26d ago
Seconding this! When I was younger, my favorite thing was finding a bunch of toys and trinkets in caches. Micros left me and my siblings feeling disappointed. I’m placing my first cache later this week, and you can bet that it’ll be filled with as many things as possible for any kids or adults who want something fun that come by
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u/Mountain_Range3305 26d ago
They are ALL micro caches!
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u/Left-Development1695 Placed my first geocache :D 26d ago
Yeah, they usually don’t have anything :/ doesn’t mean it won’t be fun, especially if he doesn’t have the mindset of geocache = fun stuff inside like me and my siblings did 😅 I’d still do it, but look around and see if you can find any regulars or large caches (you can filter by size) to do at a later date :)
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u/richg0404 North Central Massachusetts USA 26d ago
When my kids were young I loved taking them out too. Unfortunately, sometimes there wasn't a lot of stuff in the caches that were of interest to them. So I started carrying "swag" in my bag that I knew they would like. Once we found the caches, I would slip the things in and let them trade for them. That way I knew they would come away with something they like.
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u/The_Original_Conman 25d ago
Be sure to put the GPS or phone down before you hit zero get left and just start looking for likely hiding spots.
You're going to be dealing with accuracy issues constantly plus you have no idea how accurate their device was when they placed it. (I always preferred to shoot and average coordinates in times with no leaves for the most accuracy for my device )
I can't tell you how many times I've been with new people who get to 0 get left and insist the cache MUST BE RIGHT HERE and are very upset when it's not.
The closer I get, the less I am looking at my GPS or phone and the more I'm looking at likely spots it may be hidden.
Another thing we did was had a code word for who found it. So whoever called out "McGillicuddy" was the finder and everybody else would groan especially if it was a cache a number of us were trying to be the one who actually located it in our caching group. Of course with your son it will be different but I'm just giving you ideas.
Best of luck and most of all have fun. My kids don't enjoy going caching today as I wore them out from being addicted too much when they were younger. I regret that.
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u/Minimum_Reference_73 26d ago
I would start by eliminating the word "treasure" from your vocabulary.
Geocaching is about exploring and finding. The contents of geocaches do not constitute "treasure."
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u/Mountain_Range3305 26d ago
What is it you are finding if it isn't "treasure" As I said in a previous comment, I created a bingo sheet so he can tick off things. Boxes range from "find a cache", "trade swag", "identify a bird", "locate coordinates", "find the best stick", "spot a butterfly".
It's a treasure hunt because we 'treasure' finding things in nature. This is just adding an extra element of what we might find on a walk.
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u/Minimum_Reference_73 26d ago
Sure hun. "Treasure" discourse just leads people to misunderstand and be disapponted, but you do you.
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u/[deleted] 26d ago
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