For a really long time people have been commenting “Are you into geocaching?”, “You should try geocaching, it seems like something you’d really like.”, etc. I miiight have been avoiding it for one main reason – things that other people are super into are kind intimidating to me. I guess I don’t like feeling like a “noob” Does that make any sense?
For those of you not familiar, geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt of sorts. Participants use GPS to navigate to containers that other users have hidden. A traditional geocache will be a waterproof container with a log book and trade items inside. Treasures inside aren’t usually worth much but are still fun to find. According to the official website there are 2,803,842 active geocaches and over 15 million geocachers worldwide!
Anyway, my brother and my nephew are super into geocaching. My brother has logged just under 700 of them which he’s found all over the world! We were all together a few weekends ago for a birthday party when one of them mentioned that a few new caches had popped up in the area. I tagged along, figuring it was a good excuse to get out of the house. After seeing my both of my brothers, my nephew and Jeff all running full speed down the road to try to find the cache first I was into it. They all turned into adorably competitive children. I had a blast. We got two caches that day and that was all it took for me to want in on it. I downloaded the app as soon as I got home.
The timing of finally getting into geocaching couldn’t be better because it coincides perfectly with Jeff and I getting Fitbits. It’s the best excuse to do both things. This last week we’ve been getting lots of steps and lots of caches. My favorite thing about it so far has been the places it’s
taking us, spots we normally wouldn’t go to. I’m kicking myself for not
getting into it earlier because I can only imagine that awesome caches
we missed on both of the big road trips out west. I’m very excited to use geocaching as a fun way to explore new places from here on out.
My brother has told me about all these amazing caches he’s found, like super duper creative ones. So far it’s just been lots of pill bottles and pencil cases for us, as well as two or three larger containers. There was one in a cemetery where navigation took us right to a tree with a hole in it, obviously it was going to be in there. I bent down to peek inside before sticking my hand in and spotted a little bunny looking right back at me! It was really funny because when he raced out he went through the back side of the tree which was actually where the cache was. We wouldn’t have been able to reach it otherwise. Basically this guardian of the cache showed us where it was which is pretty darn awesome!
We made it one of our goals to hide some more around Cleveland. Surprisingly there aren’t many downtown. Cleveland is definitely an up and coming city so any way to encourage more people to get out and walk around is a good one. Plus it’ll be a blast for us to hide them!
xoxo