Treasure Hunting

How does treasure hunting right in your on town or maybe even right near your home sound? pretty fun right? It may not be the pirate buried treasure where you get to take home the booty your are thinking of but what is called a geocache. Geocaching is a game using GPS-enabled device ( your phone or plain old a GPS) to find a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache, which is a container, like a tupperware, coffee can, lunchbox, and so on, hidden at that location of the coordinates.

 Kinda sounds all scientific but its really quite simple. You can use your phone to download a geocaching app, some are free, some can cost up to 10$, then once you start it up it uses your location and shows you all the geocaches that are near you and how far away. You can also use a GPS and plug it into your computer and load the locations from the geocaching site, http://www.geocaching.com/. I have used both and prefer the phone method. It can provide details about what the container looks like and hints if you need. Also lets you know if hiking is involved and if they are family friendly. We have taken our kids on several geocache "treasure hunts" and the kids absolutely loved it. You will amazed how many there are in your area. FREE entertainment, can't go wrong with that right? There are a few rules to follow, just like keeping the cache how you left it, not taking any thing from the cache and so on so I would recommend checking out the site before your first hunt. What I think is pretty cool is that they are all over the world. So if your are planning a trip up river for the day, or even heading out of town, look up a couple geocaches while your there for a little extra excitement to your trip, and it will get you out of the car for a little bit. I know there is a lot of people that have never heard of or don't know much about geocaching so I thought I would spread the word and give you a little something you can do with the whole family this summer, have fun and happy hunting!