Geocaching

Everyone who found at least one cache during the challenge was awarded a souvenir today. Was anyone following the 'Cosmic Quest' souvenir challenge? Do you feel like it led you to cache more, or did you mostly ignore it?

https://www.geocaching.com/blog/2024/09/we-have-achieved-lift-off/

I was running my fingers along this metal ledge trying to find a magnetic nano cache. Came across something quite different instead - yikes! Luckily I wasn't stung, but got out of there in a hurry and left that one unfound

I emailed Geocaching support asking if they could give me a free trial to see if it was worth it. They responded like right away giving me a code for a free week trial but it was attached to a year subscription ($40). I subscribed anyways because I guess it's not too bad and I might be able to cancel it if I don't want it.

So far, I will keep it since it unlocked a few geocaches around Cal Poly Pomona and at parks near my area. So for me, it's worth it, especially when it encourages me to to outside and touch some grass.

"You have most certainly passed a geocache without knowing it. [...] This right-under-your-nose scavenger hunt reminds us that there is still much to discover in the world, and the community of people in Door County who enjoy the activity is alive and well. I have always been drawn to geocaching and the everyday ingenuity it can inspire. People get absurdly creative with how and where they hide their containers; one cache in my hometown is hidden inside a fake sprinkler head."

Only worth about $1 USD, but a pretty cool find -- in Canada and nowhere near its country of origin

This took us three attempts to finally find

An open-source, full-featured, always ready-to-go Geocaching application.

https://coord.info/GC6A20

Nearing the 2,000 find mark after ten years of caching on and off, the creative caches have definitely stuck with me more than the rest.

Sometimes it's a particularly unique container, such as one where a metal tube cache sat at the bottom of a PVC pipe, retrieved by pouring water into the pipe, making the cache float to the top as the water drained slowly from holes in the bottom of the pipe.

Sometimes it's a particularly creative puzzle, such as one where I had to use GIMP to see what barely noticeable differences the cache owner had made to a picture, revealing the faint outlines of Roman numerals and a Morse code sequence that gave the cache's final coordinates.

What are some of the most creative caches that you guys have found so far?

I'm ashamed to say it still took me 10 minutes to find this one

Not too long ago, I did a geocache and the FTF was a tag from the owner's late grandfather from the Apollo missions or something I forget. Thought that was pretty neat.

The geocaching is pretty bad around the campus. Only 5 on campus. Been around the UCI area since I'm in OC and it's vastly different. Wonder why. Sure there's less people but I'm sure some of us still play geocache around here? I wonder why.

Spent over an hour looking for this cache recently. Very subtle under the moss!

This impressive pile was all collected in one day in my neighborhood

I carved a custom stamp for my letterbox geocache
#imadethis #geocaching @geocaching

If anyone wants to play: https://www.geoguessr.com/geocaching

It's pretty cool to get to play GeoGuessr again! I missed it a lot when they switched it to being pay-to-play only. In this new version, it looks like they've added a timer, though, which I think makes it pretty stressful.

I don't really see the specific connection to Geocaching though ("There's a geocache hidden near that location"? That could probably be said of almost anywhere in North America and Europe). Getting to a Geocaching souvenir is a nice perk, although you don't seem to even need a GC account to play it.

Has anyone else tried the game? Thoughts?

This is one item I was thrilled to strike off my 'obscure stats' bucket list this year, and the museum itself was a great time as well

Found this cute lil guy in a fake rock cache the other day