Wow - I just posted this on a different forum:
Geocaching is great fun. As pointless as it seems, its a lot of fun. Usually people are out and about, they find a little known spot that they think other people might enjoy. Could be in a park, in a forest, on a walking trail, on a new bike trail, anywhere, if they think other people would enjoy the outdoor area. They take a waterproof box, often an old ammo box, they put some prizes and trinkets, things that other people might think are fun into the box. They also put in a logbook. They hide the box and record the coordinates on their GPS. They go home and upload those coordinates to a website.
Other people get those coordinates, go out with their GPS unit and find the cache box. Once they find the box, they write a note in the log book that they were there, they then trade something they've brought for something in the box. They can then go home, log on to the website and record that they were at the cache.
Like smullen said - this GPS unit can get you within 4 or 5 feet of this little box. Half of the fun is trying to find the box once you are there. People are very resourceful in hiding these. For example - walking through a park you know you are within 5 feet of the cache. You look all over and can't find the box, you can spend hours looking all over, you look up and see a birdhouse bolted to a pole. You go over to inspect it, its not a bird house, but a cache box. They are placed in hollowed out logs, under rocks, in lamp posts, in trees, under water in a stream, in a cave, under a caboose, etc.
In this whole process, these people, (who are probably more inclined to sit in front of the computer playing with gadgets than be outside) have gotten off of their duff, spent some time with the kids, found a new park, a new natural area, or a new historical sight that they probably never new was there. I can't tell you how many new fun areas I have found within a 20 minute drive of my home that I had no idea was there.
There are these caches all over the world. Check out geocaching.com. I'll bet you a George Washington error to a Krispy Kreme that there is a cache withing 10 minutes of your house.
(I'm getting to the coins soon)
So then, somebody had this idea of where their little trinket they traded would end up, so they developed these little 'dog tags' that have a unique code on them. They are called 'travel bugs'. You buy this little dog tag and attatch it to something, to some little trinket thing. Now you go put it in a cache box. The next time somebody comes to the cache they pick it up, go home and log it on the website, then they drop it off at another cache, someone picks it up, records it on the website, drops it off at another cache, and so on. You can follow your travel bug all over the united states or all over the world.
Here is one of mine
Now, it must have been some Geo-mismitist that came up with the idea to put a tracking number on a coin and call it a 'geo coin'. Now you can track where in the united states your coin has gone.
So someone pays for the coin, and leaves it in a box in the woods. They are hoping to track it go across the country. As you can imagine, its pretty bad form to pick up a coin or a bug and keep it.
However,you asked how much a geocoin costs? Just go buy a GPS, sign up on a website, spend a day driving around and hiking in the woods, dig through some bushes, poison ivy, ticks, prickle buhrs, and the coin is yours for the taking.
(that was my soap box rant for something new, its actually lots of fun!!!)
Posted 03/28/2007 1:36 pm
