There are often several days of additional activities surrounding a Mega-Event. These large events attract geocachers from all over the world and are often held annually. Geocaching is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache’s existence and location online.

For example, prior to 2017 it was possible to create a challenge cache to find 10 caches that have a food item in the title. Under current guidelines, this is no longer allowed because it restricts geocachers to find specific geocaches. Instead, Groundspeak has encouraged new challenges to be more creative. Acceptable challenges include finding caches in 10 states, finding 100 traditional geocaches, or finding 1000 geocaches with the “wheelchair accessible” attribute.

While encouraged, events do not require visitors to sign their name a logbook to prove they attended an event. Attendees of event caches can log that they ‘attended’, which will increment their number of found caches. Different platforms often have their own rules on which types are allowed or how they are classified.

Initially, geocachers would find a key word at a designated site where they could then enter it onto a website to claim “credit”. Soon after, they were made available to “find” at select mega events. In 2020, Groundspeak released the “Adventure Lab” app, separate from the Geocaching app. The app made it possible to enter a https://cryptolisting.org/ geo-fence when, once inside, a question will appear that can be answered either in the form of a written answer or a multiple choice answer. This question can be answered at anytime once activated, however, some ALs must be completed sequentially implying that one must answer the question to move on to the next waypoint.

Anyone with a GPS unit can then try to locate the geocache. Geocaching websites vary in many ways, including control of data. A more controversial version of paperless caching involves mass-downloading only the coordinates and cache names (or waypoint IDs) for hundreds of caches into older receivers. This is a common practice of some cachers and has been used successfully for years. In many cases, however, the cache description and hint are never read by the seeker before hunting the cache. This means they are unaware of potential restrictions such as limited hunt times, park open/close times, off-limit areas, and suggested parking locations.

1. This page is broken out into three sections, picking up a Geocoin, dropping off Geocoins, and troubleshooting.
2. I know I just said to only collect unactivated trackable coins.
3. Some of them have been rumored to sell at values in the thousands of USD.
4. You will see this when people sign the logbook to the geocache.

The following cache types are supported by geocaching.com. Back in April, I wrote an article all about what trackable geocoins are and how they work. But, since then, I’ve realized that many people might not actually know the difference between a trackable geocoin and one that you collect. Most coins usually have a picture or other unique visual features. They may represent a variety of things from raising awareness for certain diseases to helping out after a natural disaster to personal artwork.

Examples of goals are to be placed in a certain cache a long distance from home, or to travel to a certain country, or to travel faster and farther than other hitchhikers in a race. Less common trends are site-specific information pages about the historic significance of the site, types of trees, birds in the area or other such information. Higher-value items are occasionally included in geocaches as a reward for the First to Find (called “FTF”), or in locations which are harder to reach. The Opencaching Network provides independent, non-commercial listing sites based in the cacher’s country or region. The Opencaching Network lists the most types of caches, including traditional, virtual, moving, multi, quiz, webcam, BIT, guest book, USB, event, and MP3.

Geocaching in Japan with chii-sun

Various applications can directly upload and read GPX files without further conversion. The latest advancement of this practice involves installing dedicated applications on a smart phone with a built-in GPS receiver. Seekers can search for and download caches in their immediate vicinity directly to the application and use the on-board GPS receiver to find the cache. The second published locationless cache since 2005 (GC8NEAT) required visitors to take a photo of them picking up trash and cleaning up their local area.

So to help you explore the fun world of Geocaching, we pulled together what we believe to be some of the most basic geocaching glossary terms that you will need to know as a Geocaching beginner. Consider this your very basic geocaching vocabulary lesson, which will help you make what is a geocoin sense of some of the things you read as you continue to better your caching skills. Ammo cans are considered the gold standard of containers because they are very sturdy, waterproof, animal- and fire-resistant, and relatively cheap, and have plenty of room for trade items.

GC Code

The arrangement of circles and lines on each side of the coin are two different messages, written in the fan-made Circular Gallifreyan alphabet designed by Loren Sherman (and used with permission). A waypoint is a reference point for a physical location on Earth. Waypoints are defined by a set of coordinates that typically include longitude, latitude, and sometimes altitude. Although many locations are interesting, a Virtual Cache should be out of the ordinary enough to warrant logging a visit. Tools of the Trade is an acronym used for any of the tools that might be used to search for/retrieve/find/log a geocache.

Geocaching SWAG

Until 2005, trackable geocoins were made primarily by organizations or companies. In 2005, Geocaching.com made tracking codes available to buy by users, widely increasing the use and popularity of geocoins. Minor changes over the years from Geocaching.com have mainly focused on altering the minimum number of coins needed to purchase trackable codes and unique icons. Yes, we can engrave geocaching geocoins for our customers.

Many different individuals, groups, and associations use geocaching coins for their treasure hunts. For millennia, explorers have been searching for treasure, forging paths and traveling across the globe from treacherous peaks to the deepest reaches of the oceans. Today’s treasure seekers have reinvented the pursuit as the perfect hobby for the tech-savvy outdoor enthusiast— geocaching. The geocachers mantra “If you hide, they will come” has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to participate in this global treasure hunt. Geocaching is fun involves one or a group of friends, a hand-held GPS, and some hiking shoes. Other websites for trackable coins have included the 2002Canadian geocoin,[5] Utah geocoin,[6] Oregon State coin,[7] and sigitem.com.

By integrating a Wherigo experience, called a cartridge, with finding a cache, the geocaching hunt can be an even richer experience. Among other uses, Wherigo allows geocachers to interact with physical and virtual elements such as objects or characters while still finding a physical geocache container. A Wherigo-enabled GPS device is required to play a cartridge. Paperless geocaching means hunting a geocache without a physical printout of the cache description. Traditionally, this means that the seeker has an electronic means of viewing the cache information in the field, such as pre-downloading the information to a PDA or other electronic device.

You can order geocoins from Shop Geocaching (U.S. Orders) or from an international retailer. GEO is now an ERC20 token on the Ubiq Network (January 2018)! This allows for new features, such as Proof-of-Location (PoL). With PoL, GEO can only be ‘mined’ by going to the correct real world location with the GEO app.