I participate in a sport/hobby that I think is ideally suited for outdoor enthusiasts called Geocaching. Our local Geocaching organization, NorthEast Florida Geocaching Association (NEFGA) was recently selected as the best Geocaching group by Geocaching.com, so I am lucky to have a great group around me to support my addiction to the sport. Although it's a fast growing sport, there are still many outdoor enthusiasts that have not heard of Geocaching. So, I thought I would help spread the word.

What is geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing)? Is it a modern day pirate’s treasure hunt, where latitude and longitude mark the spot, instead of an “X”? Is it a high-tech scavenger hunt? A sport? A hobby? The concept of geocaching encompasses all of these definitions and more in one quest that only requires a sense of adventure, a GPS receiver unit, and coordinates to the cache (booty – treasure – goal).

Geocaching is one of the fastest growing sports/hobbies in the country, right now. For the techies, it provides a new challenge with puzzle caches and all the software packages, electronics, and computers that go along with the sport. Hikers and campers love having an excuse to use their GPS receivers for something other than marking their location and finding camp. Families enjoy having a fun hobby to pursue with the whole clan, children included. Geocaching satisfies all these needs in one super fun activity!

Geocaching in it’s most basic form involves finding a geocache hidden by someone else, signing the log in the geocache, trading (take something, leave something) goods from the geocache, and re-hiding the geocache. A geocache can range anywhere from a “Mr. Magneto” container (about the size of your pinkie fingertip) to a crate big enough to hold two small children. Most often, you will see 35mm film canister, metal ammunition containers, and some form of Tupperware container. The one major rule for all caches is that they have a log for the finder to sign.

So, how does one find out about these “geocaches”? The overwhelming majority of cachers (those that enjoy and engage in geocaching) go to http://www.geocaching.com and enters their zip code to find all the caches near their home. There are some other sites, such as http://www.terracaching.com and http://www.navicache.com.

Although you can find caches everywhere, from an urban parking lot to the middle of a dense forest, I have really been focusing on the more outdoors oriented caches that take me away from the city and into nature. While I still enjoy a good urban cache every now and then, I would rather be out finding caches in places I'd never explore were it not for caching. I've made some great friends doing this and had some amazing adventures. So, come on and join us, we'll only point and laugh on your first few cache finds.