Groundspeak Weekly Newsletter – March 14, 2012

4 Geocaching.com Tips for Improving your Swag

In geocaching, like in life, it’s all about the small things. That’s especially true when you crack open a geocache and discover all the small things inside. The little objects at the bottom of the geocache are trade items, also known as “swag.” You are welcome to take a trade item from a geocache, so long as you replace it with an item of equal or greater value.

A trade item might be a small toy, a signature item from a local geocacher, or a fun trinket. But sometimes the small things inside a cache can be a big disappointment. With more than 1.6 million geocaches around the world, the swag in some of those caches is less than desirable.

Here’s what you can do to change that. Check out these 4 quick tips:

• Choose trade items that you would enjoy finding in a cache
• Fun items to trade include small toys, patches, pins, or an item that symbolizes who you are (a signature item)
• Never put food or scented items in a geocache (animals are especially good geocachers when they smell food)
• If you wouldn’t want to carry an item in your pocket, don’t put it in a geocache

For ideas on good swag items, click here.

You may also find Trackables at the bottom of a cache. These are not swag, but items owned by other geocachers that are meant to travel from cache to cache. Trackables are etched with a unique code and generally include the text “trackable at www.geocaching.com.” When you take a Trackable from a cache, you are not required to leave anything in its place, but you should move it on to another geocache and log its movement. (Read about Trackable etiquette.)