Geocaching

Go somewhere, do something. That is the basic idea behind Geocaching Challenges. You might be challenged to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, sing a song in the middle of Times Square, or take a picture of yourself walking through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Challenges may be created by any Premium Member, but they are not owned by anyone, since there is no physical container to maintain. Once issued, a Challenge can be edited by its creator until someone accepts the Challenge or 24 hours pass, whichever comes first.

No. Challenges are published to the website immediately. The community can "flag" inappropriate or unplayable Challenges. These are automatically removed from the website if flagged by enough geocachers. Players can rate each Challenge with a thumbs up or thumbs down to help others decide whether it is worth doing.

On each Challenge page there is a link to flag the Challenge as spam, unplayable or for offensive or prohibited content. If a Challenge is flagged enough times it becomes permanently unavailable.

There are a couple different types of Challenges available, with more coming soon. See a current list of Challenge types on the Challenge Types page.

Only Premium Members can issue a Challenge to other geocachers, although anyone can accept and complete Challenges.

To avoid a "land grab" of popular locations, in the beginning only one Challenge can be issued per day by Premium Members. We also believe this restriction will result in higher quality Challenges by allowing Premium Members to focus on one Challenge at a time.

Although Premium Members can only publish one Challenge per day, they are able to create multiple Challenges and save them for later.

Yes and no. Although Challenges can serve as a virtual cache replacement, they offer many more options. You can think of Geocaching Challenges as a combination of virtual, challenge, and locationless caches. The basic idea, "go somewhere, do something," can find expression in many different forms.

Worldwide Challenges are Challenges that have no fixed location, and involve a task to complete at a location of your choice. These closely resemble the former locationless caches or Waymarking categories. At first only Groundspeak issues Worldwide Challenges, but we will be asking the community for ideas through the forums. We'll try to have a new Worldwide Challenge each day.

Anyone can rate a Challenge with a thumbs up or thumbs down. We highly encourage the community to vote on every Challenge, whether or not you have completed it. You can change your vote at any time.

Challenges run on the honor system. Say you completed it? We believe you. After all, you're only cheating yourself!

No. Challenge completions are not included in your total geocache finds count.

Since Challenges have no physical container, there is no guideline on the distance from each other or from geocaches. Regarding commercial content or other agendas, it is up to the community to decide whether a Challenge is appropriate or not. There is a "spam" flag option for this reason.

Challenge caches will be addressed in the future, but won't necessarily be restricted because of this new activity. Our hope is that Challenges will provide better tools than mystery cache listings for accomplishing these geocaching meta-games.

Not even close. Some ideas for the next phases include:

• Highly rated Challenges displayed in geocache search results
• Pocket Queries for Challenges (and GPX downloads)
• Mapping tools
• New Challenge Types
• Support for verification questions

…and other ideas submitted by you. Please give us your feedback in our discussion forum.