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Geocaching.com Premium Membership

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A Basic Membership on Geocaching.com is free and requires only a valid email address and your name to create an account. Premium Membership is $30USD per year or $10USD for 3 months and provides access to additional website features and functionality that will help you get the most out of your geocaching experience!

Becoming a premium member gave me the ability to download full cache details for an area, rather than individually downloading just the coordinates. This means I can easily have all the details of caches to hand without having to connect to the website.

I particularly like the 'Caches Along a Route' feature, which is particularly useful when going on longer trips with children for finding somewhere other that service stations to stop for a stretch of legs.

-Guanajuato

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I started out thinking that I wouldn't need a Premium Membership, but after 3-4 months, I decide to get one, for several reasons. One was to be able to get notified when a new cache was published. I don't necessarily run out for the FTF, but I'm able to note how many are published and then eventually go out after a number of them at once. I also wanted to support Groundspeak, and $30 for one year is a really reasonable price. It is well worth the investment! A third reason is because I'm able to get access to a few more topics in the Groundspeak forums. I especially enjoy the Off-Topic section.

-PorscheSpyder

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I love premium membership....!

Without doubt, the best thing about being a Premium Member is Pocket Queries. Paperless caching makes such a difference to my enjoyment of this game. Each morning it takes a couple of minutes to drag and drop my local PQ's into my GPS and then I'm ready to go caching whatever happens over the course of the day. If I pass a new location I can just check my GPS and I know right away what caches are available. It's fab not to have to carry print outs. And if we want to we can change our minds about where we're going caching at the drop of a hat.

-*mouse*

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I am a Premium Member because I want to contribute to this activity/website that has had such a positive effect on my life and the price of premium membership is a very small expense every year compared to the years of wonderful experiences and memories I have and the many great friends I have made all over the country and the world.

-Snoogans

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Bottom line is, it's worth the upgrade as it slickens up your prep work and cuts down a lot of time spent finding and downloading cache info!

Go on, do it, you know you want to!!

-rob.marsh

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I thought that being a regular member was so much fun, at least when I started geocaching a few years ago. Then I realized that I was spending more time trying to download waypoints and then find the appropriate software to make them work…. I wanted to get the locations into my GPSr and get out finding caches.

We decided that the premium membership would be the way to go. After all, getting the caches by instant update and getting the FTF is a bit of a fun game.

-stagunner

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Pocket Queries mean that if you're going to visit somewhere on holiday you can download a pile of caches around where you're going and have a file ready to load into your GPS before you get there. And Caches Along a Route will help spot if there are any drive-by caches on the route you're taking to get there. You'll want to break a long drive anyway, why not break it at a service station that has a cache or two hidden?

-team tisri

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Before becoming a Premium Member I was entering cache details into my GPS receiver by hand. I was quickly becoming tired of trying to navigate around with those wee little buttons. I decided to give the Premium Membership a try so I could download the GPX files into my mapping program and transfer them to my Magellan.

I could not be happier with the results! What used to take me hours to enter by hand is now accomplished in just minutes, allowing me to spend more time doing what I love to do ... hunt for the cache!

-BCSasquatch

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Paying what amounts to a very small sum of money to support a great pastime makes me feel good! Someone has to pay for the servers, the bandwidth, the salaries of the Lackeys and Jeremy's Lear Jet.

-MartyBartfast

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I am not a techie so I decide where we are going caching and save them as a bookmark. My techie hubby then takes over with PQ etc and downloads them onto both our GPSs. etc. I have fun planning a wander and he saves time as a PM so we are both happy. I think that paying the fee is more than made up with the fun we have, the friends we have made and the quality time we have when out caching together. If the fee helps to continue that 'feel good' factor then that is priceless.

-mollyjak

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Once we started and really enjoyed it, becoming a PM only made sense. Support the sport/hobby/addiction you love and get some really great benefits at a tiny price!

-burgessfour

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My wife bought the Premium Membership for me as a birthday present. It was a great gift. I was able to learn about newly released caches early each to get FTF and with Pocket Queries I can carry the details of 500 caches around in my PDA with needing endless paper print outs.

-Loony Londo

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I started off as a Premium Member purely for the Pocket Queries capability, but in the months since, I've been happy just to support the site that has offered my family countless hours of fun, for free.

Support those who support you.

-maggi101

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When I first started, I found a few caches and decided I would be continuing with caching. Since I know it takes money to keep such a site up and running, it seemed to me that the right thing to do was to support the site. After getting into PQs, I went ahead and paid twice. Once for myself and once for a second account so I could get an extra set of Pocket Queries. Those and bookmarks are a great help in planning longer trips with caching along the way.

-WeightMan

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Until recently I hadn't even used any of the Premium Features. The reason for becoming a Premium Member was to support the activity we enjoyed so much, not for additional features. Now that we have an Oregon I'm using these features almost daily. I have actually started using the "Cache Along a Route" feature while planning all of our upcoming trips. The bottom line is, take away all the features and we will still be Premium Members to support GC.com! Thanks GC for bringing our family closer!

-kdnydnr

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Instant Notifications of new cache publications notify me immediately when a new cache pops up in an area of interest to me. Instant Notifications of archived caches mean I no longer run the risk of wasting time hunting for caches that have gone to the great cache graveyard in the sky.

-MartyBartfast

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Originally I became a PM to get access to the PMO [Premium Member Only] caches in my area that I knew were there, but just couldn't get the exact locations. Since I've had my membership (which is almost a year) the PMO caches have not turned out to be as important as the PQ's and the email notifications for me.

I don't run regular queries every day, but when I do they are invaluable. It means I don't have to be too prescriptive about my caching plans, and this allows me to go with the wind on my caching trips.

-Unobtainium

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As a disabled geocacher that has trouble walking I like to run a Pocket Query before I go caching for the day. It shows me the easier terrain caches all at once instead of sifting through 1000's trying to find the easier terrain ones. It saves me hours of planning!!!!

-WeatherednBoston

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Being a premium member is like turning on the lights after walking through a crowded room in the dark. Planning a trip that includes finding caches was hit or miss at best and took a lot of work. Being able to create and download Pocket Queries for an area or along a route takes a lot of the work out of planning a caching day.

-Team Black-Cat

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I never originally intended to upgrade to premium membership as I thought I had all the tools I needed with just the standard membership.

How wrong I was, after a few weeks of downloading cache data, one at I time I looked into ways of downloading on mass. Answer Pocket Queries! Now, I wouldn't go back. I can download 500 caches at a time that fit the criteria I want. It saves so much time!

-rob.marsh

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I became a Premium Member so I could cache paperless. I found I was spending a lot of time (and paper) printing out cache details so becoming a premium member meant I could download all the cache information and carry it with me at all times.

Paying for the Premium Membership has actually saved me money in the long run as I no longer have to buy ink for the printer and reams of paper for printouts, plus it helps the environment too as I produce less wastepaper.

-astra-nomical

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Call me sentimental, but this game has given thousands of hours of fun over the past 4 years. I want the site to run well, and paying what I consider to be a small sum of money towards running this site is to my mind worth it. The question isn't really whether I should have Premium Membership, but more whether I can justify getting two memberships - I really do love those PQ's!

-*mouse*

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I started caching in December 2003. I found that printing off details manually entering co-ords was a bit of a pain. I looked at the cost of premium Membership and it was $30 (Approx. £15) for a year's membership. I thought this is nothing when put into the context of fuel, paper printouts that take time to produce and can become dated pretty quickly, the manual entering of co-ords. So I thought it was a bargain. Now when I want to go out it takes me no more than 10 minutes to get 500 caches onto my GPS with all the cache details included.

-Haggis Hunter

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I have become so dependent on the Premium Member features that its hard for me to remember that there are features that some choose not to use. When I travel, I want to obtain all the cache listings that are in the area where we will be visiting, or to be able to focus on particular types of caches that I most enjoy -- the Pocket Queries allow me to do that. When I am at home, I want to be able to put the caches in my area on my GPSr -- again, the Pocket Queries allow me to do that. They also work well with the enhanced mapping and the ability to download caches along a route, to make sure that my time is spent on the things I enjoy the most.

-geodarts

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I started caching in April, '09. Originally I thought, why pay to cache when I can do it for free? By June, '09 my family had spent more time together doing an activity that we all enjoyed than we had in the 2 previous years. All this family time together had to be worth something right? So we decided to pay for a Premium Membership.

-kdnydnr

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Getting instant notification means I can go out and grab the much-coveted FTF if something is published within striking distance of home. Thanks to an instant notification I managed an FTF on a cache 6 miles from home, getting there 25 minutes before another cacher who lives 300 yards from the cache.

-team tisri

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The "GPX eXchange File" button on the cache page allows me to download all details of a single cache straight to my GPS with a couple of mouse clicks for those occasions when I don't want to run a Pocket Query to list all caches.

-MartyBartfast

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Frankly, I can't understand why anyone ISN'T a PM! Whatever your particular 'take' on geocaching, Premium Membership offers you way more than ordinary membership. I had only been caching a few days before I realised it was essential. If I want to get out to new caches, I am notified when they are placed. If I want to watch when caches are found, re-enabled after being off-line or even archived, it's all sent straight to me. I have a bookmark of caches I still want to visit. If I'm planning a trip anywhere, I can have a custom-built list of caches to visit. Basically, Premium Membership does all the leg-work to ensure that geocaching caters to your specific needs.

-natterjacktoad

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My other half, CJ, is a First-To-Find hound and we really took premium membership so she would receive instant notifications on her (now) iPhone. Now she can run with glee within minutes after a new cache comes out.

-cerberus1

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One of our favorite Premium Member features is the ability to create bookmarks. We enjoy searching the website and trying to find the caches that best suit our interest. The bookmark feature allows us to organize and save caches in groupings that make sense - we have bookmarks for puzzle caches to work on when we can't go out caching, caches that require a boat, and special caches of interest that we want to visit someday. We create bookmarks for out-of-town travel and for caches we want to focus on for just a day or weekend.

-succotash

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We have found that we love placing caches better than going and finding them. If the hide and "theme" makes some finders tell us "Hey! We have never seen one like this!" or just "Clever!". It makes it a lot of fun.

But, to be able to tell if there are any caches close-by the spot that we are thinking about, we need to see all caches easily (including member only caches and micros). This means running a special PQ to let us know if we go ahead with the new cache.

-2oldfarts (the rockhounders)

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As premium members our satisfaction is twofold. First we now are supporting the site that has offered our family a great escape from our daily life. Secondly the added features help make "GeoCaching " less of a chore. I can set my Pocket Queries to run ahead of time when I have a planned outing and then quickly add these to my GPSr and be off and running. No more last minute searches and note taking only to realize you forgot the notes when you hit GZ [Ground Zero] and can't remember the all important clue.

-TruckCentral&Family

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When I first started Geocaching I would print off the cache page, and assiduously input the cache co-ordinates into my GPS by hand. This method served me well for several months but eventually became tiresome, especially if trying to plan many caches on a day out, and probably cost more in paper and ink than the PM [Premium Membership] costs me today. Having become a PM it is now a matter of a couple of minutes to create a PQ for an area I'm interested in, this can either be imported into my GPS vi my PC, or Emailed to my Blackberry anywhere in the world, and imported into the Cacheberry application, and the hunt is on immediately.

-MartyBartfast

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Show me the Difference	Basic Membership Free	Premium Membership $30/Year $10/3 Months
Rate Your Favorites Award Favorite Points to exceptional geocaches that you have found and sort search results by most Favorited caches.
Statistics Visualize and share your geocaching activity with bar graphs and other dynamic infographics.
Maps Use the map view filters to see only the types of geocaches that appeal to you or to remove your hides and finds.
Create and Share Geocaching Lists Organize caches to keep track of Favorites, watch the activity of caches, ignore caches so that they do not appear in your search results, or Bookmark caches into groupings such as "the best caches for out-of-town guests."
Custom Searches Create custom searches based on geocache size, location, attributes and more with Pocket Queries. See how to use this feature
Be Instantly Notified of Geocaches Be the first to find a geocache when you receive Instant Notifications about newly published geocaches on your cell phone or other mobile device.
Caches Along a Route Search for geocaches along a route on your next road trip. Tell us where you are going and we will let you know what geocaches are along the way. See how to use this feature
Support Geocaching.com Support the development and maintenance of the Geocaching.com site.
Create Geocaching Challenges Issue location-based Challenges for others to complete.
Premium Member Access to all Groundspeak Websites Access all Premium features and tools on Geocaching.com, Waymarking.com and Wherigo.com.
Access to Location View coordinates and location information for geocaches.
Share Your Experiences Place your geocaching stories and photos online after writing about your experience in the geocache logbook.
	Basic Membership Free	Premium Membership $30/Year $10/3 Months

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Groundspeak Gift Membership

Give the gift of Geocaching! Groundspeak Gift Memberships make a perfect gift for any occasion. A Groundspeak Gift Membership will allow you to upgrade another user's account from Basic to Premium or extend their current Premium Membership by one year. The cost of a Groundspeak Gift Membership is $30.00 USD plus applicable taxes.