So far this year, we’ve had a blast celebrating 15 Years of Geocaching. We found a geocache on the anniversary of the first geocache hide, laughed at plenty of #TBT photos from geocaching’s early days, and even joined our favorite geocachers on an epic road trip.
Like most geocaching streaks, however, 2015 will inevitably come to a close… But good news! 2016 will be filled with even more geocaching awesomeness.
We hope you’ll join us in bidding adieu to this year and welcoming the next by earning two new geocaching souvenirs. To receive both the Goodbye 2015 and Hello 2016 souvenirs, you’ll need to log a geocache on both December 31 and January 1. Be sure to share your favorite New Year’s photos, memories and your geo-goals with us using #geocaching.
Wishing you many geocaching happy dances to come,
Your buddies at Geocaching HQ
There were many laughs, plenty of new geocaches hidden, and a lot of “Found it” logs. As we start to plan for the new year ahead, it’s fun to reflect on many of the amazing things that happened in 2015. Here are 15 of them.
1) We celebrated 15 years of geocaching!
It’s hard to believe that the hobby we all love celebrated its 15th birthday this year. During this time of nostalgia, it’s fun to look back at some of the most historic moments in geocaching history.
"GeoWoodstock" --the 1st Geocaching Mega-Event-- held in Texas May 2006. Every year since, GeoWoodstock keeps movin' and groovin' to new locations.
The first Geocoin ever created by Moun10bike in 2001.
Back in 2001, geocachers Eoghan and Pumpkin Princess decided to throw a little gathering in Austin, Texas with their geo-buddies. This was the first recorded instance of a geocaching get-together, now known today as an Event Cache.
The plaque marks the exact location of the first geocache ever placed. "GCF" (and its can of beans) was hidden by David Ulmer on May 3, 2000.
Co-Founder & CEO Jeremy Irish placed the first Geocoin in a cache in 2001.
Take a little trip down memory lane --and pick up some trash along the way-- to the first ever CITO event held on April 26th, 2003.
At one point in time, there was a colony of Signals. This was the first Signal Doll shipment at Geocaching HQ.
The three founders of Geocaching.com at their then new office in downtown Seattle.
The first image of the geocaching mascot Signal the Frog was revealed on a t-shirt in August 2003.
The oldest active geocache --GC30 Mingo-- was hidden in Kansas on May 11, 2000.
2) A year of events. Great events.
2 Giga-Events (5,000+ geocachers)
45 Mega-Events (500+ geocachers)
Over 28,000 geocaching events total
It’s evident from all the fun gatherings that took place that geocachers enjoyed making new friends and spending time with the old at an average of over 76 geocaching events per day!
A group of kiddos search for the code word at the last ever Geocaching Block Party Mega-Event in Seattle.
Tree climbing event GC66NYX in France.
A geocacher signs the giant blow-up "15" logbook at the last ever Geocaching Block Party Mega-Event in Seattle.
A very unique logbook at a small Meet & Greet.
Geocachers blew bubbles at this event in Europe.
Signal at the 2015 GeoWoodstock.
3) A group of courageous geocachers journeyed to the center of the earth to log an EarthCache. Well, sort of.
Need more laughs? Check out all the past geocaching April Fools videos:
In December, the 15 millionth geocaching account was created on Geocaching.com. Considering that many geocaching accounts represent families, couples, teams, and other groups, there are well more than 15 million geocachers worldwide.
Geocaching in Cambodia.
Four geocachers explore old ruins while geocaching in Albania.
Geocachers from the German Mudmen geocaching group conquer the Alps.
Geocaching family at GCQMX8 in Santiago, Chile .
Geocacher Diegeocrasher at GC20FAE in South Africa.
Antartic geocaching at GC115ZX.
5) The game’s 453 community volunteers made the game better for everyone through their contributions as reviewers, moderators, and translators.
A group of community volunteer reviewers from around the world answers questions at this year's Block Party panel.
Four U.S. community volunteer reviewers having a good time at the event.
Geocaching HQ'er Heather visits with a group of Swedish reviewers.
A group of community volunteer reviewers from around the world answers questions at this year's Block Party panel.
A community volunteer translator from Slovenia explores the Italian mountainside.
A group of German community volunteer reviewers.
The group attempting the infamous gum wall cache in Seattle.
6) Geocachers joined in the global CITO (Cache In, Trash Out) movement and gave back to our lovely planet.
Over 19,000 geocachers collected garbage, restored natural areas, and worked on community improvement projects during CITO weekend in April. If each person picked up one 5 lb (2.26 kg) bag of trash, that’s over 40 metric tons of garbage collected. That’s (approximately) 7.4 elephants, or 7 elephants and two cows. This impressive number does not include the hundreds of additional CITO events that took place throughout the rest of year.
Restoration CITO event.
Beautiful area for CITO-ing in the Czech Republic.
This little geocacher smiles as she picks up trash around a park.
CITO in Costa Dorada, Spain.
CITO event in France that involved restoring this old walking bridge.
This CITO event was a huge success. Can you tell?
Germany's Frühjahrsputz am Kemnader See 2015 CITO group photo.
HQ'er Alex smiles as she planted a new plant at a local park.
With nearly 500 photos entered into the Mountain Warehouse photo contest, geocachers showed clever photography skills while shooting Meryl Sheep trackable tags all over the British countryside and beyond. One particular trackable, Wooliam the Sheep, has already traveled 32,000+ miles (51,499 km).
8) GeoTours expanded.
19 new GeoTours were launched this year, bringing the GeoTour grand total at 61 tours worldwide. The average number of geocaches per tour is 44, and their geocaches tend to have more favorite points than the average geocache.
During the summer months, geocachers had the opportunity to complete five geocaching quests, each of which earned them a special souvenir for their geocaching profile. By completing all missions, they earned an extra special 6th souvenir. The theme was “Geocaching Road Trip”, and the adventures were epic.
10) Geocachers celebrated Pi. And puzzles. And ate pie.
While some folks celebrated Pi Day on March 14 (3.14) with a slice of pi pie, we celebrated this year’s Pi Day with two new souvenirs…and pie. The first souvenir was earned by 37,000 geocachers who attended an event on that day. The second souvenir celebrated the mystery of pi—to earn it, geocachers had to log a “Found It” on a Mystery Cache. Kudos to the 50,000 geocachers who took on that head scratching challenge.
Yummy geocaching events all day long!
2015 Pi Day Event Logbook.
Eating pie at a "Pi Day" geocaching event.
11) Five new countries received their own geocaching souvenirs.
Time to update your bucket lists, geocachers. Cheers to Thailand, Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania, and Slovenia who were added to the growing list of country souvenirs this year!
Thailand Souvenir.
Estonia Souvenir.
Turkey Souvenir.
Lithuania Souvenir.
Slovenia Souvenir.
12) New features were added to make your geocaching world a bit better.
13) Geocachers watched 16 creative geocaching films at GIFF Weekend.
The GIFF (Geocaching International Film Festival) Weekend 2015 souvenir was awarded to over 14,000 geocachers who attended 449 GIFF events in 46 countries. That’s amazing. But what’s even more amazing is the sheer number of special and wonderful moments that happened at all the movie nights.
GIFF weekend!
A mouth watering and well-themed buffet at one of the GIFF events.
At GC62QRQ in the Netherlands. This was a short film made by the event hosts, featuring the event attendees...which was incorporated into a new Puzzle cache.
At GC64R4K, a GIFF Weekend event in Hong Kong.
Sparkler after-GIFF-party at GC64KHQ in the United Kingdom.
HurricaneJuan, creator of the film "Saturday" at GC5VCFG in Florida.
A theater full of geocachers at GC62MTK in Slovenia.
An outdoor GIFF event in Texas.
GC65G3T, a GIFF event in a Burger King in Moscow.
A very real, giant GIFF chocolate bar at GC64NMA in Lanvénégen, France.
Geocachers at a very cozy GIFF event in Tel-Aviv.
14) Geocaching.com added new languages.
The Geocaching.com website is now translated into 22 different languages including English. The iPhone and Android Free apps are also available in 19 different languages. More to come!
15) There were over 83,000,000 logged geocaches and over 588,000 new geocaches published this year.
Great job, geocachers. Great job.
Warm waters & lots of signatures.
24 hour trip geocaching in Alaska.
This group of kiddos are super excited to find the cache... and its swag.
Geocaching in the classroom. How to make the best ammo can cache ever.
A group of kids hides a geocache in Nepal.
The ultimate "found it" face. Image by lividity at GC40JXW.
From all of us at Geocaching HQ, thank you for making this year the best geocaching year to date.
What was your favorite geocaching moment from 2015?
Wir wünschen Dir ein Frohes Fest aus dem Geocaching HQ!
Dieses Jahr hatten wir bisher viel Spaß dabei 15 Jahre Geocaching zu feiern. Wir haben zum Jubiläum des ersten Geocache-Verstecks einen Geocache gefunden, wir haben an Donnerstagen über viele #TBT-Fotos aus den frühen Geocaching-Jahren gelacht und sind sogar mit unseren Lieblings-Geocachern auf einen unvergesslichen Road-Trip gefahren.
Wie jede Geocaching-Fundserie neigt sich das Jahr 2015 jedoch unweigerlich dem Ende zu… Aber es gibt gute Neuigkeiten! 2016 wird es noch mehr Geocaching-Abenteuer geben!
Wir hoffen, dass Du uns dabei begleitest, wenn wir mit zwei neuen Souvenirs Abschied von diesem Jahr nehmen und das nächste willkommen heißen. Du kannst das Tschüß-2015 und das Hallo-2016 Souvenir verdienen, indem Du am 31. Dezember und 1. Januar jeweils an einem Event teilnimmst oder einen Geocache findest. Teile daraufhin Deine schönsten Neujahrsfotos, Erinnerungen und Geocaching-Vorsätze mit dem Hashtag #geocaching.
Wir wünschen Dir auch im neuen Jahr viele Geocaching-Freudenstänze,
This article was originally published in the Portuguese “GeoMagazine.”
Not many people would choose to visit Alaska in December. But that didn’t stop a group of nine Geocaching HQ Lackeys and friends from spending 24 hours visiting the capital city of Juneau. I feel fortunate to work with such amazing people who don’t think twice about spending their own money and giving up their weekend for a fun geocaching adventure.
With a cheap flight and our sense of adventure, we took off early on a Saturday morning for a 24-hour geocaching journey. The only way to reach Juneau is by plane or boat, as there are no roads that lead to this isolated part of Southern Alaska. Our plane descended into Juneau at sunrise treating us to a spectacular view of seemingly endless white capped mountains.
Upon arrival we picked up our two SUVs and took off on our adventure. Within minutes we were stopping at our first geocache. The setting: a lifting fog on a beautiful wildlife refuge surrounded by mountains. We couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to Alaska. After a tasty breakfast, we set off for one of Juneau’s top tourist attractions: Mendenhall Glacier (a 13 mile long river of ice). This place is unreal. If you ever get a chance to travel to Alaska it’s well worth the visit. It’s also a great place to log several EarthCaches and learn about the interesting geology and history of the area.
Local geocacher Avroair (Mark Clemens) was hosting an event at the Visitor’s Center to celebrate his accomplishment of finding caches in all 50 states. Our group of nine met up with a handful of local geocachers and enjoyed talking about our hobby while taking in the amazing view of the glacier.
We then took off on the one-mile nature walk to Nugget Falls – an impressive nearly 400-foot tall waterfall. We posed for some silly pictures in front of the glacier.
Lucky for us, one of the local geocachers is a long time employee at Alaskan Brewing Co. We got our own behind-the-scenes tour of the brewery while sampling the local beer. Naturally, there was a geocache in front of the brewery that we had to find before starting our tour.
Our very long day ended with a dinner event with even more local geocachers. Since it was a nice small group, we were able to have some great conversations and really learn a lot about the area and the local geocaches. We barely scratched the surface of the great geocaching Juneau has to offer and I was inspired to return someday – hopefully next time in the warmer summer months!
North Canton, Ohio, USA
N 40° 52.645 W 081° 24.875
Difficulty/Terrain Rating:
D4.5/T1.5
Why this is Geocache of the Week:
Enigma is pure geocaching entertainment. It’s the kind of cache that you’ll walk away from smiling, even if you DNF. If you do manage to locate the famed yellow logbook, you’ll walk away shouting with laughter.
See for yourself. Here’s a video provided by the cache owner, The Seeker League.
What geocachers have to say about it:
“Woo hoo!!! Been wanting to get this but kept putting it off cause of the stigma with it!!! But decided we should give it a try since it may be disabled soon. Otter9 joined us and we spent almost an hour but we FOUND IT!!!! So happy! Thanks for all the time you took to put this together! It lives up to its reputation!” –MR DR
“Wow what a cache! A dozen of us teamed up to work this puzzle. Took over an hour before we finally had the yellow golden ticket log in hand!” –Heidi & Zeke Jones
“Awesome! Messed around with the whole contraption and all the areas. Dropped a trackable that needs to get moving in a race! After looking everywhere ( and making a few trips back to the car for hats, gloves, and warmer coats), we started to think our way through the device. Mommy Scout started dancing around and singing when her hand retrieved the yellow log! Very exciting moment for me. (Yes, I need to get a life, huh?) Thanks for the fun cache. Took us about 20 minutes. Gets a favorite for sure! TFTC!” –ThorScouts
Where did the idea for this sort of large, mechanical multi-part field puzzle cache? “After 3 years of looking for a place to put it, I asked my husband Iron Horse to build a kinetic art sculpture to use as camouflage for this container. Over the next year and hundreds of hours, all the loose pieces of metal and machinery within our garage found its way into his hands and onto ENIGMA.”
The cache itself looks fairly complicated — did you have a pretty clear idea of what it would look like before you started construction, or was it sort of a “flying by the seat of your pants” kind of thing? “There was no plan, no idea what it would look like at the end. ENIGMA evolved into 500 cubic feet of contraptions, containers and fun!”
What’s been your reaction to all the wonderful logs by people who’ve found your cache? “Reading the logs about our creation are very enjoyable. Watching the videos from the area have given us even more hours of entertainment, as we never know what is going to be said or what reaction cachers are going to have while doing ENIGMA. Never a dull moment that’s for sure! Cachers are warned that at ENIGMA you might just be on camera!”
What’s your favorite creative geocache hide? “We had the honor of doing some spectacular caches while attending our 4th GeoWoodstock at XIII in Boonsboro, Maryland 2015. One of our favorite caches is GC4W6QX ‘GBC 3 – Mechanical Drawing 101’ by WVTim in Martinsburg, WV. His caches are all so creative it was difficult to choose just one favorite.”
Is there anything else you would like to say to the Geocaching community? “Remember Geocachers, getting lost is more than half the fun. We have lived some of our greatest moments while being lost. Turn off interstates on your GPS unit, take the long back roads and enjoy life. See you on the trail.”
Photos:
Continue to explore some of the most amazing geocaches around the world. Check out all of the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, fill out this form.
