Four tips for hiding quality geocaches

In 18 years, geocaching has grown from a single container in the woods of Oregon to a global game with over 3 million active participants annually and more than 3 million geocaches. In the last year, Geocaching HQ Volunteer Reviewers published nearly 8,085 caches per week. Wow; thanks, Reviewers!

This growth means that almost anywhere in the world, you can find a geocache nearby. But it also means that geocache saturation is increasing. In some areas, it is becoming difficult to find a location to place a cache.

As the number of geocachers and geocaches grows, we encourage you to make sure that each and every cache you place is of good quality. We know that everyone has a different opinion as to what makes a “quality hide,” but here are some steps that you can take to make sure that others will enjoy your cache:

  1. Find many caches before hiding one of your own. This will show you how vastly different geocaches can be. We encourage you to find at least 20 geocaches before hiding one.
  2. Think about your favorite geocaches and why you enjoyed them so much. Was it the location? The container? The story on the cache page? Try to replicate the elements that you enjoyed while adding some of your own creativity.
  3. Make sure that the geocache container is waterproof and will survive the elements. It is better to use a sealed container rather than a plastic bag.
  4. Maintain your geocache. This means replacing the logbook when it is full, checking on the cache every so often to see that it’s still doing well, and responding quickly to any “needs maintenance” logs. Don’t forget, cache owners have an owner maintenance tool right on their Dashboards to help keep them up to date on their hides.

You can see which geocaches others recommend by looking at the number of Favorite points that each cache has received. Favorite points can be found on each cache page and in the search results list. Premium members can award 1 Favorite point for every 10 caches they find and can sort the search results list by most-favorited caches.

As the weather begins to change, now is a great time to make sure your geocaches are ready for the season ahead. If you’re new to hiding, take this time to think about what type of geocache you want to add to the world! Each week, check out the featured Geocache of the Week for more inspiration. Make sure you check out the Hiding Guidelines and take the Geocache Hiders Quiz! What are your best tips for hiding a quality geocache? Share your insights below!