Today, we release a new country/regional souvenir for Antarctica! If you have already found a geocache in Antarctica, you automatically receive the souvenir on your profile.

Home to some of the hardest-to-reach geocaches in the world, Antarctica proves to be a worthy endeavor for adventure enthusiasts and geocachers alike. The fifth-largest continent is, in fact, a landmass despite being covered by a giant sheet of ice, which in some areas is over 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) thick. Antarctica has mountains just shy of 5,000 meters, a massive frozen grand canyon, an active lava lake, arctic wildlife, and 51 geocaches that can now earn you the official souvenir!

The southernmost part of our planet is a landmass explorers, scientists, and world-travelers dream of visiting. Despite harsh winds and sub-zero temperatures, this continent entices people because it is one of the least explored places on Earth. That’s part of the allure that comes with geocaching. For us, we mostly discover old areas in new ways, Antarctica offers a new mysterious landscape that was only discovered a little more than 100 years ago.

After geocaching began in May 2000, it only took until March 2002 for someone to publish a geocache on the continent. Since then, at least one geocache is published every year including this year 2019—which is still looking for its FTF. Antarctica also has one of the few active Webcam Caches in the world: Antarctic Views. 

Our Geocache of the week is perhaps the most “stone-cold” evil cache in the geocaching world: Oobleck and the Sea of Ice. Imagine this, the geocache is on top of a frozen active volcano, past a lava lake, and hidden under a rock…in Antarctica. Mount Erebus is ~12,500 ft (3,800 m) at its summit and this geocache’s ground zero. There’s only a short period of time during the summer from December to March where the conditions can boil up to a warm 26°F (-3°C), which makes it doable. The rock blends in with its environment, and lives up to its 5/5 Difficulty and Terrain rating. Though the cache owner did provide spoiler images for any brave soul wishing to embark on this expedition, just don’t forget your pen.

Where is your dream geocaching adventure?

We know geocachers love country and regional souvenirs and we do too! We are releasing at least one new country/regional souvenir per month starting in January 2019. These new souvenirs will be featured alongside Geocaches of the Week in each region and shared on the third Wednesday of each month. Check out all of the Geocaching souvenirs here.

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.