July 24, 2014 / Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching Near the Top of the World – Finnish Style

Mega-Smiles at Latitude 61 in Finland

Editor’s note: Geocaching HQ staff are attending dozens of Mega-Events around the world, shaking hands, sharing stories of adventure, and of course, geocaching. Each person at Geocaching HQ brings their own unique talent to advancing the adventure. Some write code for the website, others design images for the apps, and some shoot videos explaining it all. Cindy or Frau Potter works with geocaching community volunteers. This is her Mega-Event experience.

At Latitude 61, this time of year days are long and nights are short. With sunrise at 4:00am and sunset at 11:00pm, I found this left plenty of time for meeting geocachers at Mega Finland 2014 – Amazing Geocaching. In fact, more than 1,600 geocachers attended this event and I needed all that extra time to meet them all!

My weekend began with a 3-hour train ride from Helsinki, Finland to the event location at Himos holiday resort near Jämsä, Finland. I arrived just in time to witness hundreds of geocachers helping to set up the geo-village, including erecting tents and preparing campfires. It was terrific to see all the collaboration. The event organizers (Gnutcha&Joorz) are veterans at hosting Mega-Events. This was the third and biggest, Mega-Event they organized. They were understandably proud of this free event. The Himos resort supplied the location, showers, toilets and water free of charge in return for the paying campers and cottage rentals. Gnutcha&Joorz said the official expenses for the event came in at about 60 Euros.

My amazing team - Jarom, arnevela, tuulituuli and Gandal491 — My amazing team – Jarom, arnevela, tuulituuli and Gandal491

The primary activity at the Mega-Event were two Adventure courses (one competitive and one leisure) and 10 fun Lab Caches. Geocachers were divided into teams to complete these courses. A highlight of my weekend was working with my team – Jarom, arnevela, tuulituuli and Gandal491 – on the course and Lab Caches. We had a lot of laughs together.

My favorite stations were “Flaming Tower, “Robin Hood” and “Bingo”. The Flaming Tower required three geocachers – one to pump water, one to aim the spray at the target and one to grab the container as it floated to the top. What a great activity for such a hot day!

Careful aim brings geocache container floating to the top

Robin Hood looked like a modern practice for Hunger Games, except no one got hurt. And the Bingo activity was a creative Lab Cache that required you to get signatures from event volunteers who had completed certain geocaching accomplishments. The Bingo activity was a brilliant way to make sure participants talked with volunteers.

IMG_4724_1_1 — Galdal491 signs for Bingo lab cache

Queue waiting to sign coffee event logbook

It was terrific to see why geocaching is so popular in Finland and to meet so many new friends. To my new Finnish geocaching friends, I say “Kiitos!”. Thanks for the adventure!

July 22, 2014 / Eric Schudiske /

Airstream Find & Go – A Geocaching Trackable Giveaway

airstream 1

by Christy:

Do you enjoy summer adventures and a good geocaching road trip? We have just the treat for you! Geocaching has teamed up with Airstream for a trackable tag designed for those with a penchant to roam, a heart for exploration and a willingness to Find and Go.

The Airstream Silver Bullet Trackable Tag will make its debut at select Geocaching events in the United States in August. 2,000 tags will be released among the events. If you can’t make it to the events, keep an eye out for Airstream Silver Bullet Trackable Tags in the wild as they make their way from geocache to geocache and travel across the country. Find one and take it some place incredible, whether it’s a big city or the great outdoors, it’s all about having an experience and sharing it with others.

Submit photos of where the Airstream Silver Bullet Trackable takes you for chances to win prizes from Airstream. Photos of the trackable can be submitted to the Airstream Facebook Page. A winning photo will be selected each month starting in August, for Airstream prizes including a t-shirt, a journal, a flashlight, and more! See contest rules for details.

Geocaching Premium Member, FluteFace, is planning to attend the Airstream event in Redmond, WA. “As both a geocacher, and an Airstream (1984 Sovereign) owner, I’ll be there! What a great combination!!” She adds, “We have enjoyed caching with our Airstream and, since we’ve recently equipped it with a solar panel, we intend to find more caches in cool places, off the beaten path.”

To make things even sweeter, geocachers can earn the Socializer Souvenir for attending an event in August as part of the 7 Souvenirs of August program.

airstream 3 — A photo of FluteFace’s Airstream on a caching/camping trip with other geocachers in Washington State’s Deception Pass State Park, about a month after she purchased the Airstream

July 21, 2014 / Eric Schudiske

Dirty Your Hands with a Geocaching Good Deed

Summer Time is the Right Time for CITO

The geocaching community is about giving back by getting a little dirty and clearing a lot of trash. Cache In Trash Out, or CITO, helps preserve the natural beauty of the geocaching world by cleaning up litter, removing invasive species, planting trees and building trails.CITO events are held all year long, especially during the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere. Check out the CITO calendar for events and join one near you. And who says good deeds go unrewarded? Earn The Nature Lover souvenir during the 7 Souvenirs of August by attending a CITO event in, you guessed it, the month of August.

Interested in bringing friends along on your CITO adventure? Share geocachers in action at CITO events with this CITO video in English or this CITO video in Czech and German.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eIwxTAaxKw]

July 15, 2014 / Eric Schudiske /

14 Km Geocaching Hike Starting after 10pm – That’s Portugal

14 Years Geocaching – Sintra | Portugal

Editor’s note: Geocaching HQ staff are attending dozens of Mega-Events around the world, shaking hands, sharing stories of adventure, and of course, geocaching. Each person at Geocaching HQ brings their own unique talent to advancing the adventure. Some write code for the website, others design images for the apps, and some shoot videos explaining it all. Annie or Love works as the Partners Program Manager, supporting all international distributors. This is her Mega-Event experience.

In early June, I had the pleasure to travel back to Portugal to attend 14 Years Geocaching – Sintra | Portugal. After the very warm welcome I received at Geocoinfest in Portugal two years ago, I was excited to spend some more time with the geocachers from one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Even better, this Mega-Event would be taking place in the one of the most magical places. Sintra, a community hidden in the Sintra Mountains of the Lisbon region, is filled with unreal sites including a Moorish castle, architecturally stunning palaces and endless tiled sidewalks.

The festivities spanned over five days in the Sintra region, and included a variety of geocaching walks, CITO events, a geocache lab adventure and lots of smiling faces. We walked, we cached and we blew bubbles. If you’ve ever wanted to use geocaching as your form of tourism, this Mega-Event would have been for you.

Bubble-blowing event — Bubble-Blowing Event

Some might think it’s weird to start a 14km hike at 10:30pm. Not geocachers. We thrive on adventures like that. If you can find about 35 caches on that 14km hike, even better. On the second night of the event, that’s just what we did. When I finally returned to my hotel around 3am, I was able to reflect on a fun adventure through the mountains of Sintra with nearly 100 geocaching friends. Those are the memories that will stick with me forever.

bruning portugal — “Bruning” in Portugal

Pride is one word I would use to describe Portuguese geocachers. Several times throughout the five days, I had conversations with individuals or geocaching teams about the incredible efforts they’ve put into their own geocaches. In a couple of cases, the teams had spent over a year perfecting one geocache. These are the types of geocaches that would inspire me to plan a return trip to Portugal.

New Friends — Love (center) and Geocaching Friends

If you are in search of a place where the people are friendly, the views are amazing, the culture is rich and the geocaching is pretty ‘darn’ good, Portugal has got you covered.

caching in portugal 2 — Love and Geo-pup

July 12, 2014 / Eric Schudiske

The Theory of Caching is Found in Canada

COG Fling 10 – The COG Cache Theory

COG 1

Editor’s note: Geocaching HQ staff are attending dozens of Mega-Events around the world, shaking hands, sharing stories of adventure, and of course, geocaching. Each person at Geocaching HQ brings their own unique talent to advancing the adventure. Some write code for the website, others design images for the apps, and some shoot videos explaining it all. Cathy or Prying Pandora works supporting geocaching community volunteers . This is her Mega-Event experience.

Cathy (center) – Canada Day with reviewers CacheViewer, GeoawareCA, and CacheShadow

When I found out I had been selected to attend COG Fling 10 – The COG Cache Theory in Ontario, Canada, I was very excited. I knew that the Central Ontario geocaching community was super creative and fun, and they would turn this year’s science theme into a weekend full of laughter and crazy surprises. The chosen location for the 10th Fling was Tottenham Conservation Area, a beautiful 41-acre park about 40 minutes away from Toronto.

The kickoff event on Friday evening was COG Spring Fling, a nod to the COG Fling’s traditional springtime date. This year the event took place during the long hot days of summer, so how do you make a Spring Fling out of that? By flinging springs, of course! That was just one of a crazy hodge podge of activities, including racing to fill pipes by squeezing water into them with sponges, and performing an interpretive dance with shock absorbers before tossing them at a target. The prize? A fine trophy made of springs!

Elf and Fababoo doing their shock absorber interpretive dance. She has a bubble on her finger.

COG 3 — Swifteroo’s shock absorber interpretive dance

I had a blast at the Mega-Event on Saturday, meeting and chatting with 800 geocachers. Some of them came all the way from Australia and Germany! Keeping with the science theme, the event log was a lab coat, there were 8 super creative science lab caches, and a mad scientist too! Games, workshops and a bunch of new caches in the area kept people busy all day.

cathy 1 — Two of the COG volunteers helping with the event, Juicepig and Elf

Me with one of the cachers I met, luvvinbird

The weekend wrapped up on Sunday with the COG’s Anti Trash Theory CITO event. Lots of trash was collected from the area surrounding the park, and a few unusual items too.

cathy 3 — Tromelin heaves in an old satellite dish

I completed my Canadian adventure after the event weekend by visiting the nation’s capital in Ottawa with some of Ontario’s volunteer reviewers to celebrate Canada Day. It was the perfect end to a wonderful trip!

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Author: Eric Schudiske