Author: Paige Edmiston

Paige (ThePaigeTurner) is a Marketing Specialist at Geocaching HQ. She likes books.
/ Paige Edmiston /

Celebrate Get Outdoors Month 2016!

Every geocacher has experienced the magic of the great outdoors. That magic — whether it’s diving into a cold alpine lake at the end of an arduous hike or watching the sun disappear over the horizon from a hidden beach — is the reason we’re teaming up with the American Recreation Coalition for National Get Outdoors Month this June. And you’re invited to join us!

Here’s how you can get involved in Get Outdoors Month:

  1. Earn the Get Outdoors Day souvenir! To do so, find any geocache or attend any geocaching event on Saturday, June 11, 2016.
  1. Participate in one of the Get Outdoors Month activities (listed here) or host your own geocaching event to introduce your friends to the great outdoors. Please note that there is no souvenir for participating in these events, except on June 11, Get Outdoors Day.
  1. Celebrate the National Park Service’s second century by exploring the “Find Your Park” GeoTour. Do you have a fourth grader in your family? The “Every Kid in a Park” initiative grants free admission until August 2016 to each and every fourth grader (and their guests) across the country to check out their public lands and waters in person.
  1. Inspire others to get outdoors by sharing your Get Outdoors Month experiences on social media! Tag your posts with #Geocaching #GetOutdoors for a chance to be reshared by Geocaching.
Frequently Asked Questions

Will there be a souvenir for attending a Get Outdoors Month event?

There is no souvenir for attending a geocaching event during June, with the exception of Get Outdoors Day. If you attend a geocaching event in the USA on June 11, 2016, you will receive the Get Outdoors Day souvenir.

I don’t live in the US. Can I still earn the Get Outdoors Day Souvenir!

Yes, you can! The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of a bigger initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside during National Get Outdoors Month. Given the interest expressed by geocachers all over the world in participating in Get Outdoors Day, we’ve decided to make the souvenir available to anyone who finds a geocache or attends an event (anywhere in the world!) on June 11, 2016.

/ Paige Edmiston /

Introducing Worldwide Search

Planet Earth is Now (Officially) Your Playfield

We admit Galaxy Search was a fun joke, but we promise that our newest feature is 100% real. Say hello to Worldwide Search.

Now, with just a few clicks, you can see a leaderboard of the most favorited geocaches or learn just how many Terrain 5 geocaches there are — in the world. That’s right. We said it.

In the world. The whole world. Planet Earth is now your playfield.

With this latest update to the geocache search page, you can:

  • Find geocaches anywhere in the world  — no search origin needed. Premium members can filter further based on keywords, D/T ratings and more!
  • The 30 mile/50 kilometer restriction on searches? For Premium members, this restriction is now gone.
  • See an accurate count of matching results for all searches.

Take your new search superpowers for a test drive by trying out these searches:

See the geocaches with the most Favorite Points — in the world.

Planning a vacation? Find exactly the geocaches you want within any radius.

Learn how many Terrain 5, Difficulty 5 geocaches there are in Germany.

Answer that question you’ve always wanted to ask: How many geocaches have “Mars” in their name?

How will you use your new search superpowers (for good, not evil, of course)? Tell us in the comments below.

Search for Geocaches
/ Paige Edmiston

Au revoir “Intro” – notre app est devenue adulte!

C’est officiel: L’app Geocaching a surpasser son nom.

Comme du camouflage particulièrement bien executé le mot “intro” dans Geocaching Intro a déguisé pendant longtemps un tas de fonctionnalités formidable pour tous les joueurs, quelle que soit leur niveau d’expérience – la recherche en direct, le Centre de Messagerie et des meilleurs moyens d’enregistrement des logs pour les objets voyageurs et les géocaches, pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns. Avec l’addition de la semaine dernière des Listes de géocaches il était temps de donner notre app un nouveau nom et un nouveau look.

Nous vous présentons Geocaching®, l’app officielle de géocaching. Cette app a été conçu pour rendre l’experience mobile de geocaching plus facile que jamais et garder le défi où il se doit – dans le plaisir de trouver une géocache.

Découvrez plus sur notre app nouvellement rebaptisée Geocaching® dans cette vidéo.

Découvrez l’App

/ Paige Edmiston /

So Long “Intro” — Meet the Geocaching® App

Geocaching Intro, the baby app we first introduced to the world in 2013, is all grown up! In the time since it said its first ‘hello’, we’ve added a host of great features to the app for players of all experience levels.

With today’s addition of Lists, ‘Geocaching Intro’ has officially outgrown its name. So we’re renaming it. Nothing too out there. We’re kind of traditional that way.

Without further ado, we are excited and proud to introduce the Geocaching® app!

Here are 4 things you may not know about the newly named Geocaching® app:

  1. The updated design actually makes using the app outside, better. A crazy expectation for a game played outdoors, we know. The visual contrast and updated styling make reading geocache details easier wherever you are.
  2. The app is best with Premium. Premium members can find any geocache in the world. Plus, they gain access to tools for sorting and filtering geocaches as well as more intuitive workflows for finding all geocache types.
  3. Players can move seamlessly between Geocaching.com and the app. For example, lists that you create on Geocaching.com will automatically appear in the Geocaching® app. Same goes for conversations in the Message Center.
  4. We are not done with this app. We are actively seeking feedback from the geocaching community to help us improve it. Together, we think we can make this app the ultimate mobile tool for geocachers!

Don’t yet have the Geocaching® app or haven’t checked it out in a while? Here are just a few of the cool, new features you’ll find:

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Live Search for Geocaches

The world is full of hidden delights. With Live Search, the geocache map automatically displays geocaches near you — even when you’re on the move!

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Fun with Trackables

On a future geocaching escapade, you’ll likely uncover a trackable. The Geocaching® app makes logging trackables easy and fun.

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A Better Way to Find Geocaches

Finding a Multi-Cache or EarthCache can be a good challenge! Thankfully, new tools for advanced geocaches, like adding waypoints or sending photos to geocache owners, leave the challenge where it belongs — in the thrill of finding a geocache.

Google_Play_BadgeApp_Store_Badge

 

/ Paige Edmiston /

Secret Code Hidden in Leap Day Souvenir Revealed

When someone becomes a geocacher, they begin to see things others do not. Sticks are just a little too straight, every rock suggests a secret compartment and even lamp posts become suspicious. And to think that the majority of people go through life oblivious to the hidden delights all around them!

In the spirit of hidden delights, Geocaching HQ’s Designer Roxxy Goetz decided to encode a secret message in the 2016 Leap Day souvenir. Take a look:

Souvenir_LeapDay2016_vFINAL_Event

 

Did you catch it? Read on for clues and a behind-the-scenes look at the Leap Day souvenirs.

What do you do at Geocaching HQ?

I’m a graphic designer in our Creative Studio. We manage and create most of the art assets you see on our social media, like Facebook and the Geocaching Blog, and in our Shop. I personally handle many of our Geocoin designs, and I was one of the illustrators at the start of the Souvenirs project.

BlockParty2014_Roxxy_Signal
Roxxy is a big fan of Signal the Frog.

What is your username?

Over the last couple of years I keep being asked if I’m that Roxxy, the one who designed this souvenir or that geocoin, and the rest was a bad joke waiting to happen. My username is Yes, That Roxxy.

Tell me about the Leap Day souvenirs. How did you and your team come up with the theme?

We really wanted to make something special for the community, something that was unique and not like anything else being put out there. We started by designing a Leap Day theme, which we used for the Leap Day Geocoin as well as the two souvenirs.

Our inspiration came from the Roman origins of Leap Day as we record it on our modern calendar. There aren’t many modern traditions for Leap Day that fit naturally with a geocaching theme, so we decided to call out the day itself. We looked at imagery that reflected the passage of time and the unique circumstances that gave us Leap Day to begin with.

The finished Leap Day souvenir has elements of a sundial, to reflect the passage of time over one single day, as well as imagery depicting the orbit of the earth around the sun, representing the passage of a year.

LeapDayGeocoin
The 2016 Leap Day Geocoin, designed by That Roxxy.

For the Leap Day Event souvenir we decided to draw imagery not just from our own planet, but from the other planets around us. We wanted to reflect the way our own personal experiences are a part of a much greater system, a sort of celebration of those experiences coming together into something bigger.

The theme even carried over to our Leap Day Geocoin, which featured the Roman god of the sun—Sol Invictus—on one side, with the planets in orbit around his crown. The other side was a functioning sundial, which is not as easy to design in as some might think.

I hear there’s a hidden message encoded in the Leap Day 2016 souvenir for attending an event. How do we decode it?

You caught me! I love trying to hide little messages for our community—I can’t help it! I guess I’m a Puzzler geocacher at heart.

I’ll give you two hints: one for those who just want a starting point, and a second for those who want to get right into decoding the souvenir…

Hint #1:

Nine are the planets

Nine are the rings

Nine are the letters

in the finding of things

Hint #2:

Each orbit has a pattern, a series of dashes, repeating all the way around. These dashes spell out a letter in Morse code. Each orbit represents only one letter.

Have you discovered any secret messages or hidden surprises while geocaching? Tell us about them!

 

SPOILER: And the hidden message is… DISCOVERY!