Geocaching is delightful because of the people who play it — adventure-seekers, makers, parents, astronauts and (sometimes) celebrities. Read their stories.
The beginning of each year is traditionally the time to set new goals. Some might want to shed a few extra pounds, or make more time for family and friends.
As a geocacher, you can set very specific goals to up your geocaching game in 2014. You might want to tackle a D5/T5 or finally find this tricky geocache that you just cannot spot. You maybe want to host your first CITO-Event (Cash in Trash Out) or hide a creative geocache.
Editor’s Note: Gary, Geoaware, placed the very first EarthCache on this date in 2004. Today there are more than 17,000 EarthCaches around the globe from the peaks of mountains to the desert floor. This is Gary’s story of that first EarthCache.
By Gary, Geoaware: Ten years ago I was a lucky guy in the right place at the right time. The Geological Society of America (GSA) had just employed me to work on education and outreach programs, a GSA member mentioned the new game of geocaching to my boss, and I was on holiday here with my kids looking at the rocks in Australia.
So that day we wandered around a rock platform that I had been on a thousand times before but now with a new purpose. How could I bring others here geocaching so they left learning something new about our amazing planet? Fossils, evidence for glaciers, weathering – so much in such a short walk. This was the perfect place. And so EarthCache I GCHFT2 was born—and so was the concept of an EarthCache: a place where the Earth was the treasure. A place where you would learn about the geology of the planet while you geocached. If you have not experienced an EarthCache, its time you tried. It’s a different experience – but who would ever not enjoy learning when it’s fun!
Since then we have gone through many changes, twists and turns – always in partnership with Geocaching.com and always edging forward so that we can add to the game of geocaching as well as teaching people about our Earth. We even now have a Mega-Event held each year just for EarthCachers (GC4JD1B).
What an amazing ten years the EarthCache program has had. Since the first EarthCache was placed, four million people have visited over 17,000 EarthCaches in 165 countries around the globe. It is a truly outstanding impact to get people outside, have fun and learn about our dynamic planet all at the same time. And all of that amazing credit goes to the whole community that visits, develops and loves EarthCaches and the wonderful group of community volunteers – the ‘geoawares’ that work with EarthCache developers to get the very best EarthCache submissions published.
Finally, I can’t ignore the amazing support of The Geological Society of America, who sees this program as the jewel in its outreach to the wider community.
I hope you will all celebrate the amazing 10th year of EarthCaches by finding and logging an EarthCache or even joining the next 3rd International EarthCache Mega-Event!
Table Rock EarthCache (GCMH1C)
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Tomorrow marks the 10 year anniversary of EarthCaching—that’s a decade of not only earning a smiley, but also learning more about the bubbling, rock shattering, and often hidden geological processes that shape our Earth. If you feel like celebrating, pay a visit to one of the most favorited EarthCaches in the world (this is the most favorited). Here geocachers will learn how glaciers and erosion formed these magnificent waterfalls known as Niagara falls. One tip: make sure to bring a rain jacket or poncho; otherwise you’ll get soaked from the spray coming off the falls. Consider the soaking a very wet souvenir.
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“Firstly Niagara Falls is my favorite place it’s so beautiful and powerful. We really enjoy Earthcaching because it can be really fun and scientific , plus you get to learn something you may not have known about our Earth. As we visit the beautiful Table Rock area on a regular basis , and find it absolutely fascinating , we thought it was the perfect place to place an earthcache.”
“We really enjoy seeing all the logs on this cache it is one of our most popular that we have placed. We especially love to see all the pictures of this beautiful area.”
“We spent a great day at Niagara Falls with perfect weather. This is just an absolute amazing place. It was so exciting to see the enormous power of the water running down the falls.” – Orpheos
“Snagged this earth cache on our whim to go to Niagara Falls. So glad we did it – awesome vacation and awesome sights! Ontario was great and everyone was very friendly. TFTC” – tigervhaga
“Thank you for bringing us to this area. The information was very interesting and I’m not sure we would have stumbled upon it by ourselves.” – CeeeKer
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
The year is now 2014. You probably know that. If not, well, let us be the first to wish you a Happy New Year! And what’s a new year, without a few new goals? For 2014, we’ve collected 14 New Year’s resolutions for geocachers from the global geocaching community. Everyone’s resolution is different, but we bet there’s at least one for you. We hope this list inspires you to push yourself to explore more, see new locations, meet new people, and of course, find more geocaches.
1) |
Host or attend a geocaching event
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2) |
Create a creative geocache that will earn (many) Favorite Points
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3) |
Find a minimum of 365 geocaches
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4) |
Have one day where you find 24 geocaches in 24 hours
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5) |
Solve the Puzzle Caches that stumped you in 2013
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6) |
Log DNF’s (Did Not Find)
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7) |
Add 5 more countries to the list of places where you’ve found geocaches
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8) |
Spend more time geocaching with family
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9) |
Forget about the numbers, just have fun geocaching
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10) |
Reach a milestone that ends in three zeroes (like 2,000)
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11) |
Fill your Difficulty and Terrain chart on your statistics profile
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12) |
Be the First to Find at least once
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13) |
Find a Terrain 5
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14) |
Discover a geocaching location that makes you say “wow” once a month
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We’d love to hear what your goals for 2014 are. Share your resolution with the geocaching community in comments below.
Travel Bug Plaza Hotel & Suites (GC3JQQ1)
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I’ve seen quite a few Travel Bug hotels, but none have compared to this one. This is the sort of hotel I wouldn’t mind staying in—if I were a Travel Bug. There are quite a few things that make this hotel unique. To begin with, there are plenty of rooms. From large suites to efficiency rooms, there’s plenty of room for your trackable and all of its friends. And of course, no self-respecting hotel would be complete without a nice lobby to kick back and rest in. There’s even something for geocachers: the CacheMedics tour. This handy map will take geocachers on a nice journey through the area. So when you’re in Florida and in need of a place for your trackables to stay, there’s always room at this amazing hotel.
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Regarding the geocache inspiration: “One of our local geocaching friends challenged us to create a travel bug hotel…we thought it would be fun and interesting to make something that actually resembled a hotel.”
On construction: “…we hand-painted the scenes to give the appearance of the exterior of a hotel. The lobby floor is real flooring tiles, the tiny chair-rail is real routered, stained, and lacquered wood trim, and the furniture items are securely glued in their places.”
Reactions to the logs and favorite points: “The comments are amazing and it just makes us feel great to know that people are enjoying our creation! We appreciate and celebrate each and every favorite point our cache has received! …When we built this, we wanted it to be something unique but we never expected such wonderful reactions from so many visitors!”
“The amount of creativity, ingenuity and effort you have put into your caches really shines through, and there is no doubt in our minds that you have brought a great many cachers an immense amount of pleasure…Thank you so much for providing us with such an enjoyable day of caching, and for giving so much to the geocaching community. The first cache of yours we did today was “What are you thankful for?” As we finish caching for the day here, we have to say, we are thankful that there are cachers like you, who are willing to put their all into creating awesome experiences for the rest of us!” – Zekester & Simon
“The amount of detail in the construction is amazing! TFTC!” – CPRTEAMSIX
“What tremendous amount of work went into making this cache. WOW! I’ve seen quite a few different cache types now – especially when I visited the Seattle area, but I haven’t seen a TB hotel like this!!! This should be called the travel bug RESORT!!!” – lilyfly
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
