Category: Community

Geocaching is delightful because of the people who play it — adventure-seekers, makers, parents, astronauts and (sometimes) celebrities. Read their stories.

/ Eric Schudiske /

GPS and Geocaching Begins an Eight Billion Dollar Upgrade

You won't be lost in the woods anymore (we hope). New GPS satellites are expected to increase accuracy.

The U.S. is upgrading its constellation of GPS satellites.  They’ll be replaced in an effort to greatly improve accuracy.  Good news for geocachers. The replacement satellites are expected to sharpen the accuracy of your GPS device from about 20 feet to just an arm’s length. They’re also touted as being more reliable – meaning you won’t lose the signal as often.

Hopefully, this means fewer Did Not Finds (DNFs) on the horizon. But it’ll take a while to reach the horizon.  The first generation of satellites will reportedly be swapped out one for one over the next decade.

The launch of the first of the next generation of GPS satellites has been scrubbed three times due to weather or technical glitches. The fourth time proved to be a charm.  The rocket carrying the satellite lifted off Thursday, May 27th from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The satellites’ software will be upgradable while they are in space and also continue to broadcast an atomic clock, keeping time to a billionth of a second.

Besides guiding travelers to destinations, ambulance crews to emergencies and owners to lost dogs, how else do we use GPS each day?

/ Eric Schudiske /

“Pirate Pete’s Plunder” GC172TB – GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK May 27th 2010

Pirate Pete’s Plunder GC172T8 was named Cache of the Month by the Wisconsin Geocaching Association. It’s our Geocache of the Week.  The puzzle cache captures the imagination of children and families with a compelling and fun story about tracking down pirate’s treasure.

This week’s geocache was chosen from entries submitted via Twitter.  Follow us on Twitter and submit your favorite cache for consideration as Geocache of the Week.

/ Eric Schudiske /

The Founders – Geocaching’s Lost & Found Video Premiere

Enjoy watching the first video in the Lost & Found series. We’re discovering the lost stories of geocaching. It’s our way to celebrate ten amazing years of family-friendly geocaching adventures.

“The Founders” video showcases the three innovators who launched Geocaching.com. Learn a little bit about Jeremy Irish, Bryan Roth and Elias Alvord.  Hear how the company started and where they hope the geocaching treasure hunt takes us all in the decades ahead.

Tell us what you think!

More Lost & Found videos will be released each week.  See a glimpse of what’s ahead in our Lost & Found Video Trailer.

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching Caption Contest 3 – Win a Barely Coveted Prize

Winning Entry, “Fly me to the moon…..Let me cache among the stars! Let me have a FTF …..on Jupiter and Mars!” – jenbut

This is the third installment of our Geocaching Caption Contest. What foreign world does this cache exist?  “I never knew that this Utah cache was on the moon.”  You can do better.  The winner receives these barely coveted 10 Years! temporary tattoos.

You could win these barely coveted 10 Year! tattoos

Please include your geocaching username in all entries.  Winner will be chosen by an ad hoc committee of Lackeys.

13 Lackeys voted last week to crown the winner of the second Geocaching Caption Contest.

Take a look at the post to see who won.

Good luck this week!

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching – More than Just Fancy Footwork

Train Travel = Geocaching

Here’s some (fairly) simple math.  Geocaching = Hiking.  Right?  Well, the answer is yes and no.  Welcome to the “new geocaching math.”

Besides foot travel there’s a few other modes of transportation that invite geocaching adventure; kayaking, hot air ballooning, off roading, and space travel aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

All these means of transportation have been exploited to take geocaching to a new level  – or out of the atmosphere. But how about caching by train?  It’s how the savvy wild west pioneers would have geocached.  Now one of the finest examples of powering caching by train takes place, not in the wild west, but in Merry Old England.

Geocacher “Steve-e-b” brought his interests and talents to bare on the task.  He launched a website detailing geocaches around 94 stations around Birmingham, England.  You can use a drop down menu to access nearby caches for each of the stations.  Train + Geocaching = Adventure on a time table. How about that for using simple math to plan your next geocaching adventure?

Steve-e-b and I exchanged a couple of emails.  He says he never set out to merge train travel and geocaching, it’s just something that happened. “… so many of our first caches were found during shopping trips (or, as my wife would say, during “craftily planned trips designed to avoid shopping”). We always traveled into the city by train or bus, and so geocaching by train evolved from there.”

He says he hopes the map inspires those visiting or living in the West Midlands to plan a geocaching journey.

But what have I missed?  What other forms of travel combine so well with geocaching and possibly the shopping experience?