The geocache page for Krneki #1 reads, “You don’t really need to visit this cache. The place is not of any interest, the container is awful…” If you’ve read this far, you’ve just read the sub-sub-genre of geocaching satire. Krneki #1 geocache owner icabrian recently visited Geocaching HQ in Seattle. He popped in after traveling thousands of miles from his home country of Slovenia. The emerging geocaching country is home to more than 3,600 hidden caches, and it’s also home to a fiery debate. Each geocaching community wrestles with this very question at some point:

What defines a quality geocache?

icabrian uses Krneki #1 to raise the issue in Slovenia. He writes on the geocache page, ” Everything is wrong with this cache, because it was placed to spark a public debate about where this game is going, what we want from it and especially what we don’t want from it.” He also claimed, when I spoke with Igor (his real name) that the logbook for the geocache was always wet. That’s mighty bold bragging about an awful geocaching experience.

Perhaps not surprisingly the community embraced the conversation. People like to talk about quality geocaching, and they know it when they see it, and they know when they don’t. Krneki #1 has more than a dozen favorite points. Igor’s answer to what defines a quality geocache? He tells me, “(Geocaching) is not just about hiding a box. The box becomes a geocaches with something on top.” He talked about placing the geocache at an inspiring location, crafting a rich story or a clever puzzle, something beyond the box which transforms the container into a geocache.

How would you define a quality geocache? 

Put your answer in comments below and through the magic of the internet, we’ll create a word cloud soon and see what gems pop out.

DIY: Quality Geocache Video

Check out this quick video for a few tips to create a Favorite Point worthy geocache