Congrats! Nearly 88,000 adventurers from around the world gave the couch a rest, and earned this Geocaching Get Outdoors Souvenir on Saturday July 13, 2013.

Keep the couch lonely – will you join the global geocaching community for 31 Days of Geocaching starting on August 1?

Geocaching HQ is along for the journey for a geocaching streak stretching 31 straight days. Staff from Geocaching HQ will be lining up to find geocaches for each day in August and sharing the adventure here on the blog. And there’s now a way you can share your journey.

Be part of 31 Days of Geocaching 1 second at a time. We’re creating the video 31 Days of Geocaching in 31 Seconds. Follow us on Instagram and tag us in your geocaching videos. We’ll chose one second from your Instagram videos each day for August to showcase all of 31 Days of Geocaching.

Psst… The final video will look something like this: http://vimeo.com/56599373 (but only 31 seconds, and with geocaching) And don’t forget to log your “Will Attend” to 31 Days of Geocaching on Facebook.

You’ve found them, seen them in blog posts, heard about them from other geocachers, and see the load of Favorite Points next to their names. What are they? They’re the best of the best: amazing geocaches. The time and effort that goes in to creating these geocaches is incredible.

With every Geocache of the Week post I write, I always ask the geocache creator, “What criteria do you use to make sure the geocaches you create are so awesome?” We’ve taken the answers to this question. We’ve combined them with responses from geocachers about what makes a great find. And we’ve create the Top Five Tips for Creating a World-Class ‘Cache. Feel free to add your tips or ideas in the comments.

1. Love Your Geocache

If you love your geocache, others probably will too. Show your geocache some love by making sure it’s well-maintained. This includes ensuring the log stays dry, the container stays in good shape, keeping the geocache details page updated and responding promptly to “Needs Maintenance” logs. This is easier when you place a geocache that’s close to home or in a place that you’re able to access easily.

2. Get Creative

Some geocaches are just there to be found, and that’s okay. Everyone plays the game differently. But great geocaches actually evoke a reaction or emotion from the finder. Sometimes it’s a laugh, and sometimes it’s an “OMG!” Geocacher Ecylram has a great piece of advice, “the find needs to bring something unique or uncommon for the cacher, and the sum of the experience needs to be memorable.” Think of it this way: a geocache is like a piece of art. Yours may not be liked by everybody, but if it causes a reaction or emotion—it’s a masterpiece. So get creative and think outside the ammo can. If you need some inspiration, check out this video about creative geocaches.

3. Location, Location, Location

I’m sure you knew this one was coming. Geocachers love to discover new and amazing places. While that railing may not have a micro geocache attached to it, do you think geocachers will be enjoy that location? Think more along the lines of parks that few people know about, hidden gems in your area, a great place for a sunset or sunrise, scenic vistas and other great spots.

4. Go Big or Go Home

We love swag, trading trackables and writing great logs. Unfortunately, the smallest geocaches aren’t conducive to these things. So if your hiding spot has enough room, place the largest geocache that will fit, while still remaining hidden. This typically means, avoiding hiding really small geocaches in really large forests. This will give geocachers the chance to trade trinkets and trackables.

5. Great Geocaches Deserve Great Descriptions

Think of the geocache description as your artist’s statement. Some geocachers create epic stories about their geocaches or create an adventure for other geocachers to take part in. While you don’t have to go this far for every hide, a nice paragraph or two introducing the geocache, describing the area, dropping subtle hints and giving any pertinent details will suffice. Check out the story that accompanies Das Vergessene Portal (The Forgotten Portal) (GC3HWBE). (You might have to translate it from German.)

We continually see amazing creativity come out of the geocaching community. We’re still amazed by the thought and dedication that goes into keeping our favorite hobby fun. Now that you’ve read our Top Five Tips for Creating a World-Class ‘Cache, we’d like to see your examples of great geocaches and read your tips.

There’s something special about a Trackable at Geocaching.com—it’s actually trackable. You know who owns it. You know where it’s been, and ideally, where it wants to go next.

Now imagine you’re a police detective. You serve a search warrant on a storage locker. You find evidence you believe is stolen. But how do you prove that evidence actually belongs to someone else? Then, you see a glistening Geocoin, with a tracking number.

Heather, aka Craftea, from Washington state in the U.S. was the beneficiary for just such a series of events and some real crafty police work.

She says her story began in November of 2012. “My home was burglarized and I lost a great many items, including a three-ring binder with baseball-card pockets where I kept my geocoin collection, and a bag of geopins along with more standard stuff like laptops and other electronics.”

Her day to day geocaching wasn’t completely interrupted thanks to a lucky break, “Thankfully my GPS was in the car with me when my home was being broken into so I didn’t lose that. The responding cop didn’t give me much hope that any of my things will ever be recovered but it still took me several months before I finally went online to mark each of my coins as missing, feeling that made it more final, like I was giving up hope.”

Months passed, life continued. And Heather began to move on. “I did, really, give up hope, and while I feel the loss of my things just about every day, I am slowly replacing things as I can afford to.”

The whole experience came back to her after it was nearly forgotten. “It was with a bit of a shock when I got an e-mail from a detective from Seattle’s West Precinct with front-and-back pictures of one of my geocoins with a note saying that it and ‘several others’ were recovered during a search warrant issued on a storage unit. He said he recognized it as a Geocoin and logged on Geocaching.com and did a search with the coin’s code and saw my profile and that I had marked it missing and wanted to know why.”

It was an email she quickly responded to, “I contacted him and was able to either describe the coins or give him the code after he described them to me. He had “4 or 5″ of them and he was satisfied they were mine. After more search warrants were issued on a different storage unit and a house associated with the same people as were for the original unit where my coins were found, the detective contacted me again and invited me to his office to pick up my coins and look at the pictures of the suspects as well as go through photos of evidence they’d recovered.”

“When I got to his office, he handed me 5 coins…” But for Heather the Geocoins are more than pieces of metal imprinted with a custom tracking code. They were reminders of adventures past and friends who offered the Geocoins as presents, “Two were gifts from FrodoB, one was a gift from Rey del Roble, one I earned at The Dalles Dash geocoin challenge and the 5th was an unactivated geoachievement coin given to me by my friend, MacCrew, from New York. Precious memories!” Check out the Trackable Details page from one of the lost and recovered Geocoins.

Heather also received a few of the other items that were lost to the thieves who broke into her home. Among them, she has recovered a sense of justice, “There is still a great deal of loss but it was exciting to get back a few pieces, and knowing that a handful of geocoins connected the burglars to their crime against me (and many other homes…) and was instrumental in their arrest.”