One of the greatest things about geocaching is that anyone with a GPS-enabled device can participate in the activity. Whether you are a parent with young children, an extreme sports fanatic or a disabled individual, there are geocaches designed with you in mind.
As a Cache Owner, you can help fellow geocachers determine whether your cache is a good fit for their needs. Simply add attributes to your cache listing. Attributes are icons that indicate what to expect on the geocache journey and at the cache location. “Recommended for kids,” “climbing gear required” and “wheelchair accessible” are just a few of the dozens of attributes.
Cache Owners who are planning to add the “wheelchair accessible” attribute to their cache page or are debating whether their cache deserves a 1-star, 1.5-star, or 2-star terrain rating should check out handicaching.com. As you can see from this video, just because the ground is flat does not necessarily mean that a geocache is wheelchair accessible. Handicaching.com will help you determine the accessibility of your cache based on five factors: distance to cache, route surface, route slope, route obstructions and cache height. When in doubt, mark the terrain rating as 1.5 stars and explain the details in your Long Description on the cache page.
The ability to rate caches based on accessibility is not limited to Cache Owners; everyone can help. All geocachers are welcome to contribute their input at handicaching.com. Thank you for your efforts to make geocaching more accessible for all!
Neben den Klängen von “Good Morning” und “How are you?” wirst du die Lackeys (Angestellte bei Groundspeak) auch ein “Guten Morgen!” oder “Wie geht’s” austauschen hören, wenn sie sich auf dem Flur begegnen. Ist dies dadurch bedingt, dass wir plötzlich flüssig Deutsch sprechen? Leider nicht, aber wir versuchen es! 18 Lackeys treffen sich zweimal wöchentlich für acht Wochen, um zu lernen, besser in Deutsch zu kommunizieren und zu verstehen. Die Gründer von Geocaching.com saßen neben den Lackeys, die Emails aus aller Welt beantworten und anderen Lackeys die üblicherweise mit den deutschen Geocachern kommunizieren.
Sprachunterricht in Deutsch bei Groundspeak macht Sinn. Mehr als zehn Prozent der weltweit versteckten Geocaches können derzeit auf deutschem Boden gefunden werden. Um das rasende Wachstum von Geocaches in Deutschland zu sehen, sieh’ dir am Besten das YouTube-Video auf dieser Seite an. Das Video endet 2009, wo mehr als 118.000 Geocaches im Land versteckt waren. Zwei Jahre später sind es mehr als 180.000 aktive Geocaches in Deutschland.
Nach acht Wochen Untericht haben es die Lackeys geschafft, ihre Kenntnisse von grundlegenden Begriffen wie “mein Name ist…” oder “Wie bitte” zu kleineren Sätzen wie “Jeremy und Bryan kommen per Fahrrad vorbei.” auszubauen. Lackey Annie Love hat neulich deutsche Geocacher in der Lobby von Groundspeak mit ihren neu erworbenen Sprachkenntnissen begrüßt: “Woher kommen Sie?”.
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Verständlicherweise sprechen die Lackeys nicht flüssig Deutsch… noch nicht. Weitere Deutschkurse sind in Arbeit.
Da die weltweise Geocacher-Community weiter wächst, streben die Groundspeak-Lackeys an, sowohl die vor Ort gesprochenen Sprachen, als auch die Kultur zu verstehen, und vor allem auch, wie man den regionalen Geocaching-Communities den besten Service bieten kann. Man kann die wichtigsten Bereiche von Geocaching.com bereits in elf verschiedenen Sprachen auswählen und in diesen lesen. Geocaching vereint mehr als fünf Millionen Geocacher weltweit, egal ob sie sich mit “Hello”, “Hallo”, “Ahoj”, “Hej”, “Hola”, “Ciao”, “Bonjour”, “Óla”, “Witam” oder “Tere” begrüßen – wir alle sagen “Geocaching”.
WINNING CAPTION: "Ask him if he has a pen."- hpacheco
EDITOR’S NOTE: The voting was close between this caption and Spade76’s entry, “My mother in law wants to get into geocaching so I set this one up for her.” Many Facebook users who voted for Spade76’s caption also admitted they really do like their mother-in-law.
Exercise your caption writing wit and wisdom in the 23rd installment of our Geocaching.com Caption Contest. You could earn a barely coveted prize! What caption would you write? “Now I know why this is rated as a difficulty five.” You can do better!
Barely coveted prize
Submit your caption by clicking on “Comments” below. Please include your geocaching username in all entries. Then, explore the captions that other geocachers have crafted.
You can influence the voting. “Like” the caption that you think should win. If you think your caption should win, convince your fellow geocachers to “like” your caption. Lackeys decide between the top captions to crown the winner of the Geocaching.com Caption Contest.
Click on the image to see the winner of this Geocaching.com Caption Contest
The winner receives a barely coveted prize from Groundspeak Headquarters. This contest the barely coveted prize a sheet of eight Geocaching.com stickers.
16 Lackeys voted to award the winner of the 22nd Geocaching.com Caption Contest a barely coveted prize. Click on the image at right to discover the winning caption from the previous Geocaching.com Caption Contest.
A rusty ammo can has been hidden in the woods southeast of Berlin since October 2, 2000. The geocache’s name explains the significance this cache holds for Germany.
“First Germany” (GC77) was the first geocache placed in the country. It’s now a popular favorite, accumulating more than 230 Geocaching Favorite Points.
Ferenc originally placed the difficulty 1.5, terrain 1 cache. Later BlackyV adopted the historic cache.
More than 1600 geocachers have logged a smiley on the cache. Some geocachers even adjust their vacation to make sure they can log “First Germany.”
One geocacher wrote this log just yesterday: “When we planned our Berlin tour we definitely planned this cache, so we made our way back a little detour and found the [geocache]. A must have for real geocach(ing) fans. Thanks to conservation and the maintenance!”
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on our blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
Editor’s note: Groundspeak Lackeys are traveling thousands of miles from H.Q. this year to share smiles, shake hands and make geocaching memories at more than a dozen Mega-Events worldwide. Jessie, aka Foxfire, attended the Mega-Event MOGA (Midwest Open Geocaching Adventure) this past weekend in the U.S. state of Illinois. Jessie has been a Lackey since 2009 and answers your emails as a Community Relations Specialist. This is Jessie’s account of her trip. I was very happy that Signal made an appearance at 2011 MOGA thanks to SLB4U and friends
By: Jessie, Foxfire
This past weekend it was my privilege to attend the 2011 MOGA event in Rend Lake, IL. I don’t think I could have asked for a more interesting and fun weekend.
I was able to fly into St. Louis Airport Thursday afternoon to pick up my rental car and start on the 2 ½ hour drive to Rend Lake. I have never been anywhere near Illinois so I was excited to see a little of the state on my way. This included a lot of amazing architecture, “little” Nashville and my first glimpse of an actual swamp. I was born and raised in Seattle so yes, seeing a swamp was exciting. I spent my first night relaxing and doing some work on my laptop before turning in for the night.
On Friday, I woke up to a sunny and very brisk day and the strange sight of snow on my car. I decided I needed a good cup of coffee and better shoes for the weather, so I headed off on a mission into the small town of Benton. I soon figured out that there were no coffee shops but I was able to find a very large Wal-Mart where I could pick up some rubber boots. These boots ended up being the best thing I could have bought.
The ship's log and log book for the event
Friday night was the opening event of the weekend and my first chance to get to meet some of the geocachers that would be participating in the other events of the weekend. It was the BYO…Buccaneer’s Booty Bash Before the Big Bash. Everyone was dressed in their best pirate gear, including one very well dressed dog. I have to say pirates are my favorite! To my surprise even Signal was able to make an appearance. Everyone was so shocked to see our green mascot that they all fell quiet when Signal entered the picnic area. You could hear crickets. After a long night, it was back to the hotel to get some sleep before an early – very early – 3 am Seattle time wake up to make it to breakfast.
Saturday had to be the best day of them all. I was able to spend the day talking with local geocachers, answering questions about the website, troubleshooting issues and just socializing. I heard great stories about tornadoes on New Year’s Eve, muddy fields that apparently everyone at the 2010 MOGA ended up driving their cars into, the year of “The Snow Storm” and many more fun stories of past events. Little did we know that this would be another year in which we would end up with somewhere between three to six inches of snow by the end of the night. However, as many cachers kept saying, “Weather will not stop us from caching.” And it did not. For many people a little inclement weather may have brought down the spirit of the event, or made them unhappy. For this group it seemed that they found it a greater challenge. Through wind, rain, sleet and snow this group of about 600 cachers was out searching through the woods looking for the next cache. Each came back with a smile on their face and excitement for the awards ceremony at the end of the night.
I am now back home after a drive through the snow and a long plane trip but I will never forget the kindness and welcome that the cachers at the 2011 MOGA showed me. I only hope that I can make it back again to share in the fun of 2012.
The Iowa Geocachers Organization. The hosts of the 2012 MOGA Event
You can also find a Lackey at one of these upcoming Mega-Events:
