It’s a community treasure hunting game. A person hides something, then posts GPS coordinates and/or clues to lead you there. Often the hidden item is a sealed container so people can leave log books or unique trinkets. Some of the trinkets have serial numbers you can use to see where they’ve traveled.
I haven’t done it in years, but I remember it being a lot of fun. Hunting for caches led me to a bunch of interesting new places that I would never have explored otherwise.
Yeah, it’s a shame when a container is abandoned and essentially becomes trash – in my experience, it’s rare for that to happen, though.
On the other hand, there’s ‘Cache In Trash Out’ events (CITOs): Geocaching events where people gather to pick up litter, remove invasive species, plant trees, or otherwise help the environment. They’re pretty popluar in my local area. So I wouldn’t say geocaching has a net negative impact as far as littering goes!
Personally, I’ve paid for it the last few years. But Geocaching is my main hobby, so it’s easily a worthwhile investment.
I get being against subscriptions out of principle though. I cached for years without paying for it. In my area only about 1/3 of caches are premium only, but that might be completely different in another part of the world
Even if you don’t pay have the subscription, you can look premium caches up on the website using a direct link, e.g. coord.info/GC7B6F0. You need to have the geocode (“GC7B6F0”) for that, though. Not sure about logging, but I think you should even be able to do that.
I can’t see that cache, although I can see its name, difficulty, and the fact that it’s a virtual cache. Other than that, I can’t see the coordinates or description.
My partner pays for the Premium service. We go geocaching together all the time, I’d say it’s worth it. Lame subscription model aside, it’s pretty cheap entertainment and it gets us outside.
We don’t subscribe in the winter so it’s only a few months a year we need to pay for.
My biggest issue is my wife doesn’t find it fun so most of those are from before marriage or when she’s out of town. I look forward to introducing the kid to it later on to possibly have a buddy.
I wouldn’t do any maintenance, it’s up to the CO to care for the cache. And throwdowns are generally frowned upon. But do log a Need Maintenance log so the CO gets informed that there may be an issue with it. As a CO myself this is what I prefer.
The CO may be inactive and the cache is abandoned, but then the spot will open up again and someone can place a new happy cache in it’s place.
If I happen to have a spare container with me, usually I’ll replace a damaged one. IMO if you found the original and know where it was, that’s not the same as putting out a random throwdown for a missing cache.
If it’s a specially made container, I’d probably just log Needs Maintenance, but if you’re just replacing a pill bottle with something similar I would think it’s fair game. In any case definitely mention it in your log
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