Geocaching

When my brother took up geocaching years ago, I didn’t get it. I still remember taking a walk right after a heavy rainfall, and my brother stopped partway through to go trudge through the mud to find a cache. I just stood there on the trail, wondering what would possess someone to get all muddy and damp just to say they found a little container hidden in a field.

The first time I remember getting excited about geocaching was in Germany. My parents were visiting, and we decided to go for walk. My dad had been getting into geocaching and had looked up some nearby caches, so he brought along his GPS. At some point during our walk we veered off into a little wooded area. And after searching high and low, my dad found the cache. He kindly gave me hints while I continued to search, until I finally saw it hidden at the base of a tree.

From then on, I started thinking of geocaching as an excuse to explore. To me, it isn’t necessarily about finding the cache (although I admit that’s a cool feeling). It’s also about having a reason to visit a particular place, to go somewhere new and just enjoy being out and about.

If you look at the map above, those smiley faces around Conwy are the caches I’ve found already. They were mostly caches of opportunity. I just had the idea to look more strategically, to plan out the next caches I’ll look for. As the weather gets consistently warmer around here, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble coming up with new places to explore. 🙂