I’m a big fan of anything to do with GPS and mapping, and have been doing a lot of reading about Geocaching lately, only to find that its something that is pretty interesting to me. If you read my about page you’d see that in my past blogging life I created a mobile blog that would upload pictures from my phone, along with GPS coordinates to see where the picture was taken. That was a lot of fun, but I don’t think its something that I’m going to explore again.
Anyway, with all the reading I did about Geocaching I decided to go out and get myself a basic GPS unit. I thought I may be able to get away with the Garmin Nuvi that I have in my car, but that thing doesn’t show me gps coordinates so its useless for Geocaching. I instead did my research and selected the Garmin eTrex H. This thing is pretty basic in that it doesn’t have any actual maps built in, but thats not something that I don’t need anyway. All I wanted and found in this one is a high sensitivity GPS receiver, and for the unit to be able to show me the GPS coordinates right on the screen.
I tested this thing out yesterday on the way home from the store, and when I got home and checked the locations on google maps I was very impressed. From what I could tell, It was able to nail it down to exactly where I was when I saved the coordinates. This thing is slick, and I look forward to playing with it as I hunt out some of the current Geocaches and then get into my own little project!
Since I’m brand new to this, let me know if you have any tips or secrets you’d like to share! So far I’ve found this site which has a beginners guide to geocaching adventures. Let me know if you have more!
May 1st, 2008 at 10:30 am
Thanks for your comments.
I’ve recently been introduced to Geocaching and have quickly racked up a handful of caches. Two things: 1. know before you go. Decide where you’re going before you set out because it could delay you for a couple hours to get ready — do it the night before. And 2. Recognize that Geocaching can be, er, is addicting! My buddy and I went out the other night and were gone for 5 hours.
Happy, safe Geocaching.
-beldog
May 1st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Kris,
Thanks for the tips. There appear to be a few less than 1km from my house so I think I’ll start there. Once I get the hang of things I think that I will venture farther out and see what I can dig up.
Do you know if I have to take anything to trade?
May 5th, 2008 at 9:49 am
I went out on Saturday night and found my first Cache. Kind of a cool feeling to find that first one.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
My wife and I found our first GeoCache in the Blue Hills in northwestern Wisconsin. We met some people in the woods while hiking and they informed us about the GeoCache. None of us had a GPS with us. I own a GPS and have heard about GeoCaching before. After this experience, we will definitely be going again. I took lots of great photos. Will be putting them into my website soon.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
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