Does anyone geocache anymore?
More than a decade ago I bought myself a little handheld GPS unit. The Garmin took a pair of AA batteries, warmed up for at least five minutes, and hung on a little lanyard. I would connect it to the computer after downloading a small selection of local cache coordinates, send them into the little device, and then trek out into the local river valley to hunt down the hidden containers.
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The game required that I bring along some trinkets to trade, and a pencil to record my username. If after pinning down the location tracked to by my GPS I was able to find the box or capsule or plastic container hidden under a rock or between some cleverly placed natural camouflage, it was important to record that I had found it.
Eventually I ditched the GPS for a geocaching app on my phone. Convenient, yes, though it took some of the fun out of preparing to go out on a treasure-hunting adventure when I could just spontaneously load up the app and see if something happened to be nearby.
Then ultimately I got serious about distance running, traded my lanyard GPS for a wrist-watch version and couldn’t be bothered slow down to hunt for caches anymore.
Yet today I found myself thinking about this global hide-and-seek game.
Are people still fascinated by hiding mysterious containers in their local wilderness for others to find?
Do people feel safe during a pandemic opening boxes and canisters left in the woods by strangers?
Is there still a place for simple treasure hunting in an era of Pokémon-type GPS games that reward you a hundred times a day, rather than just once or twice?
I’m sure I’ve got my old Garmin in a drawer somewhere. And probably even some AA batteries. Maybe I should play again.