Free Fun: Geocaching

So there we are, my boyfriend and I, attempting to be inconspicuous on the Boston side of the Charles river, but we are floundering. I'm laughing and failing as look-out, and Patrick is trying figure out where it’s hidden. Of course, everyone and their mother is out for a walk and they are watching us inspect this tree like a work of art. But finally, a gap opens in the traffic of people, and Patrick moves some debris around, shoves his hand in the tree, and pulls out a Nalgene bottle filled with stuff. We found our first geocache.

Geocaching is a global treasure hunting game played using GPS navigation. The idea is that a container, like a bottle or Tupperware, is hidden and filled with small trinkets and a little pad of paper. Your job is to use the GPS coordinates to find the container without being spotted. There are caches  hidden in over 200 countries and more then 1.7 million hidden caches, which means you’ve probably walked by a few. Once you find a cache, you sign the log inside it, and take a trinket from the box, and leave one of your own.

The awesome part, it’s FREE to play. You need s a device that will display GPS coordinates (I use my iPhone most of the time) and a website that lists caches. Geocaching is a great way to pass time, or a new way to discover a city. I’ve found geocaches while running errands, in between work and class, or when I’ve hiked in New Hampshire.

Go discover a secret part of your city, embrace your inner adventurer and go find some treasure.

What you need

• A free membership at Geocaching.com (It's worth signing up. You can opt out of emails, but you can save your finds, and keep a list of caches you want to find.)

• A GPS device or app. There are free GPS apps. I use the official geocaching app for my iPhone. It’s easy to search and navigate to caches without looking them up on the website. It costs $9.99, but I use it frequently, it’s accurate, and it has a detailed map of hiking paths when I go into small wooded areas.

• A pen to sign the log in the cache.

• A bag of goodies to put into the cache.