Geocaching is a family-friendly outdoor sport/pastime where players use Global Positioning System receivers (GPSr) or other navigation methods to search for hidden items and places called “caches”. It’s like a modern treasure hunt. You find the cache, sign the log book and log your find online. Believe us – it’s really addictive :-)

Caches themselves are hidden by other players (you can too!) and containers can be any size – some as small as your thumbnail, these are known as “Nanos”, the size of an ammunition box or perhaps as large as a dustbin ! Geostuff.com.au supplies pre-made Geocaching containers, but players often make the container themselves from plastic food-containers, mint tins, magnetic key hiders, and even plastic poo!

There are over one million Geocaches on all seven continents (yes including Antarctica!) – so it won’t be hard to find one in your neighborhood or where-ever it is you find yourself on vacation or business travel, or hunting through your city.

To find a Geocache you will need some sort of Global Positioning System receiver (GPSr)  or you can use GPS and Geocaching specific applications on your iPhone or Android device.

The simplest form of cache is a “traditional” cache. This is where a container can be found at the location pointed to on the GPSr. But there are other sorts of Geocaches too:
- multi-caches – similar to traditional caches but you have to find certain information to find the final co-ordinates of the cache
- virtual caches – these don’t actually have a container to find – but some other task to perform and can be a lot of fun
- webcam caches where you have to capture your image on a web site based camera at a particular location
- puzzle caches – these can be pretty much anything !

The main place on the internet to find geocaching information is from the global site Geocaching.com, but there is also an Australian specific geocaching site at Geocaching.com.au, which also offers additional geocache types to the ones on Geocaching.com – such as “movable” caches.

A video introduction to Geocaching by our friends at Geocaching.com: