Last weekend, we were invited by Georgia State Park to attend their kick off event of Geo-Challenge.
Geo-Challenge is a new program by Georgia State Park incorporating Geocaching to 42 Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites.
You can pick up Georgia State Park Geo-Challenge passport or download it online. Then go to geocaching.com to get GPS coordinates for the caches location in the parks. Head out to the parks and start the hunt.
Once you find the cache hidden in the park, there will be a stamp (unique to each location) for your passport. Complete specific numbers of caches to get a custom geo-coin. Bring your stamped Passport into the park’s Visitor Center and receive a voucher for your coin.
If you are new to Geocaching like myself, there are many sites you can find out more information about. One of my travel blogger buddy, Tripping With Kids, has many posts with great information about geocaching.
Now, on to our first experience with geocaching with kids…
I’m glad that our first geocache attempt was with the Geo-Challenge. We went to the Fort Yargo State Park in Winder and checked in. Typically, geocacher will need a few equipments to start with namely GPS handheld unit (very important) and a few other hiking items.
We were able to borrow the GPS unit from the GA State Park along with a helpful experience geocacher – Ms. Linda. She taught us what caches might look like, how to read the GPS and when to follow the compass or not to follow the compass since sometimes the compass tends to take you on the most direct route. We have to use some common sense as well to not get ourselves in trouble.
Since this is the kick off event, there were 5 additional caches hidden in the park specifically for this event. We arrived a bit later than the starting time so we planned to just attempt to find one event-specific cache.
Our first cache took us on a walk along the nature trail to the wood. It was a beautiful day and a perfect weather for geocaching. We were lucky as we arrived at the location to find another family was there looking for the cache as well. The kids couldn’t be more excited to find their first cache.
As we walked back, we ran into another group putting another cache away. Well, it could be considered as cheating since we didn’t even have the coordinate of this cache. But I considered it as an incentive for a first timer.
With 2 successfully caches, we were ready for the real cache in the park. We loaded our GPS with the coordinate and headed back out on our own for the hunt of Geo Challenge cache. I’m happy to report that it was a success. We found our cache and stamped our passport. One down, 41 more to go!
This is definitely a great way to get kids engage and involve in a destination. Thank you for introducing geocaching to our family. We are hooked!
Do you have an experience with geocaching? Would you like to share with us?
Check out other traveler Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
We are big letterboxers, but haven’t tried geocaching yet (we have accidently found some geocache boxes while letterboxing…those were fun discoveries). Keep meaning to give geocaching a try. It is cool that State park allows it (some parks aren’t crazy about hidden boxes on their property!) and even cooler that they loan out GPS units.
My husband and I went went geocaching five or six years ago when he got his first GPS. We had fun doing it and I am not sure why I haven’t thought about trying it out with the kids. Maybe that is what we will do this weekend!
Cool. My wife and I tried orienteering once, this sounds a little similar.
Lucky you! I’ve really wanted to try this with the family, but we don’t have a portable GPS unit. Hope to try it in the future.
Glad your geocaching event was such as success. Sounds like a beautiful spot. Thank you also for posting to the May Geocaching Blogger Event. Looks like you got many folks excited to do it. Handheld GPS systems are not that expensive, and you can even get an app for most phones. Have fun filling up your card!
We really enjoyed geocaching and hope to get back to it sometime soon. We always liked hunting for at least a few caches when we traveled…it’s a great way to find some of those little out-of-the-way parks and cool sites only the locals know about :)
Was just discussing this with a friend of mine, definitely time to get our kids involved in this totally cool, interactive ‘sport’. :) Thanks for the information.
I really want to try this, thanks for sharing your experience. I like the idea of state and national parks organizing events like this, it gets families out exploring. Awesome!
I used to really enjoy geocaching, but for some reason just stopped…no real reason. Then last Spring I took some of my daughter’s classmates geocaching on a mountain near our neighborhood, and they had such a great time with the discovery of it all! Your post brought back memories of that fun feeling — thanks, Amy!
I think Geo Coaching is a great thing for everyone. Technology has advanced a little since my days of orienteering with a compass and a map. Though I still think this is an invaluable skill. GPS’s have made things easier and being able to use them in different situations is a great skill for people of all ages.