Anyone here go Geocaching?

I discovered http://www.geocaching.com last week.

It's a sport/hobby where people hide things and other people find them. I'm going to GeoCache with the Alis Tiki_Guy until I figure out a better name. I made a card that says "Tiki_Guy was here" and some Tiki art.

I want to hide one near the beach with a TIKI theme. I was working on the backstory last night. I want something about either breaking a curse or Someone being lost and making almost all the way home from the south pacific.

I want to find some cheep TIKI pendants, or make them out of Polimer Clay. Not sure how to do it.

Any Sugestions?

_ Jay

Mig turned me onto Geocaching at this year's Tiki Oasis. I haven't done enough of it yet, it's surprisingly fun (or frustrating, depending on the kind of day you're having). I've also found my GPS to be my best friend when I'm travelling in a new city--I no longer bother with page after page of printed maps, I just code it all in my GPS and figure it out from there. Works like a charm. I didn't take a single map with me on my recent Highway 99 road trip, or on my trip to Georgia, and it felt good.

If anyone here in SoCal is into Geocaching, I'd love a Geocaching buddy! I'm thinking of adding a feature in Critiki to identify caches near a tiki location (it would be trivial to do). Since it would be a weird, non-tiki feature, I may hide the link somehow, make it an easter egg of sorts.

Okay, I've done it! I've added a hidden link to nearby Geocaches for locations in Critiki. Once you have Critiki unlocked by proving you own Tiki Road Trip (and really, who doesn't???), the latitude & longitude show up for any location I have that info for (which is most of them). The "space" between the latitude & longitude is now a hidden link (when you float over it, your pointer will become a link pointer, and the alternate text will say "Nearby Geocaches"). That link opens Geocaching.com in a new window, with the closest Geocaches to that location listed. Whee!

Jay_G, I suspect this is a feature that only you & I will enjoy, but what the heck?

I had it all backwards -- the best bed is the one that's stumbling distance from Tiki-Ti, or the Mai Kai, or the Lagoon Room, or the Alibi, or the Kon Tiki, or...
Critiki

[ Edited by: Humuhumu on 2004-07-22 12:45 ]

Interesting!
It reminds me of Book Crossing!
http://www.bookcrossing.com

[ Edited by: Tikiwahine on 2004-07-22 12:47 ]

Wow, thanks for that link, Tikiwahine! That looks quite cool, I'll have to explore it further.

eeek! cool activity overload!!! I can't keep up!!!

:)

I have a friend who has been doing this for the last couple of years. He loves it.

He said that on the last one he ended up lost in the middle of a swamp at sundown and barely made it out.

I need to try this!

On 2004-07-22 12:47, Tikiwahine wrote:
Interesting!
It reminds me of Book Crossing!
http://www.bookcrossing.com

Thanks for posting that! Someone told me all about it a couple of years ago and I promptly forgot the name of the website.

Trader Woody

Humuhumu - whenever you need a Geocaching buddy - give me a ring! It sounds like a lot of fun!! :)

Went geocaching yesterday with Doctor Z & DolphinTiki/Z-girl. Had a banner day! Found 12 caches, couldn't find a 13th, and forgot to hit a 14th (we were walking right past it, too!). I've really got to get a handheld with web browsing capability so I can decide to do these more spur-of-the-moment.

Sounds like SO much fun!

I'll have to see if they have it in Canada...

They have it in Afghanistan. I'm positive they have it in Canada. :)

There's lots to discover here
Travellers love geocaching craze
Ontario one of the top sites in world

ROBERTA AVERY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
MEAFORD, ONT.—Welcome to the world of geocaching.

It's a kind of scavenger hunt with a technology twist, and it's taking people where they have never travelled before.

Armed with a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS), Ralph Schuessele and his 6-year-old son Tylor came to this pretty Georgian Bay town to find treasure troves, but they also found hidden riches more precious than any trinket.

``What an awesome view there is here. It truly is a wonderful place,'' said Schuessele standing on a cliff with stunning views of Meaford harbour with a backdrop of the Blue Mountains and the shimmering blue waters of Georgian Bay.

Meanwhile, Tylor had taken a satellite reading on his father's GPS and was setting off into the nearby woods with his friend Tyler Meier, 7, to search a flowerpot rock formation for the treasure they knew to be hidden there.

Within minutes, squeals of delight filled the air. The children had located the cache hidden — we won't say where — and were pulling back the lid to peer inside.

``Wow!'' said Tyler spying a pink action figure toy.

Tylor, a veteran of 900 caches, who will be going into Grade 2 at St. Brigid School in Georgetown in September, was equally thrilled with his ``prize."

``Look at this dad,'' said Tylor holding a metal key ring aloft.

Since May 3, 2000 when someone hid a cache of goodies outside of Portland, Oregon the ``sport'' — some call it "an activity" others "a passion" — has grown in leaps and bounds and there are now more than 125,000 caches in 208 countries worldwide.

But you don't have to travel far to enjoy geocaching. Canada, with some 7,000 caches, has the second largest number of caches in the world, second only to the United States and there are 2,000 in Ontario alone, many of them hidden in city parks, along hiking trails and at scenic locations all over the province.

Geocaching can also be educational as many caches are located at local historic sites, memorials, plaques and numerous places of interest.

"It's not what you find in the container, it's what you discover while looking for it,'' said Schuessele.

He should know — he's believed to be the first Canadian to have found more than 1,000 caches.

Schuessele, 36, a software engineer from Georgetown, had never been to Meaford which is about 35 km west of Collingwood before, but armed with a GPS, longitude and latitude coordinates and encrypted clues downloaded from geocaching.com, he was able to find all the town's hidden gems in one afternoon.

It was as if the satellites were acting as an invisible tour guide from above.

After finding the first cache of the day at the town lookout and signing the logbook, sealing up the cache — a margarine container — and placing it back in its hiding place, they set off for Meaford harbour wall to look for the next treasure trove. Using the GPS readout, which will tell you where you are on the planet within a metre or so, Schuessele was able to count down the steps to where, if it was a traditional treasure hunt, "X" would mark the spot.

This time the cache was a plastic box painted in camouflage colours. Inside was another treasure trove of dollar store trinkets. The two boys made their choices and Schuessele replaced them with hockey cards.

That's one of the rules of geocaching, you take one prize and leave another behind.

Next it was off to the town's sandy beach at Meaford's Memorial Park, where the hunt led them along a trail in a wooded area where the cache was hidden inside the a hole that a woodpecker had made in a tree trunk. Next they set off to Meaford's Beautiful Joe Park. Following clues, father and son walked along the Big Head River past fishermen trying their luck for the salmon and trout, until they spotted some driftwood on the riverbank, that was a clue that led them to yet another cache.

Meaford alone has nine caches and there are dozens more in the neighbouring communities. Most people who get involved in geocaching start to set up their own caches in their favourite places and then post the coordinates on Internet, so the number of caches is growing fast, said Schuessele.

At $300 to $1,000 for a new handheld GPS and $100 and up for a used one, starting out in geocaching involves an initial capital outlay.

``But once you've bought a GPS there's little or no cost involved and it's cheap entertainment for the whole family,'' said Schuessele.

Geocaches in your area can be found by clicking geocaching.com and typing in your postal code. Another source of information can be found at the Ontario Geocaching Association site at http://66.207.113.44/oga/about.asp For more information on Meaford click on meaford.com

Well, Humuhumu got DolphinTiki & I totally hooked on this (of course, finding 12 caches our first day out helped a lot, too!) But knowing that with her ultra-super-mega filled schedule that we wouldn't always be able to go out caching with Humuhumu (and her GPS), we decided to get our own GPS unit. They're not cheap, but I do have to pass along a bit of helpful info: If you're thinking of getting into Geocaching and buying a GPS unit, OfficeMax.com currently has the Garmin eTrex Vista ($290 - $350 retail, about $200+ used on eBay) mis-priced at only $169!! I'd been researching GPS pricing for this model for a few days and couldn't believe this price when I saw it! I figured that they'd made a mis-print and would send me the lower priced eTrex Legend instead, but I ordered it anyhow and, sure enough, the Vista arrived today! Now I've just gotta figure out how to use it...

So, if you're thinking of getting a GPS (and I know that so many of you are), jump on this before they wise up and price it correctly!

Utopiandreem took your advise and also got the Garmin eTrex Vista. Hope they dont fix the price!

i just got a Garmin iQue 3600 ~ its a gps and palm unit in one!

not sure i'll get into geocaching (yet)~ but i do have all the tiki places i want to see in VT, NH, MA and Quebec marked as waypoints!

Doctor Z, youve created a Geocaching monster, Utop is now Geocaching during her lunches at work.

Here is an extra 20 dollars off coupon, I went to Best Buy and they'll pricematch this deal, total 149.99

http://clickserve.cc-dt.com/link/click?lid=41000000005795939

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2004-09-12 16:51 ]

Count me in as another Geocaching Tikiphile. I got myself a Garmin Forerunner 201 last year, for use while running.

I had heard of Geocaching from somewhere, and soon figured out that I could use this little gadget for it. I'm "eff-J" on the Geocaching.com website. 47 found so far!

• Jeff

Heading to Hawaii this week, & are planing to take a travel bug. Utopiandreem looked last night for caches & said there were lots of them on the islands.

I'm planning on doing some geocaching around Ft. Lauderdale during Hukilau, either Friday or Saturday. I've already printed up sheets and downloaded waypoints for about half a dozen caches that are relatively close to the Bahia's Mar & Cabana. Anybody wanna join me, 'cause I'll need a ride...

Oh, and I, too, have a TravelBug to drop off!

Has anyone talked of doing this at events in the future? I was wondering if you could do teams and make a fun contest out of it and the winner gets something. Just an idea.

It looks like Office Max figured out their flub and pulled the Vista off their webpage. Bummer...but the 20 dollar coupon seems still valid though.

The devious entrepreneur in me was going to take advantage of the Office Max price error and buy up a bunch of those Garmin eTrex Vistas to sell on Ebay. However, in the last 2 weeks, the new eTrex Vista-"C" (Color screen), GPS units have knocked the sails out of the older version on Ebay. Where two weeks ago, I could have made $100 in profit a unit, now I could only make $40 at most. I should have struck when the iron was hot.

Anyone know of a price error on the eTrex Vista-C? They're the hot ones now.

Sabu

Someone at OfficeMax Corp. must be bummed about the incorrect pricing on the GPS. Hope he/she still has a job.

Tiki Bird wrote:

Someone at OfficeMax Corp. must be bummed about the incorrect pricing on the GPS. Hope he/she still has a job.

If it was a mistake...maybe they just had alot of overstock they didn't want to make any money on? Maybe?!? :( It could happen :(

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2004-09-17 13:30 ]

Speaking of GPS deals, Amazon.com's advertising The Big Garmin Sale. Seems to be some decent prices on the basic eTrex models...

Subaru's Drive magazine (Winter 2006) has an article on geocaching.
http://www.drivesubaru.com/Win06_Feature.htm

An interesting problem for geocachers: Homeland "security"...

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_national/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19860_4396817,00.html