Hide-and-seek was never this much fun.
Geocaching, a modern-day scavenger hunt where buried treasure is located with a Global Positioning System, is attracting hordes of adventure seekers looking to mix travel and technology.
For Larry Potter, a father of two from Hagerstown, geocaching is a family affair.
“We went to New York this past weekend and found caches in the Bronx and on top of the Empire State Building,” said Potter, who also serves as public relations officer for the Maryland Geocaching Society. “Last year, we even went on a cruise and found caches in Florida, Mexico and Costa Rica.”
Initially started in May 2000 as the Great American GPS Stash Hunt, geocaching involves looking for coordinates and clues online that lead searchers to a cache container usually filled with trinkets and a log book to sign.
“Geocaching has always required a dedicated GPS unit to play,” said Jeremy Irish, founder and chief executive officer of Groundspeak, the company that manages Geocaching.com. “Over the last seven years, geocaching has grown from 75 geocaches to over 500,000 geocaches worldwide.”
Some caches can be more difficult to find than others.
“The first cache I went after in Hilton Head [S.C.] was called the Gator Hole, which should have been my first clue,” Elizabeth Ives, a consultant from Atlanta, said while a smile. “I trudged thigh-deep through a swampy marsh to find that treasure and left covered with ticks. Thankfully, I didn’t see a single gator.”
Locally, challenging caches are buried or hidden all over Maryland. “In Potomac, there is a cache that was placed on a piling of an abandoned bridge by a helicopter,” said Potts.
Other caches include a travel bug or hitchhiker, which is designed specifically for travel. If a geocacher finds a travel bug inside a cache, he or she can take the object and put it in another cache. “I brought the bug I found home and replanted it locally and have been watching its travels online every since,” Ives said. “At last report, it was in Kansas.
On the Net
