When I was young, I was always fond of the books like Famous Five , Secret Seven , Magic Tree House and many more which had these adventures stored in them, which made the kids in the books go places , find treasures, solve mysteries and believe in all the magic of this world. It was so fascinating to read them. As a kid, I always wanted to do such stuff but as I grew up I understood that they are only stories and such stuff do not happen in reality.
May be I was wrong to think that and this realization came when I was introduced to an amazing website & app called THE GEOCACHING. Cache means a collection of items of the same type stored in a hidden place and Geocaching is an activity in which an item, or a container holding a number of items, is hidden at a particular location for GPS users to find by means of coordinates posted on the Internet.
People like us who travel to different parts in the country and the world hide them at some spectacular places with amazing views, special places of the city, historical places & many more and other travelers try finding these caches, lot of times ending up to places which are not on the maps but yet very beautiful & special. And that is why I say it's the NEW WAY OF TRAVEL.
Some important points to be noted about geocaching :
1) It's like a live treasure hunt, where in you find the cache, log in your entry in the app as well as the physical log book which is put up inside the cache and leave the cache at the same place where it was found. This will help the next person to find it.
2) There are different types of caches, where in you use GPS, sometimes there is a mystery to be solved to reach the cache, there could be calculations, may be some GK required. It really makes you use your brain.
3) The places you reach while searching for Geocache is a jewel in the adventurers crown.As a traveler/ tourist, we normally go the straight path and a city/place has lot more to offer than you can imagine and this activity just serves the purpose of taking you to some worth visiting places because a traveler ( the person who is hiding it ) thought so.
4) You can also hide the geocache. So it's not only about finding but if you got to visit a great place and you want someone else to reach there some day, you can hide your geocache too. There is a video on the website of geocaching, see that thoroughly and you are good to hide.
5) What's inside the cache ? So there is a log book, lot of people drop some souvenirs inside them, if you like something you can take it from that box but you have to keep back something in exchange of the item you are taking. There are also Track able Bugs called as TB which you can buy on their website or may be some designated shops mentioned on their website. These bugs travel from one geocache to another, you cannot keep them with yourself.
6) There is free membership & the premium. The premium one opens the doors to many more geocaches which is not visible in free category.
7) India has more than 200 geocaches waiting to be explored. Are you ready for this adventure ?
8) These geocaches are around the world, you can go any part of the world and try searching for these geocaches.
I have found 4 geocaches till date and it has been wonderful experience. Out of 4, one took us to a beautiful mountain temple from where we could see the whole city, the second geocache was very interesting as it was hidden inside a coconut & was difficult to identify. The third one had so many calculations to get the coordinates but it was fun to work that out and the last one was inside some trees and it made us work little harder to find it. But all of them had their charm & made us go different places.
So guys, don't wait and check out their website- https://www.geocaching.com/play/search
Wish you guys good luck in the finding the caches and beautiful places.
Happy Geocaching !!!!
