Geocaching in USAToday

USAToday had a brief story on geocaching yesterday. It provides a good, concise description of what this relatively new activity is and it’s benefits:

Many geocachers regard the activity as a sport that blends components of travel, exercise, nature, technology and common sense.

For the game, a geocacher uses a GPS receiver to find a cache, which is some sort of container that is hidden. A basic cache container can be an ammo box, water bottle, Tupperware container or bucket.

The coordinates for each cache are listed online, along with information about the terrain and difficulty. Sometimes clues or hints are included, too.

Inside the cache is a logbook for the geocacher to sign and various items, from key chains and toys to CDs and books. A geocacher who takes an item from the cache leaves something else behind and records the exchange in the logbook. The rule is “take something, leave something.” After locating caches, geocachers visit the website to record their finds.

Buffalo has a pretty high concentration of caches. There are over 400 caches hidden within 10 miles of Buffalo. Take a look at the geocache overlay in Google Earth:

That’s not even all of them. The overlay randomly selects 150 when there are more than that to display.

Think about this way… almost anywhere you go in Buffalo, you’re less than a mile away from a geocache. I don’t think I found any spot in the city where there aren’t any caches within two miles. That’s pretty amazing.