Modern treasure hunters!

Mother, wife, blogger, geocatcher, distinguished honorary blood donor, potential bone marrow donor. I write because I like it. I live in Lower Silesia. Since 2014 I have been running the blog https://verenne.pl, whose main theme is family fun in geocaching. Don't you know what that is? I will tell you :)

Geocaching is an international field game that originates from the USA. Its beginnings are related to the exclusion of GPS signal interference for civilian consumers, which allowed the determination of coordinates with an accuracy of several meters (previously it was about 100 m). This took place on May 3, 2000. The next day American Dave Ulmer hid a bucket filled with useless things in the forest and informed the group of GPS receivers about the coordinates. The game was fun, subsequent finders reported the discovery and ... it began! Further containers were hidden and their coordinates published in the group.

Geocaching.com - currently the largest website, gathering seekers of "treasures" from around the world was established in September 2000. In Poland, the first cache was founded on November 1, 2001.

Caches are usually established (or at least they should be, in practice it is different) in places attractive for tourists, they show unknown corners of a given region, town or area. Sometimes, following the cache trail is more interesting than using the best guide. Cache owners can surprise by searching for local unusualities and often the trip begins and ends with a comment: "If it wasn't for geocaching, we would never have come here!"

To start playing in geocaching, we must register on one of the most popular websites in Poland: geocaching.com (here we play internationally) and / or opencaching.pl (here we play locally - nationally). I am registered with both - there are always more caches to find.

You also need a device with a GPS receiver. Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone with GPS, so this is the simplest solution. For this we install the appropriate application and ... you can move into the field. On Android, the c: geo app works best for me, many people also recommend Locus.

What are we really looking for? Caches are airtight containers of various sizes hidden in the field. The obligatory equipment of the locker is a logbook, i.e. a paper diary, in which we make an entry documenting the fact of finding the "treasure". We also usually register finding on the website of the relevant site.

In larger caches, there are usually small fanciers for finders. But beware - we take the fancies, yes, but for exchange, i.e. if we take something, we add something of similar value.

AND! A certain conspiracy is also important. What would not burn the place and attract the attention of "non-members", called Muggles;)

Caches have different levels of difficulty. They are easy, which you can easily approach "on the march," even with a child in a wheelchair. There are also those that require considerable physical fitness, and even specialized climbing or diving equipment. Sometimes, to find a container, you need to solve the puzzle or find several intermediate stages with clues. Some caches are hidden in cities, others in the nature. The container can have interesting or surprising masking, which further increases the "fun".

My family and I have been playing geocaching since 2014 - we started when our daughter was 5 years old. It can be hard, because the child quickly gets bored and discouraged, but we give advice, especially since we are not competitive, and we treat geocaching as a nice diversification of the trip. On my blog I also want to show that to see something interesting, you don't necessarily have to go far, sometimes the nearest neighborhood may surprise you. And we often discover such "flavors" thanks to geocaching. Actually, thanks to this game I got to know and like my region, which always seemed boring and uninteresting to me.

Our routes are always to go with a child, and in addition, on our own example, we present that it is better to take a child to a forest or museum than spend a Sunday in a shopping gallery.

She shared her passion:
Anna Chmura, online nickname: Verenne
Verenne Blog - family geocaching

Share your passion and inspire others!
Write to us at pasja@milworld.pl