Five Fact Friday: Geocaching

To celebrate the recent achievement of 2 million active Geogaches on Geocaching.com, here are 5 fab facts about Geocaching:

1. Coined backed in 2000, Geocaching is the term that describes those of us that hunt treasure (caches) using a GPS Device.
2. Dave Ulmer was the first person to hide a geocache. He hid it to test the accuracy of the improved GPS signal available to civilians.
3. Geocaching.com is one of the main providers of geocaching adventures. They currently have 1,999,615 active (that's available to find) geocaches in over 180 countries.
4. There are many types of cache available, and therefore adventure to be had, including traditional caches, multi-caches, and my favorite: Earth caches - for which you can be awarded.
5. You can even use travel bugs to increase the fun! Travel bugs are game pieces that travel from cache to cache with their own little mission. Sometimes that mission is to reach a certain place, sometimes it's to reach certain caches - eg. caches at motorway service stations. You can even view their progress on Google Earth and see the, sometimes, many thousands of miles they have travelled since first being placed.

If you want to give it a go just create a free account at either of the sites below. You will also need either a dedicated GPS device, or if you have a smart phone then you'll need to download an app for that!
http://www.geocaching.com/
http://www.opencaching.com/en/