Geocaching - Hide & Seek with your GPS

There's an adventure game called Geocaching that's a great way to have fun and get some exercise while you're at it. It's like the modern day version of "Hide and Seek". The only requirement is that you have a handheld GPS device (there's a great deal on a nice color one that also holds streetmaps at Amazon.com (Garmin eTrex Legend Color) for $240 after rebate).

It works like this: Someone hides a little trinket somewhere and then records the co-ordinates (latitude and longitude) on a website like GeoCaching. Your job is to use those co-ordinates and track down that trinket.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? But it's harder than it sounds. It's one thing to know where it is, but it's a whole 'nother ballgame to get there. And that's where the fun comes in. Since the accuracy of the GPS units vary by several feet, you won't have an exact match to the location of the 'cache' or hiding place. So you may spend some time finding the exact hiding place. But of course you'll have fun while you're at it.

One other cool tool that you can add to your arsenal is a GPS computer program called ExpertGPS that allows you to see the routes that you took on a map. It pulls satellite aerial images from the internet and allows you to see where you've been or where you can go.

Using the mapping tools in ExpertGPS, you can draw your route directly on a map, search for nearby features from the millions of waypoints in it's database, and transfer your trip directly to your GPS.

ExpertGPS uses your internet connection to retrieve maps as you navigate, and saves the maps to your hard drive. Disconnect your laptop and head out on a trip, and all of your data is available. ExpertGPS keeps track of which maps need to be retrieved from the Internet, so you can quickly define an area to map and let ExpertGPS gather the data later.

So that's it. Happy GeoCaching!