Families Winter Fun
Geocaching for Beginners in Brisbane "Don’t let the ‘GPS enabled devices’ stress you out. In our case, all that meant was smartphones!"
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e decided as a family to try geocaching in February this year, after many conversations that included ‘we must get around to that/it sounds fun/we love outdoor activities’. Like lots of Brisbane families, we are busy. Like lots of Brisbane families, we love our great city and the outdoor lifestyle. Like lots of Brisbane families, there are a great number of things we mean to get involved in. So in February, I bit the bullet and learned how to geocache. So now, I can explain to you how to do it and I am truly amazed at how easy and fun it was!
What is Geocaching? Geocaching.com says ‘Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting 20
These June/July holidays why not join the growing worldwide movement called ‘Geocaching’. Not only is it an outdoor, back to nature adventure for young and old alike, but after you read this article, you will realise that it is so much easier than you imagined! game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. There are 2,381,091 active geocaches and over 6 million geocachers worldwide.’ Don’t let the ‘GPS enabled devices’ stress you out. In our case, all that meant was smartphones!
Watch the video here! How do you play? You can log on to geocaching.com and read through the details. I set up a free basic membership by registering
Your Local Families Magazine – Brisbane Issue 4 - June/July 2014
a user name and password. I then downloaded a Geocaching app onto my mobile device. I used the one that looked like this: It was free to download on my iphone. Once the app is loaded, your mobile device will use its built in GPS to locate you and to locate the nearest ‘caches’ on a map. I bet you will be surprised at how many there are near where you live – we could walk to our closest one! You can click on the caches to get more details about them to help you find them. You just drive/ride or walk in the direction of the cache you are looking for and the map updates to help you find it.