Part hike, part above-ground treasure hunt, geocaching is a worldwide outdoor craze going on for over twenty years now. This fun and addictive hobby allows just about anyone anywhere to get out exploring in the great outdoors both in and out of the city, woods, or wherever you may roam. 

While the treasures you may find in a geocache aren’t of any monetary value, the satisfaction you get from hunting down hidden and camouflaged containers outside is worth more and is a great way to exercise your body and mind. 

So how do you get started? Keep reading because we promise this easy-to-pick-up activity will be something you can do alone, with friends or family on the fly, no matter how much time you have to sneak adventure into your day. 

There are a few basics you need to know before you get started. But fear not, we’re going to walk you through them and have you out geocaching today. So grab your phone, and get ready to get hunting! 

The first thing is to go here and download the app on your phone. The app will instruct you to create an account, sign in, and pick a geocache near you. It’s fun to see how many options you have nearby. You can even choose how hard you want the hunt to be. 

Next, you’ll want to gather anything you think you’ll need for your hunt. If you’re doing it over your lunch hour in the city, throw your wallet, water bottle, and anything else you may need in one of our new packs. (Some people like to carry trinkets to leave behind in the geocache once they find it, so you may want to consider bringing some of your own.) 

Finally, you can sling your new Jay Cooke Sling Bag or Tettegouche Messenger Bag over your shoulder and begin navigating towards your chosen cache. Once you get about 20 feet away from your cache, you’ll want to put the phone down and start using your hands and line of sight to suss out the cache. Caches can be anything from as big as a breadbox covered in camo tape or as tiny as a fake screw head hidden in urban environments.

When you first discover your geocache, we recommend celebrating—some caches can be really hard to find and you earned it! However, what may be even more exciting is opening up the cache and rifling through its contents. This is the time to sign the logbook if there is one. 

Some people like to take something out of the cache and leave behind something of their own of equal or greater value to add to the unburied treasure for the next lucky geocacher to find. If the item you find is trackable, you are then obligated to take it and put it in another specified geocache. 

Trackables are special geocache items that are meant to move from cache to cache. When you find one, look up the number etched into it at geocaching.com to find where its next destination is—it’ll be up to you to follow its mission path and get it to the next cache. However, make sure to take a look at where this trackable has been too. It’s fun to see how far some of these pieces have traveled.