Geocaching - anyone else seeking in their ports of call?

[ChriStephanie]

DH and I are a little tired of the typical tourist traps in ports and are looking to fire up the GPS and discover what others have hidden in someplace new. For our next cruise, we'll be stopping in Key West and Cozumel - both appear to have a few fun and interested caches around the port area.

 

Anyone else destination geocache? Any good stories of your finds? Previous geocaching while on vacations (not yet on a cruise vacation) have lead us to some interesting places to find things we wouldn't have otherwise been able to see and experience.

[Jamdug73]

My wife and I are thinking about getting into geocaching. It sounds like a lot of fun from what I have read on the internet. We haven't yet gotten a gpsr but hope to soon. Your suggestion of geocaching at the ports is very interesting. We will be going on our next cruise about a year from now and we may just try this out. I probably wouldn't try this in the Jamaica port but in the others we will be going to (Grand Cayman/Cozumel) I will certainly give it a go.:D

[USNUZULOOSE]

How does this work? What type of GPS do you need and how do you look it up? I have heard of this but do not know where to begin. Any info would help. Sounds like fun. Thanks Jo

[ChriStephanie]

I started off reading about it online, bought a simple GPS and got started with some local caches in my area. It's lots of FUN for us, and also there are some really active groups around the area here too that do events to participate in. I'd start off by going to http://www.geocaching.com and checking out some of the resources they have there. Since GPSr's are so common these days, you can pick up a good one pretty cheap to get started. I have a Garmin Legend C with a color screen, no loaded maps, but it's a easy to use model that we got started with. It's more of a model suited for hiking (handhelds are the term for GPSrs used for hiking, biking and locating stuff more so oriented off the road) than anything else since it only has major highway on it. It's free to join the website, you'll also find some good discussion boards on how to get started, good GPSr models to buy, equipment for sale, stories - basically the same thing we do here on CC but for Geocaching! Geocaching has lead us to explore local areas we otherwise wouldn't have found, look deeper into some areas we THOUGHT we knew like the back of our hands (wow, when did I get that freckle!?), and just generally enjoy a new outdoor hobby. We found it to be a great family activity while on vacations in Duck, NC and Holderness, NH letting the younger cousins have a go with the GPS and working together to sniff out the well-hidden caches. There are several different types of caches to be found of varying size (as in the size of the container where the cache is contained) from a little spare key box to a big ten gallon bucket hoised up into a tree. Additionally, there are varying degrees of difficulty for the finds as well. If you go to Hide and Seek a Cache on the left menu of the front page, you can put in your zipcode or search in a variety of other ways... more later!

[CavePearl]

DH and I are a little tired of the typical tourist traps in ports and are looking to fire up the GPS and discover what others have hidden in someplace new. For our next cruise, we'll be stopping in Key West and Cozumel - both appear to have a few fun and interested caches around the port area.

 

Anyone else destination geocache? Any good stories of your finds? Previous geocaching while on vacations (not yet on a cruise vacation) have lead us to some interesting places to find things we wouldn't have otherwise been able to see and experience.

 

We love geocaching. We always do our homework before we go and load it into our laptop and take printouts of the virtual caches. One time we got run off by a restaurant owner when we were poking around in the bushes outside his store. I think he thought we were terrotourists (I just made up that word. Hey, it might catch on!) or something. :eek:

 

We found several really good caches in Key West. It's a fun area to walk in, and our favorites there were the virtual caches. We even took a travel bug with us last transatlantic and tried to place it in Spain. Our tour ended up late though, so we couldn't leave it there. Maybe this time!

[Storm Monkey]

My husband got me into geocaching several years ago. And last year while on our honeymoon we went to several of them.

We took a northbound Alaska cruise on Carnival Spirit, then stayed 5 days at a cabin in Girdwood, then spent two days in Vancouver with a drive to the Seattle area.

At a state park in the Seattle area we had a 40 minute walk through a pitch dark tunnel, we discovered the best place to get cinnamon buns in Homer, and discovered great lookouts along the Seard highway.

Geocahing definitely gets you off the beaten path :)

And we plan to make it part of our next cruise --- April 10th sailing on Oasis to the Caribbean!

[marseea90]

We are geocachers and will be in Southern Caribbean in October. Just wondering....how do you do your homework ahead of time? Or do you download the zip code for the whole island. We were thinking just trying to grab some of the caches around the port when the cruise ship is docked for the day. How do you find the "port area" to do some homework on those caches?

Thanks for your help anyone!

Marcia

[Storm Monkey]

We are geocachers and will be in Southern Caribbean in October. Just wondering....how do you do your homework ahead of time? Or do you download the zip code for the whole island. We were thinking just trying to grab some of the caches around the port when the cruise ship is docked for the day. How do you find the "port area" to do some homework on those caches?

 

Thanks for your help anyone!

Marcia

 

 

You can find the cruise dock at each port by using google maps satellite view - it's particularly easy to pick out the Carnival ships!

 

Once you find the cruise dock you can then get the GPS coordinates from the map (left click and choose 'what's here', and it puts the co-ords in the search bar). Then search geocaching.com for caches using the coordinates option.

 

Here's an example of one from Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

N 18° 19.930 W 064° 55.335

[cigars-N-rum]

now this is a good idea. i ever even thought about this;)

[rmlf1]

we do letterboxing......

[ChriStephanie]

Here's a thought... I wonder if there are any caches physically located ON BOARD the ship? I mean, why not? We find so many caches hidden under the molding on the edge of a bench or in a space under a railing - there are TONS of places like those on ships... To the internet I go to see what I can find. If I find anything good, I'll pass it along!

[LedftLizzy]

So...you DON'T need a special GPS. The one for the car will work? I know these are ignorant questions....but very interested in doing something DIFFERENT on our cruise. We leave a couple of weeks for Southern Carib. Any help would be FANTASTIC! Thanks ahead of time.

[MadMonkey572]

I just located a geocoin in a local cache... hopefully I can drop it off in Cozumel next month :D

[K&Rs Mom]

we do letterboxing......

 

Same here, but never tried it on a cruise! It's appropriate, though - more like a pirate treasure hunt.

[The4Cruisers]

We've done some geocaching in Grand Cayman, Key West, Nassau, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, etc. while we cruised on Carnival. We usually cherry pick caches that we can do easily since two of us cache and the other two (seem to) abhor the hobby. :D

[lh9789]

How does this work? What type of GPS do you need and how do you look it up? I have heard of this but do not know where to begin. Any info would help. Sounds like fun. Thanks Jo

 

Geocaching is something like a treasure hunt, except you leave the treasure behind for others to find, too. It has caught on worldwide, and there are geocaches hidden everywhere now. Some geocache containers have inexpensive items ranging from marbles to paperback books you can take as a momento, as long as you leave something of equal value behind. You *always* sign a logbook that is left inside the container. Some containers are too small for anything but a rolled-up slip of paper which serves as the logbook. The main goal of these "Traditional" types is to simply to find it (because they are well-hiddden and often painted to blend in with its surroundings, whether along a crowded city sidewalk or in the woods), sign the log, and replace it, all without being noticed. (There are other types, such as "take a picture of something at the location and report back". These are the less common "Virtual" caches.)

How do you find the location of the cache? You are given coordinates. You need a GPS unit, or a i-Phone with GPS capability, and you look for those coordinates. I use the GPS from my car. Why do it? Many reasons: Excercise, to admire the creativity of the camoflage on the cache, to be led to a sight the hider wanted you to see but that you wouldn't normally know about. A list of your finds is kept on the internet, so if you want, you can compete with yourself or others. You know those guys who do the land surveys? They started it for fun less than 10 years ago. Now kids to seniors hide and find geocaches. They even have conventions.

For more info and a list of geocaches near you, go to geocaching.com. It is free. On the left, click on "hide & seek a cache" and then just type in your zipcode and put it at 10 mile radius, then click Go. A list should come up; to pick one you just click on the underlined words.

You will see a map and get the coordinates and often a clue, and be able to read the notes of other finders. You will even see if that particular cache is wheel-chair accesible or not.

Now try it again, and this time just type "Cozumel" on the address line and click Go. Now you've got a list of caches in the Western Carribean port of Cozumel, Mexico! (And something free to do on shore!)

 

Try it! It's good clean *FREE* fun for ALL ages!

[lh9789]

So...you DON'T need a special GPS. The one for the car will work? QUOTE]

 

 

Good news- some of the portable GPs units that you put in a car WILL work for geocaching! There are about 30 models# of the Garmin Nuvi, so I can't speak for all of them, but I know the Garmin Nuvi 200 and the Garmin Nuvi 250 work (we have both). I suspect that most models of GPS units made in 2008 or later will work. (My older Garmin StreetPilot C320 that I bought in 2005 doesn't work for geocaching.)

 

The way to tell? See if your unit has an option to input coordinates. This is shown as an icon on the screen (just as Favorites, Recent Selections, Gas, Hospitals, etc, all have icons). It may be under the Extras icon, if you have that. Just poke around on your GPS unit and see if you find something that says "Coordinates". Then you can enter in the geocache's coordinates, as found on the free site geocaching.com

 

Another thing to look for on the unit is the "Where Am I Now?" feature, This may be an icon, or you may have to go to "Tools" first to get to it. (I'm speaking of Garmins, but other brands like Magellan must have something similar.) Anyway, the "where am I now?" will work most anywhere in the world and give you the coordinates for where you are at the moment. However, the "Coordinates" icon is more limited--if your unit was bought in the U.S.A. it probably has capabilities for any where in North America, but often cannot be used in Europe, for example. Depends on what maps the unit covers. Some units do have changeable maps.

 

By the way, you can also use an iPhone to geocache, but it requires the GSAK app or other similar geocaching app. "GSAK" stands for Geocaching Swiss Army Knife, because it can do most anything geocachers need. Geocaching with a smart phone like the iPhone is extra easy because you can just stand somewhere and it will tell you where the nearest geocache is and provide the details in a somewhat abbreviated form. Otherwise you have to do some homework in advance on the geocaching.com site. Using a smart phone out of your area might also result in roaming charges or other weird charges, so be mindful of that. But it's the coolest and easiest way to geocache once you know what caching is all about.

 

You can also use a cell-phone sized GPS unit (such as the Garmin Legend, which I also own)that is often used by hikers and hunters and other people who need to keep track of their location and where they parked the car. Using this type of GPS unit won't result in any roaming charges, and they will help you geocache anywhere in the world, BUT they are not user-friendly for some people and they eat up batteries (AA or AAA, usually). They can be bought at sporting goods stores or ebay or amazon. If you don't have one already, I personally would not recommend this kind. Instead, I'd suggest the kind of GPS that goes in a car. They cost a little more, but are more versatile and are easier to use, and have big well-lit screens so they are easier to read.

[lh9789]

we do letterboxing......

 

I'd like to try that, but the letterboxing website that I am aware of doesn't let you know if the letterbox is still active or whether it was stolen 10 years ago. And when I saw some letterbox-style geocaches listed on the geocache site, I bought myself a special stamp (pumpkin shaped) and carefully selected a stamp pad after researching them (use archival ink)--only to find out there was never a stamp in the cache itself! So technically it was not a letterbox at all, just a regular geocache. Did I just have bad luck? What's the best website for letterboxing, and how can you tell if they are active?

[CavePearl]

I thought I'd give an update on our recent transatlantic cruise geocaching adventures.

 

We found caches in London, Paris, Vigo, and Funchal. Most were traditional caches, and it was fun signing logs in places 5,000 miles away from home! The traditional cache in Vigo led us well off the beaten path to a lovely park just down the hill from a castle.

 

We also did several very interesting virtuals. The vitual cache in Funchal may have been my favorite of all of them. It was an absolutely delightful walkabout designed to take us to some of the interesting features of the town, and we ended up in some really great places - especially the restaurant we found along the way.

 

We used "babel fish" to give us English translations for non-English instructions, so the translations themselves provided us with plenty of entertainment as well. It added another element of fun to the mix.

 

It was also amusing to watch the faces of our dinner companions when we told them about our day's adventures. I think we left them wondering about us...:p