Thats something I'm going to try down the road when my kids get old enough, right now my 21 month old is just happy to get outside and run and fall.
Gives me an excuse to get a GPS too

I haven't personally haven't done any geocaching myself but it sounds like a great way to encourage children to get out into the great outdoors.

I not sure if geocaching is as popular as Orienteering in the UK at the moment, which itself is a great competative sport.

A great way to introduce navigational skills via a GPS in the same way using a map and compass is used in orienteering.

Looks like there are currently 22,435 geocaches located in the UK alone!

THIS ONE looks like it would be fun to give a go.

I don't have a GPS, but one day about two years ago, I stumbled onto a geocache. It was a decorated, identified geocache made up of an old ammo box. On several different hikes, I went back to the general area where I had found it and re-found it several times.. I dropped odd items into it and logged in on the notebook. This winter the brush will likely be reduced and I may find it again. I'm surprised someone hasn't stolen the box by now, but it seems to hold some respect for those who have found it so far. I think it's pretty cool.

Hiker1, Have you ever thought of getting a GPS unit?

Tried out geocaching earlier this year and discovered it's a lot of fun. You can sign up for an account for free, and if you really like it they have a "premium membership" for $30/year. The advantage to paying is you can download files with the locations and put them on your GPS instead of programming in coordinates by hand. I was surprised to put in my local zip code and see all of the caches in the area. Apparently this is a popular hobby!

When my wife and I started caching 5 years ago or so, it was still pretty new, and caches were fairly few, even back in MD. After taking a few years (and 2 kids) off, we are back at it again. It is hard to believe how many caches there are all over the place now. You don't even have to go out in the woods if you don't want to.

My 4 year old loves to go "treasure hunting". She gets a big kick out of finding treasure and swapping items. We always have to tell her to keep her voice down so the pirates don't come and steal the treasure. Our 6 week old comes along too, but doesn't seem as excited about it yet... Hmmm.

Greg

There are a lot of people out there geocaching... and a lot who haven't a clue about it. The part that gets me is wondering how many other geocacher's I pass daily without knowing it... sort of a secret society if you will.

I've been into caching for a few months now and started to place a few caches myself. I initially bought the gps for my hiking/backpacking but got turned on to this extra activity. It keeps me active, I've travelled up and down valleys and have checked out viewpoints I never would have before. It's also a semi-social activity as you interact with your buddies on a delayed basis or via a website but once in a while you can attend a social event where you finally get to meet fellow cachers and swap stories.

This is one of the few out-of-doors family activities out there so I think it's great on that basis alone. The fact that you have to use your imagination and intuition to find the actual cache is bonus - it keeps the "grey matter" upstairs working! Caching is rarely boring - we have a number of active local cachers that combine games, puzzles, multi-caches, virtual caches, the various features of your gps, and complex slight-of-hand to hide their locations.