Malamute: I have been geocaching the last few years. I got into geocaching for the same reasons you have stated. It is a great learning tool for those interested in learning how to use their gps. It gets me outdoors, and I get to check out sites that I would not have otherwise.
Another benefit of it is the pleasure of sharing it with children/grandchildren. It is a low cost team building activity. The kids get out in the outdoors and you get to teach them skills they might not have learned otherwise. The computer age children catch on to the gps real fast. At times the kids even let me look at the gps screen. A down side is that some of the caches are not established based on the rules laid out by the geocaching site. When I recognize or feel that a site is not within the rules I back off from it.
Sites are given a degree of difficulty. When it comes to terran you need to pay attention. Many sites are a easy walk or drive, others might have you hanging on a rope. There are caches in over 200 countries. One little trick that I used is that I use my mapping software to generate a map before I start most of my searchs. Some sites are very tricky and you might hike a mile, when a quarter mile walk would have done the job. Part of the games is to provide true or false clues to the established coordinates. I live in an area where steep is normal. Coordinates on steep ground can create a very interesting search.
I had had a number of success looking for caches when I ran into a stone wall with a cache. I also noted the steep hill side where the caches coordinates put it was getting badly chewed up from people search for the cache. Part of the caching rules are not to damage a site, and to pickup and haul our litter. In this case I e-mailed the cache owner regarding the issues. He replied that he had returned to the site and he could not find his own cached. His coordinates placed the cache
Two of the grandkids and I took a short walk into a cache without breaking a sweat. After signing the log book we went down the trail a short distance and had lunch and enjoyed the view. A group of cachers came struggling up the hill, pushing aside the poison oak. They were fighting a 70 percent + slope. A little planning as in hunting pays off. We had not broke a sweat, or come in contact with the poison oak.
For those who are interested in geocaching there are a number of weekend events for those of like interest. I have not been to any events. I can see the value in them. Also if you are the social type FRS channel 2 is the calling channel for geocaching.
When the grandkids and I established a "cache" we did it by the book. Meaning we had permission to establish the cache at that location.
If you get interested in it, I maybe able to give you a couple of hints that will help you. In turn you may learn something that will help me.
I believe the website is at
http://www.geocaching.com
