Geocaching
 

Has anyone done any Geocaching in Europe? I see there are many caches listed in France & Germany but not by city or area. Is there some place that showes co-ordinates for different cities so I can try to match some up?

What is geocaching?

Just curious.

I'm curious too.

wnab1q, what you need is a map. Better yet, just use a compass with your GPS receiver.

geocaching.com describes the concept

There was another GPS-related activity that was mentioned in a post a few months ago. The idea was to go to locations that are at whole degrees of latitude and whole degrees of longitude (e.g. (30N,20W) and not (30.1N, 20.2W)). Then you take pictures from the location in the direction of each compass point, etc. I forget what that sport/activity/hobby was called, but there was a website where you could post your pics and info.

There are web sites where you can look up cities by coordinate, and probably the reverse as well. I don't have any specific sites at the moment, but I was looking for them a month or so ago and had no difficulty finding them through google.

Geocaching is a sort of scavenger hunt. Someone hides a "cache" somewhere, then goes online and posts the longitude and latitude of their cache. People use GPS systems to find the caches. Often there are small gadgets or toys in the caches, and the finders take something small to leave and can then take something from the cache in return.

Sounds neat!

I have found one site that helps: brillig.com/geocaching/germany.shtml
City names are not shown so it's hunt & click & hope you are close to where you want to be!

By the way, this is a great way to get to know a city. We did this in New Orleans and found interesting places and detail that we missed on other trips.

I hope to locate a travel bug before we go and leave it somewhere in Germany.

I wonder if something like geocaching could be adapted for Fodorites, specifically? Kindof a mixture of a message in a bottle, and scavenger hunt.

One Fodorite would write a note, stick it in a bottle and hide it somewhere while they are on holiday. Say, for example, someone from the US goes to France on holiday. He/she writes a note, and hides it somewhere in Paris. Then the coordinates, or clues, are posted on Fodors for anyone who's in France. That second person, after they find the bottle, writes their own message and adds it to the first one, then when he/she goes on holiday, the bottle goes with them and is hidden wherever they are traveling. Then clues or coordinates get posted on Fodors, and whoever is in that country looks for the bottle, adds their own message to the first two, and then when that third person goes on holiday, the bottle goes with them.......see?

I know it would take a looooonnnngggg time to do this, but whaddya think? Too weird or complicated?

This is fascinating. Our oldest daughter is a geomatics engineer and our youngest a senior in a geomatics engineering program. They would love this sort of thing. (They make maps.) I'll have to tell them about it. I get e-mails like "We surveyed a mountain today." from them all the time.

Thanks so much for posting this.

Found a neat geocaching website that might be of some help. Has links to tons of other geocaching websites, including many in Europe:

http://geocaching.startkabel.nl/

Hmmmm.....well, upon further inspection, it seems that a lot of the links go back to the official geocaching website, itself. Oh well, it's still pretty neat!

Topping for Sherlock thread, also for Brimham Rocks, there is nothing to stop you combining this with whatever travels you fancy. If you are a city traveller there are tons in cities, some just 'virtual' caches which you need to locate a particular site or attraction and solve a clue to claim a find.

We do geochaching but haven't done it in Europe. "Using billion dollar satellite technology to find tupperware in the woods."

It's a great hobby.

My sister and husband occasionally do geocaching at home (Hawaii) and it has led them on some interesting hikes.

The same sister and I briefly looked into doing some in Europe last spring and went to this website that you can search by city/area for nearby caches. Can't recall the name of the website - if I remember, I'll post it.

We looked up Venice, Rome, Florence, Paris and London. There were several in Florence that looked interesting, but we ultimately discarded those, as they were a little too far out of the main city area.

The central London area had several, but some of the listings indicated that the caches were placed in areas that I would rather not be rooting around in - like the garden areas of a church.

We brought along information for some virtual caches, but ended up not having enough time to attempt any.