What is Geocaching?

The best way to find out what geocaching is all about is to read these FAQs on geocaching.com. Another, slightly more confusing way, is to read Geezer’s explanation, stolen in large part from a piece on SFGate.
Geocaching, SFGate explains, is a cross between orienteering and a treasure hunt. It works like this: Someone places a cache, which could be anything from a worthless object to a title to a new car, at a set of GPS coordinates, preferably in the middle of nowhere. Those coordinates are given to searchers, who race to find the cache. What distinguishes this from the treasure hunts of our youth is  technological assistance from GPS units, which sell for anywhere from $100 to $1000, and whose changing coordinates lead searchers to the cache.  In the geocaching contest described in SFGate, GPS units were handed out by the Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite, which sponsored the event. The story claims that in the five years since its birth geocaching “has become wildly popular,” and cites Geocaching.com’s claim that there are currently 202,735 caches in 218
countries. To learn more about how it works and when and where you can play, visit Geocaching.com.