Tips to Make Geocaching with Kids a Success

Angela Ballou has a great article about the hobby of Geocaching that gives her personal experiences as well as a lot of great tips and ideas. However, I feel her article is geared more towards an adult audience and want to share with you some of the tips I've discovered over the past three years for family fun, kid friendly geocaching. Geocaching is a fun sport that has really grown in numbers and popularity the past five years. It can be a wonderful family adventure if you plan for it correctly. Here are some tips to keep in mind when searching for a cache with younger children.

1- Select the cache carefully. Not all caches are created equal when you are searching for your geocache with kids. Try to find an easier level geocache, preferably one that is hidden in a larger container, easy for children to find. This means you should avoid most micro caches if possible. With so many cachers involved in geocaching now it is even possible to find caches that were hidden with children in mind, sometimes hidden BY children FOR children. This means they are likely to be at your kids eye-level and will include some goody items that the family would enjoy more than an adult only item. Read the cache description to get an idea of what you're looking for or do a search for a cache using the key words "kids", "children" or "family".

2-Try a travel bug! A travel bug, or item that purposefully travels from cache to cache with an identification number on it, is a great way to get kids involved in geocaching on a deeper level. Put a map up on the wall at home and place pins or stickers to represent every cache the travel bug visits. Ask participants of the travel bug to send postcards from their home state and turn the experience into a geography lesson. Different travel bugs can have different themes so you could even have each child choose something that suits them. Perhaps your son really likes airplanes so his travel bug is a toy airplane that visits different airports around the nation. Your daughter might really like dolls so her travel bug wants to go to a big doll museum and participants would try to take her doll as close to the museum as possible each leg of the journey. Be creative and your kids will have a lot of fun.

3-Do your homework! It is easy to tell what a geocache site will be like from descriptions on geocache.com. If the terrain is rough and the cache is super difficult or involves a long hike you might want to think twice before taking your family with young kids. On the other hand, there are so many "park and grab" caches available that you should be able to find plenty of geocaching opportunities just a few yards from the car. Or plan a special day with picnic lunch included. By doing your homework ahead of time and checking the comments that other geocachers have left about a particular cache you can see if there are any unusual things you should be aware of such as poison ivy, snakes, mud, or heavy underbrush growth that is difficult to manuever through. These are all items that would be discussed in the comments section by other players and would be a clue to avoid that particular cache with your kids in tow.

4-Come prepared. When we go geocaching we always bring a little first aid kit with band aids, Neosporin and other common necessities for cuts and scrapes. You would also want to take plenty of water, and some snacks too. Beef jerky, trail mix or granola bars are easy to pack and make for healthy snacks for the family. We carry our geocaching backpack with a pen or marker to write with, some stickers or trinkets to leave in a larger cache, the notebook with a description of the specific cache we are searching for, a water bottle, and in our case, a couple diapers and a ziplock baggy of diaper wipes as we have very little ones. When we had only one baby my husband "wore" our son and I carry the geocache bag.

In this manner we have searched for over a dozen caches with an infant and I found it a fantastic way to get some exercise after the birth of our son. Now that our firstborn is walking we carry the new baby girl, hold hands with the toddler, and still tote that geocaching backpack along, ready for action! Geocaching is a wonderful family activity that we can all enjoy together. A little pre-planning makes geocaching with kids a wonderful family outing.