Geocaching-Does Anyone Do This with Their Family? What Do We Need?

If you want to do it with a group there is Austin Mommies website and they have it about once a month. It gets the little ones out and social with other kids.
Good Luck

I geocache with my husband and kids...we have been doing it for a little over a year and have found a lot of interesting sights that we never would have seen. My four year old son loves going on long hikes to find caches in the parks in the area. As for supplies all you really need is a good GPS unit, we use a Garmin e-trex Legend HCX (has color display and an expandable date card slot so we can put more waypoints in the memory) most of the cachers in this area use a Garmin 60CSX or 76CSX but they are a bit more pricey and do the same as the e-trex models. I noticed you were in Cedar Park TX you can check out the yahoo chat group "central texas geocachers" everyone on there is more than happy to answer questions and concerns that you may have

I love geocaching! The site mentioned previously is the BEST - you plug in your zip code, and it will list local caches and their degree of difficulty (in both finding the cache and the terrain). I take my 22 mo old and 4.5 yr old all the time, they love it!

All you need are 2 things -

A GPS - the best handheld ones on the market are made by Garmin and Magellan, in my experience. You want one that has good reviews under tree cover - a GPS will only get you so far (usually 20-50 ft from a cache), but if you can't get a good reading under a tree canopy, it's useless.

A goody to leave behind when you find the cache. Some caches, you only leave a log entry in a book inside the cache, but lots of them have little trinkets inside. A lot of geocachers I know (myself included!) have a "trademark" - we do a silly llama magnet, but I know others that leave false teeth as their trademark! You can just find something the kids love and then get it in bulk from someplace like Oriental Trading.

I would also advise doing an easy cache at first, and planning on doing 2-3 in the same area (the website can map them out for you). That way, if one of the caches isn't there (which sometimes happens), your entire trip won't be a bust. And often you'll find the first one in the first 5 mins, and the kids get super excited - you'll have others to do just in case you have some more free time. Oh - and get a backpack for the trip (water, the GPS, your GPS manual, a pen, some wet wipes, and the items you're planning on leaving).

Have fun, it's a great - and cheap - hobby!

S.

This is a lot of fun! This will tell you all about it:
http://www.geocaching.com

We do!! It's so much fun!!

I got a Geomate, Jr. from REI for my then, 6 year old son (a little over a year ago). My father (who lives in Austin) has been geocaching for years and years (10+ easily) and he recommended it for beginners. It is about $60 (instead of $300 for a Garmin...), and it comes ready to go, out of the box.

There are so many caches around the Austin area. As with many outdoorsy things, Austin does it right! Enjoy! Feel free to message me -
C.

My husband and I do this with our kids. We have so much fun doing it! We've turned it into a whole spy game. For each cache we look for one kid is the look out and the rest of us go finding the cache. When we find it, we sign it with our "handle" and if there are trinkets in there we take one and leave our signature trinket (a small bottle of bubbles).

I don't remember what GPS we use. But I do recommend putting suntan lotion and bug spray on the kids! Also, watch out for ant piles. We stopped for a few months after we all stood in a huge ant pile and had bites on our legs. It was bad!

Good luck and have fun!

we love it, just remember to bring something fun to put in!

We do it. All you need is a handheld GPSR(eceiver) and a computer. If you have a GPS integrated phone or a GPS in your car that works as a handheld unit you may use that.
We bought ours a few years back, so I don't know what's on the market now - but I probably would not spend more than $100 on one.
It gets you outside, walking and hiking, it's like a high tech treasure hunt.
If you have older kids it's a great teaching opportunity as well (math and science).
We are having a lot of fun doing it.

I had never heard of this so I had to look it up, how fun for your family! Good luck with your adventures!

We tried this a few years ago but I think the kids were too small to enjoy it as much as we did but i am very interested in starting back up.. We have the gps, but no actual experience. Can you geocache in a group or would that defeat the purpose? I would love to hear any tips to. We are complete amatures. There were lots of caches here in college station. We were so surprised we didn't have to go anywhere to have free family fun!