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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Geocaching provides motivation, exercise

Geocaching provides motivation, exercise Erin Allday   Geocaching has taken off in the past decade or so among adventure seekers and treasure hunters. But it's also a pretty decent fitness tool, says Sam Drake, who took up the hobby nine years ago after reading a story about geocaching in The Chronicle. Since then, he's tracked down more than 1,000 geocaches around the world and walked thousands of miles, many of them on Bay Area trails. He also lost 40 pounds and developed a passion for hiking. Drake teaches classes on geocaching at Santa Teresa County Park in Santa Clara County. For more information, go to the Geocachers of the Bay Area's website, thegba.net, or geocaching.com. Name: Sam Drake Age: 52 Residence: San Jose Occupation: Software architect for Oracle Activity: Geocaching Describe geocaching: It's a game that's played with a handheld GPS. A geocache is a container that is hidden. The latitude and longitude of the geocache are recorded online at geocaching.com. You put the coordinates into your GPS, and it'll give you an arrow and a distance. But the GPS is only accurate to 15 or 20 feet, so then you have to open your eyes and think like a spy to find it. Getting started: The No. 1 thing you need is a GPS. If you have an iPhone or Android or any smart phone with GPS in it, there's actually a geocaching app you can download and install. If you want something a little sturdier, you can buy handheld units that are a little more rugged. You also need an account at geocaching.com, which is free. Geocaching for fitness: Anything that gets people outside is a good thing. Too many people spend all their time inside watching TV or playing on their computer. Geocaching is a nice bridge, because it's a computer-related thing, but then after fiddling around on your computer, you have to get up and go outside. For me and my wife, it was the hook to get us out there. We started hiking in the park next to our house. I also used to travel a lot on business, and every time I traveled, it was a good way to explore a new place. Geocaching for adventure: I did the Grand Canyon down to the bottom this summer, and I just did a 12-mile hike with some friends in the Sierra. When I was traveling, I used to go to Asia a lot, so I've gone geocaching in Japan and Korea and the Philippines. Once I took a subway in Seoul to a park and hiked to the top of a mountain by myself.

Keep Cachin'
   Bill

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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Don’t have GPS? Try Letterboxing




In 1854, rambling man, James Perrott, hid a bottle in a stone cairn beside a hard-to-reach pool in southern England. A guidebook mentioned the cache and soon people swarmed to the site, leaving messages behind for future visitors. The idea went viral and “letterboxes” popped up all over the surrounding moorland, their locations described in terms of natural landmarks, rather than geocaching’s numerical coordinates. With just 24 letterboxes hidden in the Edmonton area, the root of geocaching may not be as popular, but it is simply more accessible. Visit letterboxing.org to find one near you.

Friday, July 13, 2012

FTF GEOCACHING MAGAZINE

I just finished reading the last issue, of my first years subscription, of FTF GEOCACHER  the magazine for Geocachers.  If you haven't heard of this magazine yet, let me introduce you to it.   FTF GEOCACHER Magazine published bi-monthly and contains a myriad of Geocaching stories, commentary by fellow Cachers and updates on national Geo-Events.  While FTF GEOCACHER does have advertising it is not over bearing, most ads are small and are tastefully sprinlkled throughout the magazine.  All of the ads are related to Geocaching you won't find ads that are off topics such as cars, make-up or swim wear.    When you subscribe to FTF GEOCACHER magazine, you receive a really cool , Path Tag with your first issue.  The cost per year is $24.00 USD or $36.00 CDN, you may be asking if you are in Canada why are we paying more?  It's simple, I am located in Canada and my last issue came to me with USA Postage of $2.25, that's quite an additional cost and I sure don't mind paying less than it costs to send it to me for my years subscription.    Now instead of describing each and every section of this terrific magazine to you, I want you to check it out for yourselves, Keith Petrus, the publisher of FTF GEOCACHER, has made available for Download the November/December issue right for the FTF GEOCACHER website. Follow this Link to get your Free Download of the Nov/Dec 2011 issue  http://www.ftfgeocacher.com/ Then leave a comment here and let me know how you liked it.     Bill Jones - Geocacher B&CJONES Email: NationalGeocacher@gmail.com