Geocache with care

Before you begin

• Before setting out on your cache-seeking adventure, sign up to play Geocaching. This will let you search for caches nearby that you can use in your activities. If visiting official geocaches, you may want to bring trinkets and treasure to leave or swap with the caches that you find. These helpful guidelines on the Geocaching website give some guidance about what you should and shouldn’t leave in a cache.
• Before setting out, you’ll also need to have thorough knowledge of or carry copies of the Highway Code, Countryside Code and the Geocaching Association of Great Britain (GAGB).
• Planning this activity can form part of a regular meeting, but the walking and hunting for geocaches might take a day. This might be better suited to a day on camp or a free weekend coming up when you’ll have more time available to explore. Alternatively, you could split your cache hikes into five shorter ones.
• Make sure to set a time limit to your activity and a place to meet back. Each group should have means to contact the person leading the activity. Carefully risk assess the area in which the activity will be run, especially where there’s tricky terrain or roads. Check your adult helper to young person ratios are adequate.

Run the activity

1. Split into teams. Each team will need a map of the area, a GPS device, paper, writing materials and access to the Highway Code (if walking on roads), Countryside Code and GAGB guidelines.
2. Everyone should examine the codes and guidelines. They should think about why those rules and guidelines exist and how they should interpret them. Here are some points the teams should consider:

• • Where do these guidelines overlap?
  • What points do they agree on?
  • Are there any unique rules or guidelines?
  • Are there any unfamiliar rules or guidelines?
  • Are all of the rules clear or could they be misinterpreted?

3. Each team should pick the 10 rules or guidelines from the three that they feel are the most important. Remind everyone that they should nonetheless follow all of the rules set out in all three guides.
4. Head to the Geocaching website and find some local caches for the teams to go and find. Teams should include multi-caches if any are available as these add to the challenge and involve problem-solving elements. Each team will need five caches to find, including the multi-caches.

If there are not enough caches nearby for you to walk to, you could create your own and either register them on the Geocaching website or set them up temporarily for the teams to collect.

5. Once teams each have their 10 rules and five caches/multi-caches, each should plot a route that takes them around to each cache, using the map and GPS. Agree upon a start and finish point, such as the meeting place. Teams should note down the coordinates of waypoints and landmarks that their route passes.

If these routes are too long to complete in one session, you could split these up into two or three smaller adventures to do in upcoming sessions.

6. Prepare to walk the routes and find the caches. Make sure each team has a camera (or smartphone) to take photos, an emergency contact phone and suitable walking gear. Explain that teams should remember the 10 important rules or guidelines from earlier and use their camera to capture themselves following these.

For example, the chosen rule might be: ‘leave gates and private property as they’re found’, so teams should photograph themselves closing gates and leaving private property undisturbed as they go. Or it might be: ‘leave no trace of your visit and take your litter home’, so teams could photograph their litter bag collecting their litter to take away with them.

7. An adult should also check each route to make sure it’s suitable, then swap the routes, so that each team gets a new route to walk.

Bear in mind that the routes will probably need to be walked in another session.

8. Before setting out, teams should check the instructions for the caches they’ll now be going after. These can be found on the Geocaching website, and could be printed or downloaded to smartphones for the team to carry with them.
9. Once the teams have completed their routes and visited their caches, come together at the meeting place to share the photographs of how the team followed the 10 rules or guidelines. They should also discuss the caches that they found.