The World’s Largest Treasure Hunt! Free Family Fun

0

You Don’t Need to be a Pirate to search for treasure.

However, if you are a pirate or want to be, by all means, be my guest. You’ll fit right in at Buc Days and pirates are sexy. Ok, I’ve convinced myself, let’s all be pirates.

This year my crew and I had been searching for adventures, and we found them in Geocaching.

Geocaching is an activity that includes all my scalawags (kids 14,12,1).

Geocaching

So, my matey’s I’ll be your captain in introducing you to the world’s largest treasure hunt called geocaching. I’ll try not to make you seasick.

Geocaching

The of goal of geocaching is to find the cache (booty, if you will), given the GPS coordinates, sign the log, retrieve the swag, and leave something for someone else that is similar to the monetary value of whatever item you took. Some pirates do not take anything, rather they sign the log and consider the find the win.

Geocaching

Geocaching can be compared to a series of hide and seek games too. The seeking can either be mild or extremely exotic, for instance, you could be looking for a camouflaged medium-sized container on the side of the road, or the container can be as small as a button hidden under a rock on the bottom of lake Corpus Christi! You decide what treasure to seek. Each cache is labeled on a difficulty and terrain scale.

Geocaching

We started easy until we got the knack for it, and then gently increased the difficulty level. Once you do a few caches, you start to notice cracks, crevices, and suspicious placement of items.

Geocaching

I was surprised at how caching helps you see small details on objects you’d never notice before. I enjoyed seeing and exploring places I have been past or have taken for granted. Corpus is filled with sweet slices of art, culture, and design. Each cache has a description and activity log, so you know if it’s been found lately, the size of the container, and what fellow cachers rate the find and swag. If it’s been found recently the cache is most likely there, and ready for the next seeker.

Geocaching jb

The swag is most likely small trinkets; however, sometimes you can find some extremely awesome stuff or some bizarre items too. My favorite swag is a key chain we found under a guardrail on a small street bridge. The keychain is a small blue gemstone slice with a gold metal trim. I put it on my purse for a little pizazz and it’s been hanging there ever since, my booty on display!

Geocaching jb

Corpus Christi has caches all over the place. One can be near you right now, and you wouldn’t even know it! Unless you get the (free) geocaching app or sign up on their website. All you need is a phone or something with internet GPS. So, now that I have told you about the basics of geocaching let me spin you a yarn on one of our geocaching adventures.

Geocaching jb

There is a cache series downtown that highlights the murals and local art. All the caches are very close in distance from each other and take you on a sight seeing tour.

Geocaching jb

Side note: If you want to view all the geocaches in Corpus (recommended), you must get a premium account online (get the app).  I think it’s about thirty dollars. Start out with the free caches, and see if you like it first. If you get hooked, then go big baby! Most “hiders” only do premium, so their hides have a less likely chance of being stolen.

Geocaching jb

Anyway, we had plans downtown and like most plans these days fell through, so we thought “lets try geocaching”.

We stumbled upon the mural series, and although I know this city, seeing streets and buildings from a different perspective felt refreshing and new. I enjoyed walking and spending quality time with my family. The seeking of caches was almost outshined by the beauty of all the local art.

Geocaching jb

We were out until late evening (8 pm because we are crazy wild party animals) exploring having a great time outside, and you know the best part, we did not spend a dime! All you need is a few items for swag replacement, and honestly, you can grab a few items from around the house such as unwanted toys from your toy box, or a few dust attractors (or grab no swag at all) and just sign the log with the pencil you hopefully won’t forget to bring.

Geocaching jb
Geocaching jb
Geocaching jb
Geocaching jb

Geocaching is a simple pleasure you can do anytime anyplace. My family has received so much joy from our experiences and I hope you might decide to give it a try for yourself.

Also, Geocaching has lingo. Here are some of the basics.

T4TF: Thanks for the find

F2F: First to find

TNLN: Took nothing left nothing

DNF: Did not find

 

P.S. Yo Ho and a Bottle of Free Family Fun!