Recently in geocaching Category

I don't plan on using the iPhone GPS for geocaching, I really don't think it'll give me the type of features or accuracy that I would need for a serious day in the woods, but I do think there are ways the iPhone would be useful while geocaching.

One is the ability to know about nearby geocaches.  Sometimes you don't really need accuracy, especially in urban settings, and if you're out and about and notice that there could be a quick geocache nearby, the iPhone would be helpful.  I used to bring my GPS with me to unfamiliar cities because it does contain information on nearby businesses, restaurants, and shops.  This feature is more useful on the iPhone as the Garmin does not constantly update (and I paid a lot of money for new updates a few weeks ago).  The Garmin is much more useful for travel though, and I have a car mount for it so I don't see the iPhone replacing that either.  And as far as I can tell, I'm not able to load my waypoints into my iPhone anyway so that won't be useful for geocaching at all.  The setting and capacity I'm in will really determine if I need to have the Garmin or if I can be ok with just the iPhone, and for serious geocaching I plan on using both.

I did use my old phone for looking up caches, and I think paperless geocaching is where the iPhone can really be useful.  Unfortunately there are no good apps out for this right now.  I did find a few for the old iPhone, which I really wasn't happy with.  Yes, you can visit the geocaching.com site on your phone, but the site is bad enough on a regular browser when it comes to crashes and poor interface design.  I would use the WAP site on my old phone (one of the very few sites I could access on the internet, and the reason I added the option).  This will still work on the iPhone, but its features are limited, and at least on my old phone I had to log in each time I wanted to look up a cache, a slow process that I would usually try to avoid (the phone only really came out when I absolutely needed it).  I will probably still bookmark this site as it will likely come in handy.

Logs are not always necessary for geocaching, and I've hacked up my waypoints using GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) to make them even less necessary.  GSAK is an awesome and super powerful database for managing geocaches (it's not flashy, but this thing rocks).  I run all my pocket queries through there to reformat the waypoints on my Garmin to include cache type, difficulty, cache size, and even if the last log was a find or not.  These are displayed in either the waypoint name or notes area on my GPS.  It was a GSAK feature I randomly stumbled across, but it's really come in handy for not having to rely on paper logs or the WAP site all the time.

GSAK also has useful features for offline viewing which have helped in areas where I couldn't get a cell signal (and the rare occasion I also have my computer, usually caches along a route to a destination).  Since the logs are stored local on your computer until you re-update the database you can access them without internet.  It also allows you to export html files of the logs, which is what I decided to do to view caches on my iPhone.  The html files are then uploaded to heidigoseek.com where I can access them on the phone.  The formatting and features of these exported html files are much better than the WAP site.  Although they are not real time updates, links to the caches are provided.  I get a pocket query in my email every Friday so I'm ready for geocaching on the weekend.  The file is usually only 1 or 2 days old.

I believe there may also be a way to store the html files on your iPhone for offline access.  This would only be useful if geocaching in an area with no signal.  This has only happened in one trip while caching in Northern Wisconsin and the UP (not a big surprise), and I haven't had much of a problem accessing the online site in any other area so I'm ok with online upload.  I normally don't cache in an area without checking on access capabilities though.

I think with a combination of the Garmin and the online capabilities of the iPhone, geocaching will be a lot more organized, and easier.  But I'm still holding out for a useful iPhone app.

Even before we started geocaching as a hobby, I have liked the idea of geolocating our photos in Flickr. I try to do it when I can, but even with Flickr's mapping features it can be a time consuming task. Now that we are geocaching and have invested in a handheld GPS unit, I've discovered a few neat tools for automatically geotagging images using tracking data from our GPS. Of course, I'm not saying that managing our pictures isn't already a full time job, but some of these tools do take the tediousness out of the process and I'm more likely to tag and geotag our images from now on.

We tend to take most of our pictures while out geocaching anymore. That's not to say non-geocachers can't do this, you would just need a handheld GPS unit with tracking turned on while you're out taking pictures. Naturally ours is usually turned on since we're hunting geocaches, but I would certainly consider taking ours along with us if we were sightseeing somewhere and I wanted to save our locations to our photos. I will add some of my favorite geocaching tools to the end for anybody interested, and show a few examples of how I've been using the data and pictures that we do have.

Alex and I just got back from our first Mega Geocaching Event in Kendallville, Indiana this weekend. We met lots of great people at the Midwest GeoBash! A common practice in geocaching is to leave sig (or signature) items either in geocaches or with people that you meet at various events. Sig items can be anything, either something that you make, poker chips are popular, or simple business cards also work. Before the first event we went to, I had an idea to purchase some Moo Cards as our signature items. I used pictures from Flickr that I had posted of our geocaching expeditions. I think this has turned out to be one of the better ideas I ever had. For one, when it comes time to start trading sig items, since most people we encounter don't know what Moo Cards are, we can tell them. We usually let them go through the pictures and pick out one that they like, and this often leads to discussion about various geocaches or locations that we've been to, based on the pictures. Geocachers like to talk about their favorite geocaches so that's always a great icebreaker when you're meeting someone new. Another wonderful thing about the Moo Card is that it's memorable. While at GeoBash I had one man walk up to me and ask where I had got the cards and he explained that he found one in a geocache just south of where we were. We remembered that we actually visited that cache and left our sig card over a month ago! He had seen us trading them with some other people at that moment and realized that Alex and I were the couple that dropped it in the cache. I would really like to see Moo Cards catch on as sig items, I think they're fun and I'm happy to leave them in caches or give them out to geocachers at these events.

Technorati Tags:moo cards, geocaching, sig cards, sig items, geocaches, geocache, midwest geobash, mwgb, mwgb07
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We got our gps unit back a couple of days ago, we were going through geocaching withdrawal I believe. We had planned on doing a huge geocaching thing on our way to Illinois but we didn't have our gps unit :( I think if Alex doesn't have to work tomorrow we're going to go out and get a few geocaches.

The unit seems to be working alright but I had to fight with the darn thing to get it to unlock properly. I'm still not even sure I did it right. I guess we'll know for sure when we go out again :)

I mentioned before that our GPS kinda broke this past week. I called the Garmin people and they said, "oh that's easy to fix", basically I was supposed to download the software and reinstall it. Yeah it was so easy to fix that now it's really broke.

Installing the software seened like it was going to work until the very end of the whole install process. The Garmin software erased our GPS completely and then just said it couldn't finish (oh thanks!) Now we can't even retry installing the software because the unit is completely erased and won't turn on!

I might have to send the thing in after all :(

Geocaching: "Kristen's Krazy Kids' Kache"

Originally uploaded by heidigoseek.

I know I haven't posted in a long time, of course things are crazy busy anymore. I did want to finally post about geocaching though. Alex and I are addicted!

We went to homecoming a few weeks ago and Josh and Stacie got us hooked by taking us out with them. We bought our GPS unit the week after and we've been geocaching every weekend since then. This is the first time we actually feel like we're doing something constructive on the weekend (aka, not sitting around on our butts).

We both love it and we're both motivated to stick with it (we have to we splurged a lot on our GPS unit), and we also think this is probably the only way we'll get exercise otherwise.

We are pretty committed to geocaching through the winter, we'll see just how long that lasts though :) At least we're making the most of what little decent weather we have left. I have to admit, though, that when we're out there I hardly care how cold it is, I'm so committed to getting the next cache.

Flickr : alex, geocaching, kristen's krazy kids' kache, oak creek wi, wi, wisconsin