Jake's Journal: Quick Tips for Geocaching

Whenever I mention geocaching to someone, I get one of two reactions. People have either tried it and enjoyed it, or they've never heard of it. Most of the conversations fall into the first category. But for those of you who are unfamiliar with the activity, here are a few helpful links and recent stories to introduce you to this worldwide phenomenon.

To get started, click here for a Geocaching primer, including which Garmin devices work well. Then move on to geocaching.com and learn about everything that this site has to offer - including locations of more than a half-million caches of various size and content. Next, read these stories about a crash course in Daytona Beach; a family outing in Oregon; and aquatic adventures along the Great Lakes. (And check out the Lakeland Boating link for a chance to win a Garmin Colorado!)

Speaking of links, you should click here to learn more about the Colorado - the best handheld device for geocaching. What puts it at the top of the list? Every Colorado features paperless geocaching (no more printing out the hints, descriptions and logs), you can share cache information wirelessly with other Colorado users, and the 400t comes with preloaded topo maps for the entire U.S.

On my recent business trips, I have done "pocket queries" from geocaching.com for each destination. This puts hundreds of nearby caches onto my Colorado with just a couple quick steps. Once I arrive in the new city, I fire up my 400t and find the nearest cache. Then I hide a coin and wait for someone to find it. In tomorrow's post, you'll hear about two more lucky cachers who stumbled across quite a surprise.