Welcome, Long Island Geocachers!

This is a group about geocaching (explained below), but mostly it is for us to meet other people of similar interests, wanting to share some adventurous outings walking, hiking and exploring the more interesting parts of Long Island. If you’ve never done geocaching before, don’t worry we will show you the ropes.

You say, “What the heck is geocaching!?”… First stop shouting... Geocaching is the game of searching for geocaches. That explains everything right? No…? I have to explain what a geocache is too? Ok…

A geocache is a hidden item in the world, usually containing small items to trade with the finder of said cache. The person that hides/owns the cache determines the coordinates (address in terms of a set of numbers, Longitude and Latitude, that together describe the exact position on a map) of this cache, and posts them on a website for all to see. Then we (the gamers) go and look for this cache and sign a log book inside, and possibly trade something that may be inside.

Some of these geocaches are easy to find, but are difficult to get to, such as up on top of a mountain. Others are easy to get to, like right in the middle of a city, but are hidden so well they are hard to find.

Some of these geocaches are so big you can find/put large objects in them. Others are so small they only contain a slip of paper to sign.
Currently (4/2009) there are just shy of 800,000 of them in the world, in all 50 states of the US, and in nearly every country on the planet. I am fairly confident that (for most of you) there are 10 or more geocaches within a 10mi radius of where you currently are reading this sentence.

Go to www.geocache.com and learn more about this fun (some call it sport) game, that has many reasons for playing. Meet new people, discover areas in your own location that you’ve never known about, learn to solve complicated puzzles, give yourself an excuse to go for a walk/hike in the outdoors, and become part of an underground secret society that hunts for treasures right under other people’s noses.

My goal for this Meetup group is to organize some collaborative geocaching on Long Island, as well as to occasionally do some trips elsewhere. We can also carpool into the city to meet up with another group I am part of – NYCGC : http://geo.meetup.com/134/ Great group of people, and it is really fun searching for GC’s in NYC.

You will not need to have a GPSr (device for searching for geocaches) to be a part of this group. I own two, so I can share one of them, and it really only takes one per group of searchers to be effective. If you do own one, or want advice on buying one, there is great advice to be found on www.geocaching.com.

Let’s go find some treasure!