New to geocaching

[ALF07]

Hello all! I’m completely new to this, I’ve never geocached before but very interested in getting involved. From what I understand, you have to be a member of geocaching.com to get coordinates for geocaches in your area…is this correct?

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Yes, but membership is simply a matter of signing up and creating an account. If you find you really want to spend time at this game, you may want to sign up for a premium membership, but it’s not necessary. Have fun and if you have questions, this is the place to come!

[rtrezrsnhvn]

A paid membership is only required if you want to run queries or find some caches that are “premium only.” Premium only are typically on private property or a business that has given permission.

You would need to log in to the site (register), but you don’t have to pay unless you want a premium acct. You can search your area without paying.

Welcome to the sport. It is a lot of fun and very family friendly. It’s a great way to get out and see areas of your own community that you wouldn’t normally see!

[sandlanders]

We didn’t have a premium membership for our first year. It didn’t matter that much to us then. We did get our geocaching.com account set up right away, though, because we had no idea where to look for the wonderful caches nearby that we were seeing described on the various cache pages.

We waited until our receiver came to go out looking for our first cache, but now smart phones and car navigational units can do just about the same thing, if you already have one, and the satellite maps are so good that you can find many caches just by looking at those carefully… no receiver necessary, as Muggle B here does.

(You’re not THE Alf, are you? 😯 )

[ALF07]

Thanks for the info!
And no, Sandlanders, I am not THE Alf lol, just the blessing of my initials from my parents 🙂

[amita17]

Welcome to geocaching! I see recently someone posted in the Looking for Someone to Cache With section (name is SugarStar) was looking for Janesville area cachers. Enjoy your new hobby alone or with others!

[hack1of2]

Welcome ALF07! Last year after setting up a free account at geocaching.com and finding some caches, we knew that this was a great sport, so we eventually upgraded to a premium account for the $30 per year. We discovered that many of the geocaches out there are visible only to premium members. So if you do find that you enjoy geocaching I encourage you to eventually check out premium membership. You’ll be able to run searches (“pocket queries”) for caches in specific areas, get notifications when new caches are hidden in your neighborhood, and see about 30% to 50% more caches that are viewable by premium members only.

And, of course, membership in the Wisconsin Geocaching Association is always free 😯

[Author]

Posts