GEOCACHING FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS

really quick before I start the video I just want to talk about the equipment I'm using I'm using a Canon M50 Mark II to record most of this I'm using it to record right now for the outdoor segments of this video I used a GoPro Hero 8 black they are both very versatile cameras that you can use for all sorts of things and if you live in Marlborough if you're a Marlboro resident you can come in and check this equipment out and make Vlogs like this of your own we would love to have more Community creators coming in and working with us using our equipment and creating great content we know that you're capable of it alright let's get into the video foreign public library and I sat in on a class about geocaching geocaching defined by Wikipedia is an outdoor recreational activity where you use a GPS more often than not a smartphone to hide and seek different containers called caches or geocaches at specific locations marked by coordinates in the official geocaching website advertises it as the world's largest treasure hunt which sounds very appealing like sign me up Paul Gillen who led the class gave me a lot of great information about geocaching he and his wife Dana actually wrote a book about geocaching so I was really excited to just sit and listen and absorb all the information that Paul had to give me Paul covered a lot of the technical aspects of it the gear that a lot of people use on geocaching the intensity of some caches later in this video I actually go out and geocache myself I didn't try to get any caches that had a difficulty rating over two out of five and although I am a beginner and I'm not going to be going for a 5 out of five difficult rating geocache anytime soon it was really useful to kind of sit down with an expert and just take in everything he had to say so the geocaching app when you open it up they advertise that there are three million caches all over the world for you to find I was a little bit worried that you had to pay for the premium model in order to get access to all these caches but Paul assured me that that is not the case basically the premium model of the app just allows you to download certain coordinates so that if you are out in an area that does not have great service you can still find your way to caches this is kind of similar to an app called all Trails which is used by hikers the basic model of the app allows you to get all the functions but if you get the premium model you can download Maps so that you always know where you are no matter what your service is like I'm sure there's a lot of people that like use all trails and geocaching like in in congruence with each other that's not the word is it regardless I'm sure that there are people that use both of these apps and recognize the comparisons like I do in the short amount of time I've been doing research about geocaching I have learned a ton there are a lot of great creators out there on YouTube who make Vlogs centered around geocaching and it's all really great and wholesome and wonderful the community is really cool and there's like a sort of etiquette that these YouTubers have to follow in order to not uh ruin these caches for other people someone who's making content surrounding geocaching will call spoilers at the beginning of a video if they are either going to show the step-by-step process of getting to a cache or give away the location of one the big part of the fun of Geocaching is that treasure hunting aspect so I'm really glad that these creators realize that and they don't want to spoil the fun for others and it's funny because when you think of spoiler warnings you think of like someone reviewing a movie or TV show and giving away the ending to it you don't really think about geocaching when you think about spoilers and I thought that was interesting a lot of these videos are nature videos but there's also a surprising amount of urban geocaching that exists as well as Urban geocaching YouTube content I feel like when most people think about geocaching they think about someone who is deep in the woods and they're finding something that's been hidden in a tree trunk or something like that but it is good to know that this isn't an activity that is exclusive to people who either live near the woods or who often go on Long hikes you can be into geocaching if you live in a city too and I think that's great there's not really a lot of gear you need besides a smartphone the basic model of the app is free so there's no paywall and there isn't a lack of access to caches based on where you live or your access to Transportation so anyone can do it and that's so great and that is one of the big reasons why I am super drawn to this hobby right now it's kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure game hints can either be really vague or really obvious and I feel like that probably plays under the difficulty rating a little bit do not forget to keep in mind safety procedures while geocaching these are coordinates that could bring you to some pretty remote places a method IU use is always telling someone where I'm going and roughly how long I plan on being out for I know that if you want to immerse yourself in the wild west treasure hunting aspect of this hobby sharing your location with someone might take away that sense of Freedom you're looking for but it is always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to looking after your personal safety there are certain rules pertaining to how and where you can hide caches one big rule is that the cash can never be buried cash can only be buried if what it's being buried with is very easily movable people will usually ask you to be stealthy when interacting with these caches in order to not attract Muggles someone could see you pulling the cash out of its hiding spot interacting with it and then after you put it away that person could go and check it out and not have a clue what geocaching is and either take the cash damage it in some way remove its contents in fact the very reason why the do not find function is an option on this is because because geocaches often just go missing people take them all the time and it is very unfortunate and this kind of adds to the whole treasure hunting vibe that we have going on here because if if you're looking for actual buried treasure there's no way you want other people around snooping on you a common phrase that is used is Cash in trash out when you are cashing if you find any trash on the ground you are highly encouraged to pick it up and throw it out when you are leaving the area and in this way there is like this sort of uh environmentalism that is attached to the Hobby which is also amazing and there's even certain etiquette surrounding the comments that you leave on the geocaching app it's always good to just give someone a little bit of an Insight what you were doing that day thank them for putting the cash out and you know get giving you the adventure that you had geocaching is an amazing hobby for many reasons but one of the big ones is the sense of community that it creates geocaching allows you to be a part of something that is bigger than yourself a long-standing tradition the on online community is really wholesome you get to experience new places all while getting outside and exercising maybe you can explore a new city you've never been to before by caching and allowing those caches to take you to the parts of the city that you would have never been to otherwise there isn't a paywall everyone who considers themselves an expert is extremely welcoming and they provide you more than enough information to get started and encourage you to keep going the thing about online communities is that people are you know they're hiding behind a screen they can kind of say whatever they want with impunity and sometimes they'll say bad things but none of the comment sections on any of these geocaching videos have anything negative to say about the creators or the other commenters it all just seems really wholesome and welcoming and I love that that's not something you find too much on the internet okay time to talk about my geocaching Adventure I drove out to Mount Wachusett in Princeton To Go Geocaching this is one of my favorite areas in Massachusetts and I am calling spoilers because I will be walking through the process of getting to these caches through my phone as well as the videos I took that day first I stopped on the way in Holden Massachusetts to try and get a cash it did not really turn out so well ended up coming out to this big Prairie with all this Tall Grass I did have bug spray but I was still a little bit worried about ticks and it looked like I was gonna have to walk through a ton of tall grass in order to get to the cache so I turned around and labeled it a do not find I left a comment saying I wasn't sure if I was supposed to go through the tall grass or not and someone actually responded to me the next day saying yes this is the time of year that you have to walk through the Tall Grass I think it's kind of great that you can respond to people within the app so that if you leave a question like this someone can actually answer it and then you can go back and find that cache with that new knowledge and I think that's really cool that's another really wholesome part of the community uh no one is gatekeeping caches they want you to find the cash as they leave next I stopped along the side of the road in Princeton to get an easy one it was a micro I walked around this park for a little bit I checked under some benches that's where I thought it initially was I turned over some rocks I found this weird orange thing that looked like it could be a cache apparently anything can be Cash's I've seen fence post caches at this point I've seen little pill bottles I've seen fake birdhouses I've seen all sorts of things online so I saw this orange thing and something about it to me was just screaming this is a cache but I was I was so wrong I couldn't have been more wrong so I kept walking around the area and eventually I came to this tree I looked inside the trunk and what did I find a pencil people leave pencil or pens around the caches that they leave so you can write your name on the log book in case you didn't bring one with you and so I knew immediately it was in this tree trunk and I was so right and it was so good to find My First Cash of the day I filled it out and put it back and continued my adventure not before logging it on the app of course you can't can't forget to log in on the app there are these certain things called Park and grabs which are caches that are very easy to find they are located uh usually off of a parking lot I believe this was like a one star or a 1.5 star and I feel so silly because I could not find it for the life of me it was a parking grab it was supposed to be one of the easy ones I started flipping over rocks I was looking under rocks I I couldn't find anything I labeled it a do not find and I took off it is like a little little bit unfortunate when you can't find a cache it was a bummer because at that point I had looked for three caches and only found one of them I continued on to wachusett's ski area which was right down the street I found this really cool cache under a bridge that was in a key holder there are some micro containers that look like bolts and for a quick second I thought I was going to be just tugging on every single bolt under this bridge to see if it was a cash or not but luckily I turned my head I saw the key holder I opened it up and found the log book and got super excited I was two out of four at this point and that was not good enough for me I had to find at least one more cash before going home so I continued my journey by going to Redemption Rock in Princeton and here's where I found out just how valuable that premium model of the app could be because I did not have great service in this part of the woods and my GPS was telling me to walk 16 feet forward I would walk 16 feet forward and then it would tell me the cash was 13 feet behind me and it didn't help that there was this very large rock wall all right in the area where the cash was supposed to be I was very confused at whether or not the cash would be on top of the rock wall or below it so I kept just walking up and down this huge hill finding nothing and getting a little frustrated I finally bent down the right way and looked into this little crevice in the rock wall and found it I'm so glad I was recording at this point you can see just how excited I was to get this I really didn't think I was gonna find it my GPS wasn't working properly it was in a confusing spot it was way way into this little crevice in the rock wall and there was no way that I was going to find it so there was no hint for this one either which made the two out of five difficulty rating feel more like a three out of five difficulty rating and I know that I'm a beginner so this is all going to be harder for me than it is for an expert in fact finding it without the hint was more gratifying for me than it probably would have been if I had a hint saying hey look in the crevice on the rock wall over there especially when I found that two-star rating with absolutely no hint kind of kind of proud of myself for that one I called it a day after this three out of five isn't the best score but it was one that I was happy with and I had a great time out there there are so many clips that I'm looking at where I'm just like smiling or laughing and I wasn't taking into account how much enjoyment I was really getting out of it in the moment because I was trying to film I was trying to figure out where the next location was but looking back it was just such a good wholesome experience and it is definitely something I'm going to do more of from here on out before I end the video I just want to give a quick shout out to Paul Gillen for leading the class at Marlborough public library and giving me tons of information he and his wife Dana have a book out called the joy of Geocaching and I definitely recommend checking that out if you want more information on this hobby thank you to Rachel stone for putting the class together shout out wmct TV for this amazing equipment that I was able to use and yeah I guess I will sign off with saying you know go try geocaching it's awesome it's fun you can do it with people you can do it by yourself you can do it in a city you can do it in the woods you could this is turning into green eggs and ham I do not want it on a bus I do not want it in in a bed I can't I can't remember Green Eggs and Ham now this is bad I'm Alex here the wmct TV studios and until next time bye [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: WMCT-TV

Views: 25,525

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Id: gaSkHrAlhGE

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 17 2022