Your Virtual Visit to Groundspeak HQ

By: Sara (gonzogrrl)

Every Friday at 2pm, geocachers come from as far away as China and as close as the neighboring office complex to visit Groundspeak Headquarters. No matter where they come from, they have two things in common before they arrive:  an enormous love of Geocaching and a story they can’t wait to tell.

Groundspeak momentarily transforms from the busy buzz of Lackeys keeping the website running into a lobby full of cachers squealing with delight as they drop Trackables, trade stories and hang out with other geo-addicts from all over the world.

Sara and Nicole

Along with Nicole (Louie Bliss), a fellow Community Relations team member, I’m Sara (gonzogrrl) one of the lucky Lackeys who gets to be there each time, greeting cachers as they find the epic HQ cache, GCK25B. “So…what do you do here?” cachers often ask us. By day, we’re the ones answering emails and phone calls, helping people solve issues so they have the best geocaching experience. But when geocachers drop in, we stop what we’re doing and spend time with them as they discovering the cache, take photos in the photobooth, buy souvenirs and check out the big screen map of geocaches being logged in real time all over the world.

If you ever want to drop in, it’s easy to get an appointment. Just email us at contact@geocaching.com. Tell us a little about yourself, where you’re coming from, and when you can visit and we’ll be happy to send you the coordinates to the office (hint:  we’re not in the middle of Lake Union. Shocking, I know). Since we are a busy office, we like to schedule visits on Fridays at 2pm. Sometimes one of the Founders and other Lackeys drop by to visit too—we all love meeting the people that make this game more than Tupperware in the woods!

Sole Seeker's photo inside the Groundspeak photobooth

I’ve met so many different cachers, but I can still remember some of my favorite stories from the visits. There’s Sole Seeker, who came here for his 10,000th find, and was surprised to find we’d made him a sign and blown up balloons to celebrate with him. There’s also J&J Brown, who told us about the huge camouflaged cache they have hidden in their front yard that fools seekers every time because it (spoiler alert) looks just like a tree. And then there’s foomanjoo, a world-traveling photographer who had just done some caching in Korea and was off to his next adventure finding caches along Route 66 in California.

But whomever you are—whether the HQ is your fifth find or your 5,000th—we welcome you at the lilypad. We hope you come see us soon!

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