More than 70,000 geocachers from around the world celebrated Leap Day by stepping outside for a GPS-powered treasure hunt. Their motivation was an opportunity that comes once every four years — going geocaching on February 29. They joined friends and family to explore the world around them, exercise, and earn a digital reward. The Leap Day goal was ambitious. Geocachers rallied to double the number of accounts – 36,696 – that logged geocaches last Leap Day in 2008.
Here are the latest numbers:
Current Accounts w/Logged Caches: 83,516!
GOAL: 73,392
Updated: 2:30 pm PST – March 7, 2012
Share Your Leap Day
Share your geocaching Leap Day pictures and video on the official Geocaching.com Facebook page. The best video and pictures may be chosen to appear in a Geocaching.com video. Subscribe to the Geocaching.com YouTube to be one of the first to see the video when it’s released later this week.
See a Leap Day geocaching adventure – watch the new video below
Sometimes one Trackable (or two or three or a dozen Trackables) from Geocaching.com simply isn’t enough. Shop Geocaching offers bulk orders of tracking codes. The options are endless. You might mint your own series of Geocoins, print a large order of Trackable t-shirts for your geocaching group, or wow your friends with Trackable cows. The minimum order is 50 tracking codes. Think of it, you can track a whole herd (of cows or friends).
Geocachers often use bulk orders of tracking codes to prepare for geocaching events. The codes can be used to make almost anything Trackable, from attendees’ nametags to the geocaching cake at the event.
If you’re interested in less than 50 Trackables at a time, there’s a solution. Purchase a Travel Bug® or two. Activate the Travel Bug and then include the tracking code wherever you like – you can tattoo it on your arm or carve it into your favorite walking stick. It is important that you do not place the tracking code in more than one location, as it will cause confusion as to which item is being tracked.
Once your codes are activated, sit back and watch your items, from cows to cakes, get ‘discovered’ on Geocaching.com. Find out more about the Geocaching.com tracking code policy and view the contact information for ordering your own codes here.
Check out the latest Geocaching.com video above. Share it with your friends to show how geocaching is more than finding plastic containers in the woods, it’s unlocking adventure — and it’s exercise and learning and exploration and, and, and… (your answer in comments)
[This video was shot with express permission from cache owner. The cache name is “The Outlet Mall.” It’s GC1RKTP, located in Washington State, USA]
Warren Rieutort-Louis, rieuwa, in North Korea at the "Monument to Party Foundation"
A geocacher named Warren Rieutort-Louis, rieuwa, stepped foot where few Westerners ever walk. GPS devices and cell phones are not allowed. Geocaching doesn’t exist there.
Warren says, “It’s obviously a destination that is off the beaten path and travel is heavily regulated but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Fewer than 1500 Western tourists visit it every year.”
Warren’s journey to North Korea was arranged through a tour company based in China. The voyage began with Warren emptying his pockets of items which rarely strayed from his side. There were no cell phones or GPS devices permitted on tourists in North Korea.
But Warren wanted to keep a piece of something that has helped guide his personal exploration over the past four years. He brought along a Geocaching.com Travel Bug. He named the Travel Bug, “Asia Explorer.”
It was a momentous gesture. Geocaching.com Travel Bugs have spent more time in space, than in North Korea.
A Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The Travel Bug is moved from geocache to geocache around the world. You can follow its adventures online.
Warren says, “I knew beforehand that there were no geocaches in North Korea, but I still wanted to take a Travel Bug with me as a symbolic item.”
Warren geocaching with his sisters
A friend introduced Warren to the real-world treasure hunt of geocaching in 2008. He says, “[My friend] only found a few geocaches, but when he told me about it, I instantly knew I would love it. Wherever I am, I try to grab a few caches, whether it’s here at home in the US where I’m currently a graduate student in electrical engineering at Princeton, or in my ‘real’ homes, the Netherlands or southern Portugal, or in my travels.”
Warren decided to explore one of the least traveled countries in the world with his family in summer of 2011. Their private tour took the geocachers to remote North Korean villages. The Travel Bug could not be placed in a geocache and wait for another geocacher to move it along, but Warren says the Travel Bug may have helped crossed cultural barriers.
He says, “The day I took the picture with the Travel Bug in front of the ‘Monument to Party Foundation’ in the capital Pyongyang, I noticed a look of surprise from the guide who toured with us for two weeks. She was my age. I explained to her the concept of geocaching, and she found it absolutely fascinating. She couldn’t believe that people would carry these from cache to cache around the world.”
Travel Bug, looking over the Taedong river
He says the rest of his travels through North Korea offered, “…an informal opportunity to develop closer bonds with the population, and to discover awe-inspiring cultural, natural and architectural richness of the country. Overall we discovered a warm people, infinitely curious about the world outside.”
He says while the Travel Bug didn’t log any kilometers, it now carries a rich experience in a rarely traveled country. “It’s a unique glimpse into a society that we would find hard to understand its existence… without witnessing it.”
Warren says his other Travel Bugs have traveled the world. “I love traveling, so how could I not love Travel Bugs? I have five around the world at the moment, including my North Korea one, having traveled a total of over 40,000 kilometers.”
Warren geocaching
He hopes his “Asia Explorer” Travel Bug will make a return trip north of the 38th parallel. He says, “And who knows, maybe one day the Travel Bug will be able to head to North Korea… I am sure there will be a day when we will be able to introduce wonderful things like geocaching to our North Korean friends, whilst they share with us their cultural richness.”
Check out five creative geocaches in just 30 seconds. Click on the video below. See what your next geocache find might look like. Learn new ideas when hiding your next geocache. Share the video when your friends ask, “What am I looking for when I geocache?”
Most of the cache containers in the video are available through Shop Geocaching. Which number geocache did you like best?
The geocaches in the video were placed either for demonstrative purposes or used with cache owner permission. Interested in seeing more creative geocaches? Check out this Geocaching.com Presents video.
More than 70,000 geocachers from around the world celebrated Leap Day by stepping outside for a GPS-powered treasure hunt. Their motivation was an opportunity that comes once every four years — going geocaching on February 29. They joined friends and family to explore the world around them, exercise, and earn a digital reward. The Leap Day goal was ambitious. Geocachers rallied to double the number of accounts – 36,696 – that logged geocaches last Leap Day in 2008.
