The Essential Guide to Geocaching: Tracking Treasure with Your GPS - Softcover

The Best Introduction to this Popular New Sport

"During my many years working in the outdoor industry, I’ve seen only a few new activities emerge and truly gain a popular following: mountain biking, snowboarding, and now geocaching," says Mike Dyer, geographer, innovator in computerized mapmaking, outdoor industry expert, and author of the new guidebook THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GEOCACHING: TRACKING TREASURE WITH YOUR GPS. Geocaching is a fun new sport, growing quickly in popularity, in which people use a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver to find hidden "treasures" called geocaches. Participants are provided with the coordinates to the cache, usually from an online source, and then use their GPSs, maps and compasses, and tracking skills to find them. The caches contain a logbook and treasures of nominal value, usually trinkets.

"Geocaching is for everybody. It is simple and doesn’t require any special athletic ability," says Dyer. "At about $100 for a GPS, it’s relatively inexpensive to get involved. I’ve found that geocaching can easily be made part of many fun outdoor sports, from hiking to mountain biking. And it’s especially appealing for families looking to come together with a fun activity."

Mike Dyer provides a unique perspective to geocaching that only an expert and enthusiast can. He earned a dual degree from San Francisco State University with a B.S. in geography and digital cartography and a B.A. in business and product design. During college he helped start a small company that created the first-of-its-kind, digital-topographic mapping software. After college he devised outreach programs on the excitement, safety, and benefits of using GPS technology, compasses, and high-quality maps together. He later designed and developed a map-on-demand kiosk program used in many outdoor stores today.

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GEOCACHING is designed to provide a broad overview of the sport, tailored to the novice but also designed to educate the expert. It includes essential information on how to get started, in-depth detail about the various types of cache activities, how to find and create your first caches, and a section on land navigation.

The book also features easy step-by-step checklists, a glossary of terms, and a resource listing of GPS manufacturers and geocache organizations.