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Cheap family fun with geocaching

Photo Credit:  Kelly Klein

Families all over the nation are looking for inexpensive ways to have fun together, especially during these challenging economic times. Milwaukee provides incredible opportunities to spend time together at museums, movie theaters, our amazing zoo and much more. However, visits to these favorite destinations might not always fit into the monthly budget.

A growing new trend, and a favorite activity of our family, is geocaching. Geocaching is essentially a treasure hunt in which you use a handheld GPS device to find hidden “caches” around your community and even around the world. Participants hide caches of various sizes along bike trails, in parks, in wooded areas and more and then log them at the official geocaching website,  Those wishing to find caches can search in a variety of ways, including by zip code, and then use the provided GPS coordinates to find the caches. In the Milwaukee area alone, there are thousands of caches to discover with your family.

After the initial investment in a handheld GPS device (as low as $100), geocaching is free. When you find a cache, there are typically small items inside to trade. Our kids delight in finding things like toy cars, note pads and bouncy balls. We bring along our own bag of small items to trade, a great way to find a new home for small toys and other items your children no longer want but that will likely be considered a new treasure to another child.  Our kids love seeing who will be first to discover the cache and enjoy the time spent outside exploring with their family. One of the best benefits of our geocaching adventures is all the places we’ve discovered that we never knew existed. We’ve been to lovely wooded picnic areas, lesser-known bike trails, beautiful meadows and even a great dog park, all places we didn’t know about until geocaching led us there.  We've even gone geocaching while on vacation in other states, a great way to find places of interest (and perhaps off the beaten path) during our journeys.

In addition to discovering new places around our area, geocaching has also proven to be a great way to get some exercise and to help the environment.  Most geocachers utilize the "cache in, trash out" approach when exploring, which means when they go into an area to find a cache, they also bring out any trash they might find along the way.

Geocaching is a cost-effective way to learn about the hidden gems around Milwaukee while spending quality time outdoors with your family.


For more info:  GPS Comparison Information , Official Geocaching Website