I’m not sure how many readers out there are familiar with geocaching; here’s a quick 101 from Wikipedia to fill you in: 

"Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 650,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.” 

Really, it’s a fun treasure hunt and I’ve found in my short few years as a casual geocacher, it’s helped me to see places I would never have found otherwise, both in my backyard and on vacation.  One of the most fun geocaching vacations I had, was in Curacao. The island of Curacao is just north of Venezuela, in the southern part of the Caribbean and is part of the Netherlands Antilles. Last year we went to Curacao for what I call a ‘Lobotomy Vacation’. Usually, when I travel I go to see culture, historical sites, and pretty much spend my time on the go, non-stop. For a lobotomy vacation, I plan to go to an all-inclusive resort, drink beer and read books. These are few and far between, but always good for recharging the batteries.   

Because I don’t take many of these low-key vacations, I do tend to get bored easily, as I did while in Curacao. So, to remedy that, I rented a car and my husband and I took a trip around the island. Since it’s only 171 square miles, this is easy to do in a day. Before heading to Curacao we had looked up geocache coordinates on a geocaching website and programmed them into the GPS.

Our first cache took us up a very large hill, not too far from our resort, where at the top we found a cacti jungle. Now, I’ll note that when getting geocache information online there are often clues such as. ‘wear long sleeves and pants for this’, however we had only programmed coordinates and not written down clue information (doh!) We decided to make the best of it and spent the next half hour trekking through cacti and jumping out of our skin as large iguanas raced around our feet on the ground. I have to say with certainty I would not have done this if not seeking a cache.  Next we went to the north of the island near Westpunt and following the coordinates, found ourselves in a beautiful natural reserve with volcanic rock and blowholes by the sea. This was a multi-cache, where the set of coordinates take you to a location, and instead of finding the treasure right away, you need to do something (i.e. count the steps and add them to the coordinates) to find the next set of coordinates. This adventure took us all over the park and to a very tranquil picnic area in a forest.  Finally, we headed back toward our resort for the last cache, which brought us into a very interesting marina area and up a large hill to an abandoned house. It was quite secluded but we felt relieved when we saw another couple there taking pictures. My memory is a bit fuzzy but I believe it was an abandoned psychiatric home. On the other side of the house (toward the cache) was a breathtaking view of a bay and crystal clear waters.  

Through all these adventures in Curacao we found places we would not have had any other reason to go to, and that’s why I love geocaching. People place caches in spots that hold importance to them, so it’s like looking at a location through the eyes of someone else. My father-in-law has embraced geocaching wholeheartedly and had places some caches in wonderful locations in Ontario; if you’re ever been near Gravenhurst, ON you know the natural beauty of the Canadian shield and it’s precambrian rock.  So next time you go on holidays, either locally in Wisconsin to a place you’ve been many times, or to a new destination, consider finding some geocaching coordinated (don't forget to print out the clues) and taking your GPS along. You never know where the trail may take you!  

Do you geocache? I’d love readers to use the talkback feature to post about their favorite geocaching locales.