Geocaching is simple in concept. A geocache is a small hidden container that contains “treasure” in the form of trinkets and a logbook. It is hidden by a geocacher, who notes the location coordinates on a GPS unit. Then the coordinates are published on the Internet so that other people can hunt for the cache using their own GPS units, like a hi-tech pirate’s map.

In fact, a geocache is a bit like pirate treasure, but without the rum and parrots. If you find a geocache, you are allowed to take one of the trinkets, as long as you leave one of similar value, and you are expected to sign the logbook. This lets the geocacher know how many people have found the cache.

Geocaching is a fairly new activity. It became possible sometime around midnight on May 2, 2000. That’s when President Clinton directed the Air Force to turn off the “selective availability” feature of the GPS satellites, instantly rendering all GPS receivers far more accurate than before. Who says the government never does anything right?

This inspired a fellow geek named Dave Ulmer to rush out and hide a bucket of “treasure”, including software (I told you he was a geek), in the woods. Using his GPS unit, he noted the coordinates, and then was promptly eaten by a bear. Not really, but he did go home and publish them on a GPS user group message board. Before the end of the week, two people had found the cache, and a new game was born. By the end of May, 2000, the new activity had been officially christened “geocaching.”

Although less than ten years old, geocaching has exploded in popularity, with thousands of caches and hunters. There is a web site devoted to the game (geocaching.com) and a Geocaching for Dummies book is available on Amazon.com (you know something is mainstream when they publish a Dummies guide for it). Chances are there is a geocache within a few miles of your home.

If you don’t have a GPS unit yet, gpsmagazine.com/buyers_guide.php is a good place to go to read reviews and compare units.

To prepare for this article, I decided to try finding a geocache for myself, just the sort of dedication you expect from your friendly neighborhood PropellerHeads. You have to register at geocaching.com to search for caches, but it’s free and painless. The most difficult part was finding a cool user name that wasn’t already taken (I settled on LongJohnSilver58). There were several caches within minutes of my home. The nearest one, marked as 1.5 (easy) on a difficulty scale of 1 to 5, was reportedly “in plain sight”. Humming a pirate shanty, I entered the coordinates on my trusty Garmin GPS and set out to find the treasure.

Shiver me timbers! I couldn’t find it. According to my Garmin, I walked all around it, but it eluded me. By golly, I’m gonna go back out there tomorrow and look again. There’s no way I’m going to be defeated by a measly 1.5 difficulty geocache. I predict that if you have a GPS and a sense of adventure, you’ll find geocaching addictive too. Just watch out for bears.