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I was looking for fun uses of my iPhone's GPS and I found that there a bunch of geocaching apps, and as it turns out there are a ton of geocaches in and around Phoenix.

Anyone have any experience with Geocaching?

I stumbled into a geocache in Iraq, of all places. Other than that, I know it's very nerdy and not much else! ;)

We see people geocaching alot when we hike in the Adirondacks, but I've never done it (since we have no GPS, it'd be difficult :)).

I know a guy who does it.  We found one on a ten-foot island in a lake.  I was somewhat underwhelmed.

My sister and her husband geocache all the time.  I accompanied them a couple times and had the general feeling that I'd rather be at my computer, or possibly even having my testicles gnawed of by giant, rabid, chipmunks.

They seemed to like it.

There was one tricky one that was memorable.  Out in the middle of nowhere, slightly off the road was a metal light pole, and down on the bottom was a sheathe that wasn't properly affixed.  The cache was inside this sheathe, which you could slide up the pole and find the cache magnetically attached. 

It's probably fun if you enjoy the hunt more than the treasure.  I, however, prefer nature where it belongs. [as a screensaver]

I like my geocaching in games like Mystery Case Files.

Everything else is all that outdoors trendy treehugging crap.

This is true.  I never touched anything icky when playing Monkey Island.

I got a sudden image of someone in Iraq finding a geocache with a large metal box that says WMD on the side.

or used to set up an ambush on the infidels.

God, my concerns as a taxpayer are made corporeal.

also I think if you found a geocache in Iraq (or any other muslim country) the temptation to leave a bible for shits and giggles would be pretty strong.

Considering the only folks with easy GPS and Internet access are Americans/Canadians/Europeans, I don't think it'd make that big of an impact. :P Also, you typically hide them somewhere so passerby's don't accidentally find them and throw them away.

(The one in Iraq was inside the wheel well of a rusted out MiG at Ballad AFB, I just happened to see it while snooping around).

Geocache? What?

There are 289 in Iraq, apparently those military gentlemen get bored easily.

Or the insurgents are getting more creative.  When he mentioned Geocacheing in Iraq, MY first thought was that some insurgant would just put the coordiantes for land mine or something.  Especially given, as Viin pointed out, who the people are who actual have the means to geocache in Iraq....

That's like in WW2 where the germans would booby trap houses; specifically, they would try and target things that enlisted men would ignore but officers would fiddle with.

The most famous example was a crooked painting, on the theory that privates have better things to do than straightening art in war torn houses, but that officers would come along and due to their gentile training, be unable to resist straightening a picture.

Luckily the Germans didn't know much about Americans  :awesome_for_real:

Necro post, I know.  I just saw this.  I'm a huge geocaching nerd although admittedly I haven't found that many.  I'm goin' to Ireland next month and I'm dropping a whole lot of bugs n' geocoins off over there.   :grin: