Go geocaching
You’ll need
- Access to the internet
- Weather appropriate clothing
- Pens or pencils
- Scrap paper
- Cache treasure items
- GPS devices or a device with GPS capabilities such as a smartphone
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There’s also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
- Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.
Planning and setting up this activity
- Sign up to Geocaching to search for nearby caches or create your own for the group to find. Bring small trinkets to swap, and check the Geocaching website for what’s OK to leave.
- This activity works best over two sessions. Choose a start and end point, set a time limit and assign an adult to each group.
- Carefully risk assess the area in which you run this activity, especially places where there’s tricky terrain or roads.
Run the activity
- Ask everyone to get into groups.
- Each group will need a local map, a GPS device (either specialised or with access to the Geocaching app/website open), paper and pens.
- Let everyone know the start and end points you’ve chosen, so they know where to search for a geocache.
- Search on the Geocaching website for nearby caches that they can find and then choose one.
- Plot a route on their map from their start point to the cache, then back to the end point. Each route should be short enough that it can be completed in one session. An adult should check each route.
- Find and note down the coordinates of any waypoints or landmarks that can help them find their way along the route.
- Check the instructions for how to find their chosen cache on the Geocaching website. There should be a page with advice on how to find the cache. It’ll need to be noted down or printed out, or downloaded onto the GPS device.
- When all of the routes have been finalised, swap the route plans, noted landmarks and waypoints, and geocache instructions with another group.
- On the next session, meet at your chosen start point. This may be your normal meeting place.
- Everyone should stay in the same groups as before and follow the route they were given by the other group. When a team finds the cache, they could take a photograph or draw the contents of the cache, swap out some of the treasure and sign the logbook, before replacing it carefully where they found it.
- Follow the routes to the end point and meet back at the meeting place to see what treasures everyone found.
Reflection
By making your own caches, you’re creating gifts that you’ll never witness being received, but there’s still a thrill in knowing that someone will find your cache and enjoy the thrill of the search. Which do you think is more rewarding: discovering the treasure, or the journey you took through the great outdoors to reach the location of the treasure?
Geocaching is a great excuse to get out and explore. When hunting for your caches or placing your own, take a look at the environment around you. How does it make you feel? What wildlife can you spot? Geocaching is also a great excuse to get out and about for some exercise.
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.
- Adventure
This activity has specific rules and systems to make sure it’s managed safely. Take a look at adventure activities for more guidance.
- Outdoor activities
You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.
- Hiking and walking
Follow the guidance for activities in Terrain Zero, or the guidance for each the adventurous activity.
- Road safety
Manage groups carefully when near or on roads. Consider adult supervision and additional equipment (such as lights and high visibility clothing) in your risk assessment.
- Animals and insects
Be aware of the risks before interacting with animals. Be aware of anyone with allergies, and make alternative arrangements for them.
- Visits away from your meeting place
Complete a thorough risk assessment and include hazards, such as roads, woodland, plants, animals, and bodies of water (for example, rivers, ponds, lakes, and seas). You’ll probably need more adult helpers than usual. Your risk assessment should include how many adults you need. The young people to adult ratios are a minimum requirement. When you do your risk assessment, you might decide that you need more adults than the ratio specifies. Think about extra equipment that you may need to take with you, such as high visibility clothing, a first aid kit, water, and waterproofs. Throughout the activity, watch out for changes in the weather and do regular headcounts.
Change the length of the planned routes, as well as the start and end points to mix it up a bit. Teams could also try to plan routes that pass more than one cache.
- Make sure the location you visit, route you take and any equipment is accessible for everyone. For example, you may need to consider wheelchair suitable pathways, allergies, avoiding steps, public transport access or planning frequent breaks. Forests and woodlands with well-maintained footpaths or purpose-built roads may be more accessible than wild land. The best way to know if the site is accessible for the needs of your group is to visit beforehand. If you’re unable to visit, ask the land manager any questions in advance. You could visit the area before the session, and remove or cordon off any large or obvious obstacles.
- Make sure that groups plan routes that take into account the needs of everyone in the group, not just those in their own small group.
- If a person's prone to running away, make sure that your playing space is safe and well-supervised. You may need extra adult supervision, especially at possible exit zones. You may need to include this information in their support plan or in the risk assessment.
- You may want to provide visual or written reminders, so everyone knows what they can and can’t do or touch while exploring nature. For example, you could use photos to show which leaves are safe to touch and which ones to avoid.
- Outdoor activities, including gardening, can trigger hay fever, which is an allergic reaction to grass, tree or weed pollen. You could also let people wear sunglasses, keeping windows shut, avoiding face-touching, and checking the pollen count before proceeding.
- Make sure that everyone can see the maps. Use colours that can easily be identified for anyone who’s colourblind. You could provide digital version, so people can use of magnification software. People could also have access to magnifying glasses, braille versions or large print versions. You can buy extra-large OS Maps.
- If someone struggles with numbers or maths, they could work with a friend, a volunteer or in a group to help them to read grid references, distances or scale.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
For your next geocaching adventure, craft some handmade gifts to be hidden in the caches you find.