Geocache is a real world treasure hunt played by over six million people worldwide. Fun fact, the game is celebrating it’s 15th anniversary this year and there are over 2.5 million caches hidden around the world. Lindsay Carter, with Texas Parks and Wildlife, will explain how to get started playing the game and also provide hands on practice with GPS devices.

A little more than 14 years ago, on May 3, 2000, the first geocache was hidden in Beavercreek, Oregon. Now, all across the world, there are approximately 2.5 million caches with more than 6 million geocachers worldwide.

So what is a geocache anyway?

Well, a geocache can be as small as a key chain or as large as a five-gallon bucket. People hide them everywhere from remote areas to urban centers (think hide-and-seek). The geocaches are filled with trinkets and a logbook to sign. But you don’t wander blindly into the woods to find geocaches. You use a GPS device.

And that’s the shtick. People hide geocaches all over the place. In San Antonio alone, there are hundreds, if not thousands. When someone hides a cache, they upload its coordinates onto the internet at geocaching.com. People can download those coordinates into a GPS device or simply download a smart phone app that will do the same thing (after all, our phones are basically tracking devices).

To be sure, people are insanely clever when it comes to building and hiding geocaches so there’s no shortage of diversity in the game.

But there are rules, like don’t let the muggles see you. That’s right. Muggles. Those not imbued with the ability for magical arts in the Harry Potter series are called muggles. When closing in on a geocache, don’t let the muggles see you find it—they can’t know about it. Also, if you take something from the cache, you have to leave something. Be sure to visit geocaching.com for a full breakdown.