What's the cost to begin geocaching?

[Wasatch Rebel]

I know the GPS unit itself is one of them. But someone told me that I need to subscribe to some kind of service. I thought that they were wrong about that, but I wasn't sure if you had to pay to acquire the way points etc. You don't do you? My brother-in-law always went around with a laptop computer so he could access some kind of service that gave him clues if he couldn't find the cache. What about that? Any other expenses I should know about?

[Udink]

You can get all the information you need from Geocaching.com for free, including coordinates/waypoints and hints on how to find the cache.

However, you can become a "premium member" for $30/year, and you get bulk waypoint downloads (called pocket queries) where you can download up to 500 waypoints at a time (instead of about 20 without being a premium member). In addition the premium waypoint downloads include cache descriptions and hints for finding the cache, but all of that information is already available for free on the individual cache pages. There are other premium features, like integration with Google Earth, and Google Maps that can be viewed directly on Geocaching.com, and a few others.

I think becoming a premium member is only necessary if you get hardcore into geocaching. I would definitely not recommend purchasing a premium membership until you're sure you even like caching.

[sportsman]

you can probabally pick up a used GPSr in a pawn shop for $50. Other than that the only real cost is gas to get you around.

[DiscGo]

I can't believe I missed this post. Sorry about that. You can seriously do the "poor man's" geocaching for free by using Google Earth to get to the area and geocaching.com to see the cache details.


Other than that you are best picking up a used gps and going from there. Feel free to PM me if you have questions

[sportsman]

You can seriously do the "poor man's" geocaching for free by using Google Earth to get to the area and geocaching.com to see the cache details.

Good luck with that, i can't even find them when my gps says i am 2 feet away

[DiscGo]

You can seriously do the "poor man's" geocaching for free by using Google Earth to get to the area and geocaching.com to see the cache details.

Good luck with that, i can't even find them when my gps says i am 2 feet away

[Skylinerider]

We just got into goecaching, and I am suprised how much my wife and I like it We take our GPS everywhere, I usually load 4-5 caches at a time for wherever we are going to be and we search them out. You don't have to pay for anything other than a GPS. you can get the locations for free.