Family outings for Sean and Jennifer Dunham used to mean going to a movie or browsing a local bookstore. Not any more. Now the Round Rock couple and their nine-year-old daughter, Phoebe, explore state parks and other outdoor areas in search of hidden caches.
Geocaches, that is.
“We learned how to geocache last summer at a Texas Outdoor Family workshop at Guadalupe River State Park,” Sean explains. “It’s opened up a whole new enthusiasm for being outside and given us more quality family time.”
Like the Dunhams, more than three-million people worldwide geocache (pronounced “GEE-o-cash”) for thrills, fun and exercise.
The outdoor adventure game—which this year celebrates its 10-year anniversary—uses Global Positioning System (GPS) units to locate hidden “treasure.” Participants simply download coordinates from the Internet, travel to the designated location, then hike and hunt for the cache (usually an ammo box or plastic container containing silly prizes and sometimes items of value).
Geocaching.com, the premier geocaching Web site, tracks more than one million active caches all over the world. Across Texas, 37,410 or so caches lie hidden in places like public parks, cemeteries and neighborhoods. For example, within a 25-mile radius of Fredericksburg, geocachers have hidden 248 caches, while in and around San Antonio the count surpasses 2,300 caches. Austin boasts even more treasures:  nearly 3,600!
Finding a cache may not always be easy, but it’s guaranteed fun. All you need is a handheld GPS and a compass. Pack some water and snacks, too. And don’t forget a trekking pole, says Jennifer. (Before you stick your hand in a hole, you can use it to find out if “somebody” is already there.)
To begin, first go online to geocaching.com and enter the ZIP code of the area you’d like to search. All geocaches are rated from easy to difficult to find; the terrain to get there is also rated. After you select a geocache, download the coordinates into your GPS unit. But that “waypoint” only marks an approximate location within 6 to 20 feet (or more). It’s up to you and your smarts to find the cache, which can be hidden in a log or under some rocks.
Generally, caches contain trinkets (such as Happy Meal prizes), miniature toy cars, or even plastic soldiers. Others may contain “trackable” items—like geocoins or a Travel Bug—that travel from cache to cache and can be followed online.
Geocaching rules are simple. If you take a treasure, leave one in its place. You’re also asked to sign the cache box’s logbook and pick up any trash you see. If you like, sign the online log, too.
Note that rules prohibit geocachers from placing caches on archaeological or historical sites. Geocachers must obtain permission from private landowners and managers of public lands (including all Texas state parks) before hiding a cache. National Park Service regulations ban caches from federal areas.
Many families, like the Dunhams, combine geocaching with camping at state parks. To encourage more people to do the same, staff with the Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPW) Department have hidden geocaches at many state parks. Called the “Texas Geocache Challenge,” the new program (which goes statewide this fall) will reward young geocachers with collectable, baseball-style “geocards” that highlight natural features found in state parks.
 “It’s a lot of fun to see kids running down a trail to find treasure,” says TPW’s Outdoor Education Coordinator Chris Holmes. “We’ve had a great response to the Texas Geocache Challenge. So far, because of [it], we’ve had more than 50 park passes bought and just under 1,000 visits to state parks.”
At Pedernales Falls State Park, geocacher Steve Fite of Boerne remembers an encounter with some “muggles” (passersby). “I was looking for a cache under a foot bridge when a family happened by and asked what I was doing,” he recalls. “You should have seen the look in their eyes when I pulled out the container! People just have no idea that things are hidden around them.”
Fite recently retired from the oil business and has enjoyed geocaching for nearly three years. Often he takes family and friends on hunts. “It’s fun to take people out for their first time,” he says. “One time when I was in The Woodlands on business, I took a colleague to lunch and told him, ‘Let’s go grab a geocache!’ He was quite surprised when we found the cache in a nearby park.”
Harry Downer, president of the Texas Geocaching Association, stumbled onto geocaching while on the Internet. “I was researching orienteering for a Boy Scout badge,” remembers the Garland resident. “I already had a GPS unit, so I decided to try it out. I got hooked right away! Then I introduced geocaching to my troop, and so did other troop leaders. Since then, Boy Scouts of America have embraced geocaching, and a new geocache badge will be added later this year.”
Sean and Jennifer Dunham have also introduced geocaching to their daughter’s Girl Scout troop. “We’ve searched for cache with them twice, and as a troop, the girls hid a cache in Old Settlers Park in Round Rock,” Jennifer says. “They love to read the notes that people write online whenever their cache is found.”
On the geocache trail, Jennifer usually lags behind Sean and Phoebe. “They don’t let me even touch the GPS unit,” she chuckles. “Nope, I’m the one with the snacks and water who likes to take it slow. As we’re hiking along, I’ll tell them, ‘Hey, we’ll find the cache. Quit hurrying and look at that plant!’”
Thanks to geocaching, “we’ve really come together as a family,” Jennifer adds. “We do things now like play board games and other stuff that doesn’t require electricity. Even on trips, it’s made a difference. While I had business meetings last summer in San Antonio, instead of shopping and eating at a restaurant, Sean and Phoebe geocached on the Riverwalk.”