The Do's and Don'ts of Geocaching

Summer is right around the corner, and you may be wondering what your family will do with the kids enjoying a nice break from school. Many families enjoy the popular hobby of geocaching! It is fun, safe, and excellent for people who prefer a great outdoor adventure to sitting inside.

This is my brother Stephen and me finding our first ever Geocache!

Geocaching is marvelous for people who love an adventure, but don’t otherwise have a reason to get outside. It is a wonderful activity to do with friends, family, and even a household pet. Geocaching also helps get people off of the computer, and away from the T.V. to go out and have some fun. And best of all, it's free!

Why Geocaching is Good for You

When geocaching, your goal is to find caches. These are containers which hold anything from prizes and small toys to just a small piece of paper, called a log, to add your name and date to prove you found it. Please do not keep the caches as they are there for everyone to find.

The cache can be large, medium, small, or tiny in size. This helps to train your eyes, which can help in many other situations. Geocaching is also a swell way to get out and walk, as sometimes parking is not always optimal and you sometimes have to walk.

This is often because of parking not being optimal, the geocache having been moved a few feet from the original spot, or the geocache being hard to find. The feeling of finding the cache is incredible, it will surely have your heart racing.

A Few Things to Remember While Geocaching

While geocaching, especially when the weather is balmy or chilly, you will always have to pack certain items, depending on the weather. A backpack makes a superb “go bag” for geocaching, especially ones with many pockets on the outside to hold something.

• Several bottles of water (1 or 2 per person or pet)
• Snacks if you are planning a day of geocaching
• Swag, i.e. something to leave behind
• A few simple first aid items, such as band-aids and some sav for bee stings

These are only a few things you should take, you should also take some area specific items, for instance sunscreen if you are going to be geocaching in a warmer climate with open areas. Also you should always pack enough supplies for everyone going with you, maybe even extra. Here's the backpack I like to use:

It has enough pockets to keep me organized on the go while the interior space holds my favorite geocaching snacks, like trail mix and beef jerky, and bottled water. The pocket on the front is perfect for holding my phone, which I use in lieu of a GPS device. Click the picture to learn how you can get your own from Amazon now. Prime members get 20% off and FREE 2-day shipping!

What Not to do When Geocaching

While geocaching can be fun, there are always things not to do, below I have included a few important ones in a list, but as with any activity, common sense can save.

• Don’t forget to bring a coat in chilly weather.
• Don’t forget your GPS while walking to and from the cache so you won’t get lost.
• Don’t forget to bring an emergency kit, even a basic one can help if something happens.
• Don’t geocache in extreme weather including, harsh temperatures, rain or snow, etc.
• Don’t geocache barefoot.

These are only a few of the don’ts of geocaching. There are more, but most are simple and are easy to remember. Check online for more geocaching etiquette.

In Conclusion

Geocaching is a healthy activity for your whole family, this article only lists some of the benefits of and tips for geocaching, but there are more. There are lists online for kits you can put together for hiking and walking which also work well for geocaching. Try it, and I’m sure you’ll have fun! Let me know about your geocaching experiences in the comments section.

About the Guest Author

Jarod Muth is a blogger who hails from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. A home school student who graduated at age 16, he's now pursing interests like freelance writing and internet marketing while furthering his education through online classes. In his spare time Jarod enjoys gaming, geocaching with his family and their rescue pups, and flea marketing.

Thrifty Thursday - Rock On!

Today's thrifty tip is something fun you can do with kids. It's very exciting. I wish we'd home schooled when the boys were younger and they would have gotten more out of this instead of just throwing rocks, namely at each other. The tip is - rock collecting!

Here are 10 reasons why you should start a rock collection with your kids.

1. It's free.
2. It gives you a chance to recycle things like egg cartons or any other box-like container where dividers can easily be divided for sorting.
3. You might actually find something valuable.
4. You will learn more about geography than you ever wanted to know.
5. Other rock collectors will be interested in seeing what you found.
6. The internet can tell you what kind of rocks you find, saving you from buying expensive rock-identification books.
7. It's a great family hobby.
8. You have to go outside and enjoy fresh air and sunshine to do this.
9. You can do it anywhere that there are rocks to be found (except National Parks, and on private property unless, in the case of the latter, the owner gives permission).
10. Collecting a rock from vacation destinations is much cheaper and more meaningful than a t-shirt that you'll outgrow or a coffee mug that will get shoved to the back of the cabinet over the stove.

And there you go! Because I live a stone's throw (haha, get the pun?) from a National Park, let me reiterate that you should never, ever, ever take ANYthing from National Park property. This includes but is not limited to rocks, shells, tree branches, pine cones, berries, sand, animals, insects, or anything else. They are serious. They will escort you to put it back.

Other than that, have fun and happy collecting!

Becky

Something Else Saturday - Why We Skip Summer Vacation

By now a lot of schools have let out for the moment students and teachers look forward to all 180 days of the public school calendar year -- summer vacation! No more pencils! No more books! No more teacher's dirty looks! Yay! Only, not so yay if you live at my house because we home school year round.

That's right. We do school year round. Last week we finished up our 2011-2012 portfolio review, and the boys passed with flying colors. Phew! Planning the 2012-2013 school year started months ago, because we never really take a long break. School goes on year round, because life goes on year round.

We have some really great friends who also home school. We also have some really great friends who send their children to public school. Each family has to do what's best for their family. One thing they have in common is that most of them look forward to summer vacation. Many choose the time during June, July, and August to go on a family vacation, or at least a trip to the beach.

Our family doesn't do any of that. We home school during the summer because we'd rather be inside where it's air conditioned than outside in the hot, sticky, humid environment. This frees us up to take longer breaks in the fall and spring, often traveling when everyone else's kids are in school.

It's not uncommon for outsiders to look at our lives and accuse us of being on one big, long, extended vacation. A lot of times that's exactly what it feels like! Just a few months ago while millions of public school students were stuck in their classrooms, we were doing math on the beach in the Outer Banks. And a few weeks after that, we were enjoying learning the science of trains.

You might be wondering where we found a textbook on that topic. Textbooks? Ha! While we do use them for some subjects, and not necessarily the same topics two years in a row, we studied trains by researching online, reading information at the local library, and then - the coup de grace - a visit to the North Carolina Transportation Museum, where the boys spent time talking to a train conductor and riding in the engine with him on a 30 minute train ride. And finally, we spent a couple of hours at the museum studying exhibits inside the roundhouse, as well as a dozen or more different train engines, cars, and cabooses on display. It's worth mentioning that we live about an hour outside of Washington, DC and are nowhere near either of those places.

Our family is fortunate that the Fireman's job allows him such a relaxed schedule. The only reason I work is so we can travel. And because I freelance, I can work from anywhere in the world -- as long as I have my laptop and a WiFi connection. While our decision to home school was initially a way to stick it to the public school system (think Katniss versus the Capitol here...yeah, it was THAT bad) after a particularly horrible IEP meeting, but it's turned out to be a real blessing. The Fireman and I are better parents for it. We don't have to deal with a lot of pop culture that goes along with raising teenagers. But best of all, the boys are growing up to be regular smartass teenagers quite well-behaved young gentlemen.

Do you have any public school nightmares? Have you ever had a nightmare IEP like my good friend and fellow blogger over at Dragonflies@Dawn? Do you home school and dream about the day when your children will beg for you to send them into the public school system? If you have a moment, I'd love to read your comments about children and education!