Kelly Seeks

We have been participating in Geocaching now for about a month. We just found our 10^th one! Why am I excited? Because often I can have the commitment issues. I love discovering new games, products, tips, and more. But after a few uses or a couple of rounds of a game; I get bored. It’s like when you listen to that great new song 50 times in a row and you hit that brick wall that if you hear it one more time; you’ll barf. So I have learned to try out new things before I commit financially or dedicate my time to doing it. But after about a month of geocaching I can say it is something I think as a family we are going to stick with for a while.

There are several reasons geocaching works for our family. You may have started and found it doesn’t work for yours. We did have a weekend where we thought this wasn’t for us. Hubs had a horrible attitude about it, we were 0/7 on finding them and someone threatened Hubs on a search! Needless to say we left that cache quick. We decided to try again the following weekend and had much better success and attitudes.

I thought long and hard about why we failed the previous weekend. Was it us? The caches? Difficulty? Weather? And what I discovered was the caches we were focusing on weren’t meant for families. We discovered some needed to be done at night, some were meant for adults and other’s for adventurers seekers. Well, we can’t go out at night with the kids. Crabby sleepy kids = no one has fun. Hiking along a one foot wide mountain ridge = loss of kids. I realized we needed a different approach.

I started researching the caches in-depth more. Here is the new search criteria I used:

• Caches that are quick “park and grabs” (PnG)
• Caches that are at parks
• Caches along family friendly hiking trails
• Places we could use the kids as cover (don’t be ashamed; they are the best tool!)
• Caches located in a defined search area (since we live on a island; we are using the entire island. However, for you mainland folk I suggest setting a radius. ie. 30 miles.)

I then compiled lists:

• The Date Night Special – Caches meant to be completed without kids.
• North Shore Adventures – Caches located around Schofield Barracks and the North Shore.
• Childs Play – Caches easily obtainable with kids in tow.
• Rumble In The Night – Caches need to be completed at night.

I will be compiling and updated the lists as I come across them. I realized in the descriptions of the caches the difficulty and terrain rates are listed, but it still does not give a good overview of what is suitable for kids or families. This is not meant as a spoiler and I will not reveal the locations or give hints to the caches (however…I do always upload a photo of the contents of the cache to my instagram). The lists are merely a guideline to help other families navigate Hawaii geocaching. If you have a cache to add to a list please contact me and let us know.