Geocaching websites
From Cacheopedia
Here we will attempt to list known geocaching sites.
Listing sites:
www.geocaching.com
The biggest and most-used geocaching site on the internet. Their cache listing and numbers of users is many orders of magnitude larger than any others. Many geocachers go here and nowhere else.
This is the grand-daddy of all the caching sites. Run by Jeremy Irish and friends out of Seattle Washington, this site is what many people think of when they think of geocaching.
The site features many different types of caches, and a promise of new types of caches and games to come. Caches are approved and checked by hand-picked regional approvers, who also moderate the site's very busy geocaching discussion forums. The site hosts numerous events and promotions throughout the year, including Cache-in-Trash-Out (CITO) or park-cleanup events, Jeep promotions, and others.
The site has the ability to track moving items such as travel bug tags and geo-coins. The look and feel of the site is very slick and polished, with the option for advanced cache hiders to augment their cache listing pages using HTML tags and images.
There is no charge for a standard membership. A premium membership is offered, through which cachers can retrieve customized lists of geocaches in desired areas on a periodic basis. Caches are available in GPX or LOC format and of course these work with the GSAK program and other paperless caching tools.
www.earthcache.org
An offshoot of Geocaching.com that promotes earth science education. These may be located in sensitive areas where a traditional cache would not be appropriate.
www.gcinfo.no
The official Norwegian geocaching site on the internet.
www.navicache.com
Free cache database, the second oldest site for posting caches. Based out of Rochester New York, the site, run by PCMedic and Quinn, has a somewhat more lenient policy with regard to the posting of caches than Geocaching.com. Virtuals are encouraged, and moving caches are permitted with some restrictions. The site does not currently have a way to post a Locationless (Reverse Virtual) cache. The flavor of the site tends to be more european, with many German caches being posted, for example.
Many cachers got their start on Navicache. The cache data from the site is available for download in GPSS, GPX, or LOC format. Difficulty/Terrain, Logging and viewing of caches is similar to the format and presentation of Geocaching.com, though some geocaching.com users have noted that the interface is a bit more basic with fewer frills. Some cachers list and log their caches on both sites simultaneously, and this practice is encouraged.
The caches on the site are fully indexed on Buxley's Maps, and the GPX files produced are usable in GSAK.
www.TerraCaching.com
A caching website that promotes a quality over quantity focus, and gives members enormous power to decide what types of caches are allowed in their area through a decentralized system of approval and peer review.
Quality is measured by the community's rating of each cache on a ten-point scale from "Should be Archived" up to "Superb." Each cache has a quality score (MCE or "Measure of Cache Excellence) which reflects the opinions of the cachers who've rated it. A 10 is a perfect score, and anything 1.0 or below is automatically archived by the system.
Finders and placers of caches earn TPS (terracaching point system) points instead of smileys. A drive-up cache would be found frequently so would likely have a low TPS, around 1. A difficult cache on top of a mountain would likely be harder to find an so would earn a higher TPS point value.
Terracaching currently supports locationless caches as well, though the scores for Locationless and Traditional caches are figured separately.
Far from being an 'elitist' site, Terracaching.com welcomes all cachers who want to place caches that are more challenging than those that can be found elsewhere. Many Terracachers play on other sites as well.
To gain access to the site, you must be sponsored by two existing players. These sponsors become your approvers, and you can change approvers any time if you wish. If you don't know two existing players, just post a note in the forum with your City and any other details of your caching history, and you'll receive offers of sponsorship usually within minutes.
www.GPSgames.org
A fun caching site featuring a variety of games you can play with your GPS, including geocaching, Geodashing, MinuteWar, Shutterspot, GeoGolf and GeoPoker. It's a collaborative, community effort by and for players who enjoy using a GPS for location-based games.
Geocaching - The site lists geocaches for finding and logging. Moderation/Approval is done by your fellow players. Sponsors are not required. All types of caches are welcomed, including virtual caches, moving caches, locationless caches, etc.
Geodashing - Waypoints (dashpoints) are randomly generated. Each game lasts a month and features of new set of about 30,000 dashpoints, spanning the globe. No place on Earth is too far away from some dashpoint or another (except at the poles). The winner is the player who can navigate to the most dashpoints.
Shutterspot - Players take photographs, then other players try to find the spot where the photographer stood.
GeoGolf - Players navigate to 18 random waypoints. The closer you get to each waypoint, the lower your score, and just like in golf, low score wins.
MinuteWar - Capture-the-flag. The whole world is the battle field. All players compete against each other no matter where they live. Maps are divided into 1 minute squares of longitude and latitude. Inside each square is a virtual flag. Navigate to the flag to capture it.
GeoVexilla - Another capture-the-flag variant. At random times, in random places, random virtual flags of countries of the world appear on a map of the world. The challenge is to visit a flag's waypoint before the flag disappears. Each time you succeed, you collect that flag, increasing your score.
GeoPoker - Players build the best poker hand by being First-to-Find. A GeoPoker game container is deployed in a particular area. Each time the container is found, the finder is given one virtual playing card at random. Each finder chooses the next hiding spot. Games can last days or weeks.
(Coincidentally, the site also hosts a geocaching wiki, as the site encourages community involvement and ownership of the content of the Web site. See GPSwiki)
OpenCaching Network
OpenCaching Networks are sites which run opensource project OpenCaching. At present are 3 sites:
Master site where you can find the latest development information about OpenCaching is: develforum.opencaching.de
geopeitus.ee
started Feb, 2001
movingcache.com
started Dec, 2004 Is just what the name says. A website dedicated to moving geocaches, meaning geocaches that don't have a permanent location, but instead are moved about by finders. Points are earned by finding and hiding caches on this website. On April 19, 2006, the site owners announced the end of movingcache.com, saying tht unless someone else accepted responsibility for the site, it would be shut down on June 1, 2006. Apparently no one decided to take ownership, as MovingCache.com has since retired.
geocaching.com.au
A listing site for Australian geocachers.It got its start as a geocaching portal and forum site for Australian geocachers. It started listing caches in Jan, 2005. Though the idea of it becoming an independent listing service was long in the works, it took off in part, because of many Aussie's anger at Geocaching.com's response to the Dec. 2004 tsunami disaster. Geocaching.com refused to list caches placed to solicit for organizations involved with tsunami relief, as they felt these caches violated its no solictations rule. Many many people, including a good number of Australians felt the magnitude of the disaster warranted a suspension of the rule.
geocacheuk.com
Resources for the UK Geocaching Community
News and Info - for new members UK Stats - stats on UK cachers and caches TrigpointingUK - like Benchmark Hunting
there is also a Forum, a Gallery, GIS maps, a Chatroom, event Calendar, GeoWiki and GUK blog -- The GeocacheUK website is owned and maintained by Ian Harris (Teasel), Brian Deegan (Deego) and Barry Hunter (barryhunter).
geocaching.be
Resources for the Belgian Geocaching Community
The official website of the Belgian cachers in Flemish and French! With a forum, maps, stats, classes, goodies, links, ... and a link to your page on the com.site
geocaching.hu
This is the one and only site for Hungarian geocachers. It belongs to the Association of Hungarian Geocaching officially founded in 2004, whose president is Ferenc Kumin. The site has been developed by Andras Kolesar and it offers a lot of useful tools: easy downloading coordinates, several maps, forums, statistics, poi’s, polls, faq’s and you can even check if the coordinates of your would be cache fall on a restricted area of a national park. The Association is in a constant discussion with the national parks about where caches can be placed.
Cachers with English skills are encouraged to translate others’ cache listings and report them on geocaching.com. Still, only about half of the Hungarian caches appear there as well.
A secondary aim of the website is to create a virtual guide book of the whole country. So the cache listings have to describe the vicinity of the cache, its history, flora, fauna and trivia at length.
A new development of the site is http://www.turistautak.hu, which is aiming at creating a downloadable digital map of all hiking trails (=turistautak) of the country from track logs. It has become a popular and usable map evolving day by day. Now it contains not only hiking trails but roads and streets as well.
The Association organizes two main events every year: one in spring the other in autumn. Cachers from all over the country take part in these one day competitions where 15 caches have to be found on foot in a small area before sunset. The first competition was in the spring of 2002 with 42 teams taking part, the tenth in autumn 2006 with 106 teams.
Hungarian style geocaching has these peculiarities: To log a find on the website you have to know the codeword of the cache, which appears in the logbook. Moving caches and virtual caches are allowed. You have to find 20 traditional, non-Budapest caches before you are allowed to place one. There are 12 hand picked moderators who have two days to vote on a new cache application. The cache must have four more yes votes than no votes to appear. But on the third day a simple majority of the yes votes is enough for the cache to become public.
The moderators are the same people as the members of the Association. So at present there are 12 members only. However anybody can be a supporting member if they pay a small fee of 3000 forint ($15) yearly. Supporting members are allowed to take part in polls and may voice their opinion at the annual assembly.
Statistics in April 2007: 1442 caches (out of which 101 are abroad, in neighboring countries), 205,000 logs, 5430 registered users, 306 members and supporting members.
Record holders: Freddy, who found 1877 caches (you can find moving caches more than once and there are archived caches too!). MikiCache, who placed 49 caches. First cache in Hungary: 24 June 2001: FakeCastle by Scepticx. Most found cache (882 times): Zero kilometer mark by Tyborg.
geocaching.ru
PodCacher "PodCaches"
In addition to providing weekly shows about Geocaching (see Community Sites), PodCacher has also created an new kind of cache: The PodCache. Audio clues are used to guide people towards hidden caches (with and without a GPS). Players can listen to clues on an MP3 or CD player and walk the route "live" that is being described in the audio. See this link for some examples of PodCaches created by several geocachers: PodCaches
Rejtekhely-vadászat Erdélyben
Geocaching in Transylvania, Romania. A Hungarian language website
Community sites:
PodCacher
A podcast all about Geocaching. Each week they deliver a free audio show that has news, tips and tricks, tools of the trade, caching stories, interviews, reviews, and much more. The high quality, family friendly shows may be played on any MP3 player, CD player or right on the computer.
Geocaching Organizations
Geocaching Hamburg
A german Site from Hamburg, Germany with Tipps for Geocaches, Software and news from around Hamburg
Houston GeoCaching Society
The local GeoCaching site for South East Texas. Forums, pictures, and great friends.
Historic sites:
www.triax.com/yngwie/gps.html
the original site; started May, 2000; now dead
geocachingworldwide.com
started Jun, 2001; now dead
geotreasures.com
started mid-2001; now dead
geogamer.com
started Jun, 2002; now dead
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