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+6 votes
7.0k views
Describe your first find.
in Miscellaneous by Pip1704 (1.5k points)
Unser erster Cache war am 11.04. 2012
Wir waren mit Sehr guten Freunden, Olav und Marion, den ganzen Tag unterwegs um uns zu zeigen was Geocaching ist.
Wir waren so begeistert das wir am Abend ein eigenen Account gegründet haben Minos2003 und wanderten im dunkeln zu dem nächsten Cache vom unserem Wohnort eine alte Lock .
Ein großen Dank an unseren Freunde Marion und Olav  & TeamOlma , die uns zu diesem tollen Hobby bei gebracht haben.
Minos2003 Sigi und Heinz

52 Answers

+3 votes
It was Memorial Day weekend 2009 and I went out to visit some friends who lived about an hour away from me at the time. We hit the bars on Friday night and while out I mentioned this new thing that I'd heard of called geocaching. One of my friends was intrigued, so the next day we decided to go look for one.

We went to the website and looked up the nearest cache, which happened to be a 4-stage multi in a cemetery! So we wrote down all the info for every stage and then took my car's GPS, as that was the only device we had available, and then walked a few blocks to the site.

The challenge turned out to be much easier than expected, because we immediately found "stage 3" as soon as we got there. The clue had mentioned a last name and him being a Korean War vet. Well, pretty much the first grave we saw had that last name and a little plaque about the Korean War, so we just assumed that was the correct one and went right to Stage 4. We were in fact correct and then found a plastic bag in a tree, which had a piece of paper in it that had been signed by a handful of people, so we assumed that was the cache. It was pretty underwhelming as far as the actual "container", and we had basically skipped the whole puzzle, but somehow still found it enjoyable enough to continue caching.
by ZeekLTK (300 points)
edited by ZeekLTK
+2 votes

I got a Bluetooth GPS-Mouse for my Sony K850 mobile phone on my birthday and i registered on the website.. One day after i found the first cache. It was a little marmelade glass on an abandoned railway yard, hidden in one part of the old infrastructure. I had exact coordinates, so the find was easy.. But i forgot to bring a pen so i had to leave a special item in the glass. But i signed the logbook the other day..

So i am a (smart)phone cacher from the beginning.. wink (Well i got a pair of GPS receivers since then, but actually i prefer my Galaxy Note 3)

by NoobNader (Expert) (15.9k points)
+2 votes
Our first find was Sheffield Tramrider #2 - Entertaintment Central. C was working at the indoor athletics stadium in Sheffield and her geocaching friend introduced her to geocaching - we both found this cache (a classic 35mm film canister) before working that day, plus a second which has since been archived. Logged them both when we created our profile 5 days later and found our third cache, and the 5 intervening no-find days are the longest non-cache streak we've ever had, as we've been finding ever since.
by GCZ Team (22.0k points)
+2 votes
We started geocaching during our honeymoon. So we found our first cache on the Seychelles. It was hidden on an old graveyard, which apparently hasn't been used for decades, so nature had taken over control and the graveyard was completely overgrown. (http://coord.info/GC208KY)
by tadaima (12.5k points)
+2 votes

My wife is awful at map-reading so she gave me a GPS for Christmas 2000 (cheaper than a divorce)!  It was a gamin eMap which I only used in the car to start with. I read about geocaching in early 2001 and liked the idea but the very few caches within 30 miles of me were in areas closed to the public due to Foot and Mouth disease. 

I finally remembered about geocaching in the Summer and we went to find our first cache which was https://coord.info/GCBE3 (The Queens Oak, which is still active).  That was on 1st September 2001, roughly a 30 mile drive from home. We weren't sure what to expect but loved the experience so much that we went out to find our second cache on the next day (which was still unfound after 7 days since it was placed).  

Caches were a long way apart at that time with about 20 caches within a 30 mile radius of home in Southern England. In the early days we used to print every new cache page in England just in case we went anywhere near it, which lasted until we filled a lever-arch file and the number of new caches exploded

by The Wombles (3.5k points)
+1 vote
After I installed the geocaching software,
 I was amazed at how many caches were hidden in the immediate vicinity.
My first find was a petling near a church here in my hometown .

That was the initial spark , and I worked my way of Tradi to Tradi
and was absolutely excited , when I use the cache ( often only after a long search )
then found eventually .
The feeling of joy when a Fund has remained and so the search continues ...

by Spasskaiser (700 points)
+1 vote
Well I am surprised when I read this question i thought back to what I thought was my first cache, turns out it was actually a different one.

I had heard of Geocaching many years before but only discovered the Geocaching Australia website which at the time was quite difficult to use, and after two failed attempts at looking for caches without any sort of device beyond a paper print out, and best guesstimate on the map, it was finally in Feb 2013 I found Geocaching.com, I signed up registered for premium and downloaded the paid app. went out and found my first cache. Followed by four more for the day. The bug had bitten :)

Joel - OrionJ
by OrionJ (510 points)
+1 vote

It was in the days, when there was no geocaching software (early 2007) no "smart" "phones" and not so many caches all over the world. If I remember well, I went for a cache on the way from school. I had that (now old) Palm handheld with external Bluetooth GPS and it took some minutes to sync all the information with the GPS satellites and to have accuracy of 10 meters. This is how they looked like:

 

Then you also printed the whole listing write the GPS coordinates to the device and went out for the cache. At this time I had no idea what I was searching for, but I somehow succeeded. It was in the suburbs of my city in the woods and under the rocky hill.

And I do that ever since.

by Jakuje (Moderator) (117k points)
+1 vote
My first find was a mystery (field puzzle) found on 25th december. After family supper five of us went to the local park. Only one of us had an account at gc.com. We were walking through the alleys of the park and changing directions on crosroads to the specific azymut. After aobout 20 minutes of walking we found final container. Most of us get own account after this first find. Since that I found over 1000 caches (2,5 years).
by Miszczus (2.6k points)
+1 vote

Technically my first find was a Traditional on an old lost place grave yard. I was still a muggle and just accompanied a former coworker and experienced geocacher, because I was interested and heard some stories about geocaching from him. So we went to the old grave yard in the darkness with some torch lights and had to search for quite a long time until we finally found a 35mm film container. I didn't sign the logbook back then, so I never logged this cache online.

It took some more months until I decided to try geocaching on my own and created my account in 2011. I didn't own a GPSr or smartphone at this time, so I looked at the GC map and chose a near-by easy cache. In the end I found it just with the help of the satellite picture smiley This was GC21HRD.

I continued finding some more caches this way until I finally bought my first GPSr laugh

by NamelessGuy (3.0k points)
+1 vote

My first find was the Traditional " GCMV3C - Ruine Georgenberg" in Goslar, Germany.

I made the found together with another cacher during a congress. The special was, I had previously not heard of Geocaching and so she introduced me into this game. After that I was addicted to the game ;-).

by Torsten007_Urmel (6.1k points)
+1 vote
Had a GPS from our K9 Search and Rescue team and wanted to see what this geocaching thing was all about. Our first find was back in 2003 at Walt Disney World in FL. Yep, back when they had caches in the parks. It was at Epcot in Norway. Hidden in the awning of the Stave Church. Very little information other than the dot on the GPS map and what we remembered reading on the page before we left. That was enough to get us addicted.
by TrendyMagic (1.7k points)
+1 vote

In 2008 my friend told me he was "geocaching". I ignored this new Hype, but some month later I printed out 5 listings! for a 2 weeks holiday in the Black Forest. Now I never start in holidays without 2000 downloaded listings. Well, 2008 it was a nice experience and we found all 5 caches. GCYE0P was the first one.

by nico63 (590 points)
+1 vote
When taking my dog for a walk with friends, they noticed the oldest cache in the Netherlands was closeby. They showed me how to find it and I was hooked
by HFEuroFry (220 points)
+1 vote
My first find was just a simple Tradi, GC17T0K, I did it with in a youth group and then decided to sign up at geocaching. This decision ended up in addiction and nearly 4000 finds until now ;)
by Flep98 (1.1k points)
+1 vote
My housemate had started caching a year and a half earlier and asked me one day if I'd like to try it with him. It sounded interesting, so we went out armed with some printouts of the cache pages and an old-school GPSr. The first one we went to was rated as difficulty 1 and was definitely not underrated - there was a bunch of rocks arranged in the shape of a giant arrow pointing straight at the cache. We did five different caches that day and my interest was piqued.

I gathered over 100 caches over the course of the next year, but then dropped away from the hobby. I found out that a workmate was into caching a couple of years ago and he told me about the August souvenirs that were happening. I achieved all seven souvenirs within the last week of the month and decided to try for a streak after hearing that another workmate had done a year-long one. I only maintained that original streak for two and a half weeks, but restarted after the day I missed to go for 2/3 of a year. I've currently almost reached that length streak again...
by sumbloke (Expert) (35.1k points)
+1 vote
Our first find was in Epcot at Walt Disney World. Yep they had physical caches in the parks back in the day! The cache was located in the eaves of the Stave Church at the Norway pavilion.
by TrendyMagic (1.7k points)
+1 vote
Officially I was a "friendly" muggle when I found my first geocache, but it caused me to get a premium membership, buy a GPSr and start geocaching.  On 17 March 2011 nine men who are good friends and one "brave" wife went to the Grapevine Mills Mall just outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport for dinner at the Food Court.  As the mall began closing down for the evening, "Two Bears" said, "Well we have an hour to kill before the shuttle comes to take us back to the hotel.  I wonder if there's a cache in the parking lot?"  My reply to him was, "A what?"  In no time we were off to find my first geocache.  In fact several of us had never found a cache before.  It was along the perimeter of the parking lot of the mall (close to a hedge).  As we approached ground zero I noticed a sheriff (with his vehicle running) nearby keeping a close eye on the bank on the other side of the hedge.  He rolled down his window and looked our way.  When we made eye contact I shrugged my shoulders, lifted my hands up in the air and said, "geocaching?"  He nodded and went back to his surveillance.  Sure enough, we found the cache and I have been caching actively ever since!
by Go-pher-It (1.0k points)
+1 vote
In the summer of 2004 I had heard a number of friends talk about geocaching during the previous two summers and now finally convinced my wife that this was something that would fit us. Thus, we went and bought a $150 GPS (this was way before smartphones) and went out looking for one of the caches closest to our house and didn't find it. So we looked for another and didn't find that. We made a third attempt at a nearby multicache and managed to find that, and were hooked.

Later on we have managed to find both the two initially DNF:ed caches (which were if not missing at least displaced when we were there the first time) and the multi we started with is still active, 12+ years later!
by pinkunicorn (Moderator) (197k points)
+1 vote
I first found out about geocaching through a phone call at work. Someone reported finding some discarded ordnance on Dartmoor and the only location reference they could give was that it was so many metres from geocache such-and-such. That led me to look at the website and later that day I downloaded the app and was amazed at how many of these 'geocache' things there were in Exeter.

The next day I went on a family riverside picnic and on the way home we made a small diversion to try to find my first one - it ended up being an easy find of a golden-painted container hidden in the corner of a local park. That was three and a half years and 1200 caches ago. It didn't take many more find after that first one to get me completely hooked!
by CaoimheBaxter6 (530 points)
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