Some people ask me “So who actually places these things out there for you to find?” Part of geocaching is not only finding caches but also hiding them.  I like to tell new cachers don’t hide a cache until you have found around 100 caches- that way you have seen enough hides to know what works & what doesn’t.  I always love to hear about the new cacher who breaks every rule with their first hide just because of inexperience.  Would you try driving a motorcycle just because you you can ride a tricycle?

For those who don’t geocache I appreciate your patience, hopefully you are learning something and you might want to try it out.  Geocaching is free- fine, you need a GPS (the iPhone has a app for that) and a basic membership so you can start logging caches.  And for the beginner that is about it.  The basic membership gives you a few hundred thousand caches to choose from.  As you start expanding your geocaching there might be other things you want to do and that is where the Premium Membership comes into play.  There are some cool things that you can do with a premium membership including placing caches that only premium members can see.  Why would someone do that?  The basic reason is to make sure the cache doesn’t get taken.  If you spend a bunch of time on creating a geocache then you wouldn’t want it to go missing.

The Curmudgeon is cheap… Membership for a year costs about the same amount as what I spend on comic books in a month (OK- two weeks).  As I always say- the curmudgeon strips are based on real events in the crazy world of geocaching.  In this case a non-premium member tried to place a cache next to a premium member cache.  He didn’t know, and if it was me I would have just moved on.  We know the Curmudgeon- he didn’t.  He found a new location and then blasted the reviewers and premium members in the cache description.  It was kind of funny.  I’m thinking of finding a copy of “How to win friends & influence people” and place it in his cache… but I took the high road and made a comic strip making light of the situation instead… oh, and cachers around Indiana might recognize the enforcer’s legs 😉