WESTERN MASS. – Summer has officially arrived in New England. Typically this time of year brings summer vacation, families heading to the beach, kids swimming in pools and playing in splash parks, and a host of other outdoor activities enjoyed by many.

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the sense of summer vacation has been lacking as schools shuttered in March, pools remain closed and large gatherings are still prohibited. Since the warm weather began, I, like everyone else, began craving my usual summertime activities: drinks with friends, pool days and our seasonal trip to Cape Cod where we eat seafood for a week and lay on the beach.

While I’ve begun to intentionally spend more time outside, I am also actively seeking out activities that allow me and my husband to spend more time outside while still safely social distancing. Rediscovering and learning new outside activities and hobbies led me to find geocaching again. While I have a vague memory of learning about geocaching in high school, I hadn’t thought about it in years. Once I re-discovered the activity though, I was hooked and had a ton of fun remembering how addictive it was.

The best way to describe geocaching is a giant scavenger hunt that you can do at your own pace and people across the world participate in. The objective of geocaching is to find boxes, also known as caches, that people have hidden in public places. The caches can be hidden in trees, bushes, parks, guard rails, lamp posts and even traffic signs on the side of the road. One of the cardinal rules of geocaching is that the cache must be hidden in a public place and you shouldn’t wander onto private property.

One of the coolest parts of geocaching is they can be disguised as almost anything and found by people of all ages. It’s also free and easy to get started! The first day I decided to go geocaching I took my dog, my husband and my mother-in-law. We thought worst case scenario, we go for a drive and a walk, but best case, we might find something cool. I downloaded the app, which is just called Geocaching and can also be accessed online at geocaching.com, and off we went.

The app and website, when accessed, will show you all of the geocaches hidden in your area, it will give you hints if they’re available, give you directions to the cache, and show a log of those who say they’ve found the cache and their comments. The app and website will lead you to the area where the cache is hidden, based on the coordinates provided by the cache creator, but it’s still up to you to search the area and find it.

The day we went geocaching, our first stop took us to Heritage Park in East Longmeadow, where we were able to locate two caches in walking distance of one another.

One of the most fun and creative parts of geocaching is that while caches are all hidden to some extent, some have been disguised to blend in with their surroundings. For example, one of the caches we found the day we went was hidden in a hide-a-key rock with fake moss glued to it. Had I not been intentionally looking for something just slightly out of place, I would have walked right past it and overlooked it.

Other ways caches can be disguised is with camouflage tape, covered in leaves, under logs and sometimes even in water.

While caches always blend in with their surroundings, they don’t always resemble nature. We found a total of five caches the day we went searching and only two of them resembled wildlife. Caches can also be tiny little magnetic devices that are the size of a bullet or smaller, they can be a magnetic hide-a-key stuck to a guard rail and even just a plastic bag hidden under the skirt of a lamp post in a parking lot.

Caches always consist of a log, where people can leave their initials and the date they discovered it, but sometimes there are also trinkets or “swag” as it’s called in the geocaching community. Swag are items left behind by those who have previously found the cache, or the creator of the cache. The trinkets left in the box are always up for grabs to take home with you, however, another unspoken rule in geocaching is that if you take some you should leave something of equal or greater value behind. Of course you don’t have to take something if you just wanted to leave a little trinket behind. Both leaving swag behind and replacing what you take, ensures that there’s a constant flow of trinkets for people to choose from.

Another fun item that can sometimes be found inside caches are trackable items. Trackables are physical items that can move from geocache to geocache. They resemble a coin, a tag, t-shirt or a variety of other items. What’s cool about trackable items are that you can see where they’ve been, whether they’re simply traveling across Western Massachusetts or across the country, it’s a fun way to see how many people have participated in geocaching.

Another great way to participate in geocaching is to create your own cache or purchase a trackable to put inside of a cache. Instructions on how to do both can be found on the geocaching website. If you don’t want to go geocaching in the rain, you could get the family together to decorate a cache, create a log, gather some swag to put inside and hide it as a family. While you don’t need to purchase a trackable or create your own geocache to participate in geocaching, it is a fun option to have.

The best part about geocaching is that there are caches hidden all over the country. So if you’re feeling cooped up and wanting to get out on a nice summer day you can grab the family, hop in the car and start searching. A couple other things to keep in mind are to be discrete, you don’t want to give away the cache’s location to others that might be looking for it, and to always leave the cache in the same spot you found it. If the cache was camouflaged with sticks or covered by leaves, you should put those back as well and if you’re feeling ambitious add a few extra sticks or leaves to the pile covering it.

The only item really required to participate in geocaching is a pen to sign the log once you’ve found the cache you’re looking for. The day my family and I went hunting for caches was a very warm, sunny day, so we also brought sunblock, hats and water bottles. While you don’t have to wear sneakers, it’s recommended as you might have to walk into some brush or into a tree-line to find a cache.

The app and website can be accessed for free, however there is a small fee if you want to find caches that are above a level two difficulty. I haven’t paid the fee, as I want to work through the dozens of geocaches that are free and a low-level difficulty before upgrading to the more difficult finds. The upgraded access also gives users access to trails maps for off-road geocaching, allows users to download maps to use offline and search caches with filters they may not have access to otherwise. Personally, I have not searched for a particular cache as I am just working my way through ones closest to my home at the moment. However, should one choose to upgrade it’s pretty inexpensive. Users can upgrade to premium for a monthly fee of $5.99 or by paying for the cost of a year’s membership upfront for $30.