Geocaching- Katrina Martin
Geocaching
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is essentially an outdoor treasure-hunting activity, enjoyed by both adults and children. Geocachers use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek “caches”, anywhere in the world. There are millions of geocaches in around 200 countries worldwide, waiting to be discovered. Geocaching is a great excuse to get outside and enjoy the landscapes around you, whether rural or urban.
‘Didn’t realise this nature reserve existed! Beautiful place and a beautiful day to wander about. Thanks for the cache.’
Geocaching on Somerset Wildlife Trust reserves
Our nature reserves are first and foremost a safe place for wildlife to live and thrive. Many of our nature reserves have fragile ecosystems or wildlife that can be disturbed by recreational activity, so we ask people to explore and enjoy our nature reserves responsibly following our visitor guidelines: https://www.somersetwildlife.org/reserve-safety
We welcome responsible geocachers on many of our reserves, including “Adventure labs” which are fully digital treasures hunts with activities and interactive challenges to help you get the most of your visit.
More information
Can I hide a cache on reserve?
You must have permission to place a geocache on ANY Somerset Wildlife Trust reserve.
We will take steps to remove any caches placed without permission. We also ask that you kindly seek permission before starting any new “Adventure labs”. We expect all caches placed on our reserves to be considerate of our reserves and the wider environment (for example avoiding the use of plastics or flyaway materials), and appropriately maintained.
We operate a traffic light system: Red sites are where caches cannot be installed, Amber sites where caches can only be placed by the Trust and Green where caches can be laid by anyone as long as they meet the national standard requirements -provided at https://www.geocaching.com/play/guidelines - and you have secured permission from the Trust.
If you would like to install a new adventure or cache, please check the guidelines and get in touch.
Why have you removed some of the caches?
In 2023 we took the decision to remove all physical caches that were owned and managed directly by Somerset Wildlife Trust.
Many of these caches had been placed as part of a fixed-term project, and were never intended to be permeant fixtures. Volunteers kindly continued to manage them after the projects ended, but the maintenance was becoming increasingly demanding for both staff and volunteers.
We were also concerned about the disturbance and damage that physical caches were causing on a number of our nature reserves. Even responsibly placed caches still add an unnatural object to the environment (which can get lost or broken) and can unintentionally encourage trampling off path.
As an alternative we are looking to introduce several new Adventure Labs to our sites. Adventure labs is a new kind of digital-only Geocaching which enables us to create interactive challenges and rich engagement with the wildlife on our reserves.
How do I get started?
To get started, create a free basic account and use www.geocaching.com or the free Geocaching® app to search for caches. Not only are the coordinates of containers online, geocaches can share their finds and experiences there too and there’s lots of handy information and FAQs for beginners to help you get going.
The Geocaching Association of Great Britain (GAGB) has a very useful website with lots of information and useful tips on it too.
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