The World Is Ending

It must be...I am actually spending money. Not a lot mind you, but I am spending.

Mainly my spending has been centered around my geocaching hobby. Geocaching is a relatively cheap hobby, once you get a GPSr. However, like anything you can put some money into it and get more out of it or make it a tad easier. For example, my purchases:

Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx ($260) - While you can geocache without a GPSr unit (using Google Maps) it is a lot easier with a GPSr unit. BTW, I found my first 40 caches using Google Maps only. I still use Google Maps when I want to ge an overview of an area before I get there.

Bike mount for my GPSr ($20)- With the price of gasoline going up, I have been getting on my 10+ year old Trek 930 a lot more. Having the bike mount, while not necessary, help keeping butterfingers me from dropping my expensive unit on the pavement. Call it "insurance"

Premium Geocaching Membership ($30/year) - While this is not needed, you do get some features that the free membership does not offer, like custom cache queries e-mailed to you, access to members only caches (usually really nice ones!), online bookmarks, national tracking of stats, real time notification of newly published caches, and one I am dying to try out, "Caches along a route". This feature will allow you to put in two areas (lets say Dallas and Waco) and get a listing of all the caches along that route. Nice when you are day tripping or vacationing and want to incorporate some geocaching into the trip.

PDA (previously purchased) - Again, not needed because you can always print up the cache sheets and take them with you. The upside to using a PDA (if you have one) is that you are not wasting paper or ink. The downside is that you can damage your PDA on the trail if you drop it. The other plus to using paper is that if you have your notes on a clipboard, you look official and people (muggles) tend to leave you alone :) .

Software (varies) - What good is a computer or PDA without software? While there are free ways to get your cache sheets to your PDA (Windows or Palm), they are not as user friendly as the paid stuff. You know me...I am a freeware junkie. I won't pay for something unless I think it serves my purposes better than the free stuff. I am testing "Cachemate" for my Palm T|E and so far it looks like a winner. It is shareware but it only costs $8. It allows me to convert and export the geocaching gpx (and loc) files to my Palm and allows me to go paperless.

I do use a free app to send the gpx and loc files to my GPSr but it is limited on what it can do. I don't mind all that much since I only really need it to transfer the wapoints to my Garmin.

So it looks like my initial investment is about $318. Not bad, really. Now that does not count gasoline or any supplies that I may purchase when I make caches to hide (more on that in another post) but that is about all I have to spend. Most of the other stuff people have if they hike (pack, first aid kit, flashlight, etc) or if you only want to do urban caching, you don't need it.

Compare the cost of geocaching to any other hobby. If you golf, you know you spent more than $300 and you still have to pay green fees and buy new balls all the time. And if you scrapbook...well we all know that will get expensive very quickly! Looking back at my choices, I could have saved a few bucks and got a less expensive (they start at $100) unit, but I wanted two things...ruggedness and sensitivity...and this was the cheapest unit to offer both.