What: Geo-Challenge
Where: Kick Off Event at Fort Yargo State Park, but the Challenge is in most Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites
When: Official Launch is May 8, but the program is ongoing
Cost: Free (but a parking pass at each park is generally $5, check out a free family pass at any Georgia Library branch, not just Fulton (as the linked post says)

Over the holidays, my family and I went geocaching on Jekyll Island. It was a bumpy beginning, but once we got started, it was a lot of fun for the entire family and we discovered areas of Jekyll we wouldn’t have visited otherwise. If you aren’t familiar with geo-caching, it’s a sort of treasure hunt, where participants use a GPS system to find boxes filled with trinkets. Participants take a trinket from the box and leave one of their own. Some boxes contain stamps for participants to collect similar to a passport.

I’m pretty pumped for the new Geo-Challenge program at Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites. The challenge is to find one or all of the 42 caches statewide using a GPS unit and stamp your passport. Passports can be obtained from any state park or downloaded from www.GeorgiaState Park.org. The park service is awarding custom Geo-coins for various levels of completion. To see what the box looks like and what you can find, check out the Field Trips with Sue CBS Better Mornings Segment.

Although geocaching is fun anytime, getting in on the front end of a program like this gives you an opportunity to find real prizes and unique items. In addition to the coins, the park service has more incentives including:

First to Find!
Be the very “FTF” a GSP cache and pick up the prize, an overnight campsite from Georgia State Parks. Then record your achievement in the cache box logbook as your proof of discovery. Stamp your Passport with the cache stamp and return it the way you found it for the next person to discover.

Find The Volunteer Gopher!
Be one of the lucky few to find a Georgia State Parks Stuffed Gopher, randomly hidden in caches throughout the state. Everyone has a chance to find one of the 10 collectable Volunteer Gophers. Keep him or trade him down the line, the choice is up to the player.

The Travel Gopher Challenge!
Help the GSP or HS “Traveling Gopher” travel around our great country! If you find a Travel Gopher in a cache you can elect to remove it and take it with you to the next cache you visit (this must be done in a timely manner, generally within two weeks) or you can choose to leave it for the next player. If you decide to take the Travel Gopher with you, please drop it in another cache, and record the travel information on Geocaching.com’s trackable page. Have fun “watching and tracking” the Travel Gopher around the country and get instant notifications of its movement!