If you like treasure hunting or the Indiana Jones movies, then geocaching may be right up your alley. The treasure-hunting game has been around for more than a decade and is gaining an increasing number of devotees.
For the non-GPS-savvy like me who prefer paper maps, I found it a bit tricky plotting coordinates using a GPS device when my travel editor introduced the heavy handheld gadget to us a couple of years ago. But technology develops at a break-neck pace and now my company-sponsored smartphone comes with a GPS function, but I rarely use it.
But from now on, I have a good reason to be in-trend and high-tech by using the GPS app for fun and that might become my new hobby. And it's thanks to Jiri Pos, chairman and CEO of Prague's Vaclav Havel Airport, who introduced me and other delegates from Thailand to the geocaching game, hiding a treasure box inside the airport.
I call it a treasure box although it normally contains small gifts rather than valuables. The box, which is called a "geocache" or "cache", must be hidden in a public place for anyone to find by using GPS technology. Hence, geocaching is widely known as an outdoor treasure hunt.
The rules of the game are very simple _ take some stuff and leave some stuff. The items you leave should be equal to, or greater in value than the things you take so that other players can enjoy your "treasures" and the game can continue.
"It is a very popular game here and throughout Europe," said Pos while opening a geocache he hid in... well, I should not divulge the location out of respect to the players. It contains tokens celebrating the airport's new name, which changed on Oct 5 in honour of the late Czech president, Vaclav Havel, and other items from players who already took some tokens and left things like small dolls and other tokens. There is also a logbook and a pencil inside the box for players to record their names and what they have taken. Players can share their experiences on the website geocaching.com, one of the largest online geocaching communities.
According to the website, the game started in May 2000 when American computer consultant Dave Ulmer wanted to test the power of the GPS system. He decided to hide a geocache loaded with videos, books, software and even a slingshot then posted the GPS coordinates on a GPS user's website.
He called it "the Great American GPS Stash Hunt".
He did not have to wait long for interested parties to show up. Within three days two different internet users found the box and shared their experiences among the online community.
The news spread and encouraged others to follow suit. Some created geocaches while others became geocachers. All the online GPS posts were gathered into one website and called the "GPS Stash Hunt". Soon the term geocaching was coined and the geocaching.com website was set up.
Within five months of the game's introduction by Ulmer, there were 75 caching websites around the world.
Today there are more than five million players and almost two million geocaches hidden around the globe.
In Thailand, geocaches are hidden in many places and not only in cities like Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai, but also in remote provinces. Bangkok boasts an impressive list of geocaches. You can find treasure boxes in many places such as in the National Museum Bangkok, Thammasat University and BTS and MRT stations as well as public parks and temples. There might even be one near your home or workplace.
To play the game, you need to register your name on the website and then choose a geocache, which are categorised according to levels of difficulty, starting from basic levels to extreme levels which require special skills such as scuba diving or rock climbing.
There are also puzzle caches which require you to solve a conundrum in order to determine the GPS coordinates, or multi-caches in which you need to find a couple of caches before being able to locate the real box.
So next time you see someone scouring a BTS station, a car park or a temple ground, they might not be looking for their lost wallets or keys; they might be in the middle of a geocaching mission and about to find or hide a geocache.
Karnjana Karnjanatawe is a travel writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.