If hiking, treasure hunting and hide and go seek had a baby, it would basically be Geocaching, an adventurous phenomenon taking the outdoorsy types across the United States by storm.

The basic premise of Geocaching is that someone hides a container, called a geocache, and uploads the longitude and latitude of their hiding place to geocaching. com, where fellow geocachers can choose to search out the caches present at the coordinates.

Each cache is ranked in difficulty from one to five based on how difficult it is to get to and locate. Caches can be any closed container, from old ammo containers to Cool Whip tubs.

The caches contain all sorts of trinkets, from rings and bracelets to assorted playing cards and pictures. After finding the cache, and dive to the bottom of rivers in search of caches. According to the official geocaching website, over a million geocaches are currently active, with over 3 million you can take any of the trinkets you want, but you must leave something of greater or equal value in return.

After finding your geocache and receiving your treasure, you write your name on the log present in the cache, usually located on a clipboard. Once you are home, you can return to the website and upload your findings on an online log that states what cache you were after, where you found it and any treasures you may have left or taken.

Geocaching has experienced a huge boom in popularity largely thanks to its outdoorsy appeal. People everywhere are looking for fun and creative ways to exercise and Geocaching definitely fits the
bill.

The activity not only gives us an excuse to be outside for a few hours, but it even offers differing difficulty levels for different levels of exercise, allowing experienced Geocachers to scale rock walls geocachers searching for them.

If you are looking for a fun way to spend a nature-filled weekend, give geocaching a try and join the millions of other cachers in the hunt.