 Do you own a B&B, guest house, cottage or hotel in South Shropshire? If so then you should be cashing in on the phenomena that is Geocaching.
So, what is Geocaching? Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.
Take a look at this short video by www.geocaching.com, which does an expert job of explaining:
Pretty interesting stuff!
There’s also a longer introductory explanation about items, hiding places, what to wear and more at https://hobbyhelp.com/geocaching/
Shropshire’s Great Outdoors website recently published some of the spectacular walking routes in the Geocaching directory, which you can see here:Â http://www.shropshiresgreatoutdoors.co.uk/walking/geocaching/
Promoting Geocaching in Shropshire Hills
I was introduced to Geocaching by Nigel McDonald from the Shropshire Hills AONB who has been participating in this exciting treasure hunting game for many years now. Nigel passionately believes that there is an opportunity for tourism in Shropshire to benefit from promoting itself to this vibrant, dynamic and expansive community. I asked Nigel what advice he has for businesses wishing to cash in on this high tech treasure hunting world. Here are his top tips:
- Use the caches that are already there – too much competition to put out more;
- Try caching for themselves – pick the best ones with best feedback;
- Get to know local cachers;
- Monitor caches in your area – especially popular ones;
- Include content about caches on their websites/sowsch etc;
- Use the press to raise the profile and bloggers to raise profile (as you are);
- Consider putting together a caching event using existing sites – cache festival? ;
- Provide cache swaps, possibly even gps and advice/guidance/itinerary to visitors who want to try it (Garmin Etrex H less than £50 now on Ebay) Garmin 20 available for £80-90 retail;
- Cachers will bring their own tablet/mobileplatforms but need wifi (ideally, as service is V iffy on 3G) If you’ve got wifi – mention it with respect to geoCACHING;
- Cachers attract/talk to other cachers – there is a whole social side to this that is underground, like a covert facebook for cachers.
Louise Welsby
