In short, geocaching – we have refused to invent an equivalent word in Euskera – is an activity that aims to find hidden treasures or cache using GPS technology. To participate you need to enter www.geocaching.com and create an account; once done, you will have at your disposal the coordinates of the hides from all over the world.

You will not have to go far, because almost all Europeans live very close to a geocache. For example: Around the computer where these words have been written, there are 729 hiding places. There are two and a half million caches in the world, in 180 countries, and there are already ten million people targeted geocaching.com.

It all started in 2000, thanks to a decision by the US Government. Until then, the use of GPS technology was limited through the so-called Selective Accessibility. Basically, Selective Availability consisted of intentional degradation of the GPS system signal in order to reduce the accuracy of coordinates received by civil users. It was a measure taken on behalf of the security of the United States: the military did not want to facilitate the work of potential terrorists. Ejem.

Washington had already announced that by 2006 it would eliminate Selective Accessibility; finally, it did so on 2 May 2000. The news sparked great joy among groups of fans of GPS use, which also exists, and one of them, Dave Ulmer, wanted to measure the accuracy of the system. On May 3 he kept a cube in a forest near his house, with several objects inside, and wrote the coordinates on a GPS web, as well as throwing the challenge of finding the “treasure”.

Three days later, two people had come to Ulmer's Cube. A month later, at the end of May, the word geocaching was already invented, and in September of that same year the web was opened. In addition to the location of the cache around the world, they will offer an app for use on mobile phones – you don’t have to worry about buying a device to receive the GPS signal – and by the way, they have containers of different shapes and sizes available for sale. Some are easy to find, others look for camouflage, from mushroom shaped to the caracol shell. But the nicest thing is to grow your own.

Whether they hide or search engines, of course, you can play with them. Once a hidden container is located, remember to notify the website. Do not forget to sign on the page you will find in it. Some of them bring in simple objects inside. If you want to take one, but if you do, I ask you to reward yourself with another. Other information in www.geocaching.com.