Looking for personalized GeocacheAlaska! merch? Always wanted a trackable shirt to wear to events?

Our storefront on Printify can now do individually personalized orders! Shirts and other gear can now be monogrammed with a name, geocaching handle, or even a trackable code! 

Tees, hoodies, hats, and other goodies can be printed-to-order with our logo and shipped straight to you.  Shirts are available in several styles and colors, and in a full range of sizes. More items will be added soon!

from the Geocaching Official Blog

Watch for upcoming GIFF events to be held in Alaska. Details will be announced soon!
Revisit the fun! Reruns of past GIFF years can be viewed on YouTube or on the official GIFF website. 

By: Emily Accipiter Stewart (eaccipi)

Over the weekend, I got to participate in my kid’s Cub Scout Campout. 27 kids aged 5- 10 all gathered for a weekend with their parents to sleep in a tent, shoot archery, try their hand at fishing (5 fish were caught!), and work on their knife skills for their Woodchip badge. All incredibly exciting things for a young kid. But they also got to find a geocache!

I’ve been involved in Pack 409 since it’s inception almost 3 years ago, and have brought my love of geocaching to the Pack – looking for an idea for a den meeting? Let’s go find the geocache in the park behind the school! Need to talk about practical use of technology? This is a GPS and how we use it to find designated coordinates. Good manners about give and take? Let’s talk about SWAG and how you can only take an item if you leave an item.  As we were planning the campout, we asked each Cub Scout to let us know three things they hoped we would do at the campout, and my geocaching heart was filled with joy at how many kids asked to have a geocache hidden.

That’s not the only programming with the youths of today – BirkenstockReport recently started a geocaching club at the high school they teach at – helping bring our game to a new cohort of players. Even at events I’m attending, I’m meeting young players who are in high school or freshly out who are excited to discover and join in a game many of us have been playing for a while. It’s exciting, and the enthusiasm they’re bringing makes me excited to go find caches too.

As Geocaching celebrates 25 years of finding things in the woods, it’s imperative that we continue to share our passions of the game with the younger folks today. Whenever I’m on a hike with kids, I casually mention there are geocaches on the trail. JagerBar’s friends who have hiked with me before eagerly start asking if we brought “the swag bag” along, and new hikers are introduced to the game. Here are some of my suggestions for sharing the game with new/young players:

• Casually ask if they want to find treasure on the trails. This always piques the interest of young kids.
• Let the kids hold your phone. While nerve-wracking, I always trust the kids in our Pack to hold my phone and follow the compass line. They get to practice seeing distance, looking for trails instead of going in a straight line, and the excitement of discovering it together.
• Keep a SWAG bag for them in your car. Mine is filled with unopened happy meal toys, cool items from tradeshows, and small items from the party section at  Walmart. Let the kids pick an item to hold at the beginning of the hike so they can decide if they want to trade it or keep it when caches are found.
• Focus on large geocaches. When I know I’ll be with kids, I only look for caches big enough to have trades – I remove micros and Other from my search parameters. While it’s fun for adults to find well-hidden and tricky caches, kids don’t seem to get the same enjoyment.
• Share it with the parents. I’ve got a little sheet that I’ll give the kids after a geocaching day that has a picture of the Geocaching app icon, the website, and a quick “this is what geocaching is” synopsis. When I see the parents (if they weren’t on the hike), I let them know their kid enjoyed the activity and it may be a great family bonding experience.

Thank you for sharing your geocaching passion with the future geocachers of tomorrow!

Emily Accipiter Stewart
eaccipi
President, GeocacheAlaska!

Upcoming Events:

September 30 – GCBCKBJ  School Year Coffee Series: Jittery in September (Eagle River)

September 30 – GCBBENQ Join Us For World Postcard Day & Earn A Souvenir Event Cache (Juneau)

October 4 – GCATKJ7  World Postcard Day & Stammtisch – Community Celebration Event (Achorage)

October 11 – GCBCBXK  Campbell Creek CITO – Cache In Trash Out® Event (Anchorage)

October 11 – GCBCVVW School Year Coffee Series: Chugiak October (Chugiak)

October 12 – GCBDB1T Meet & Greet from Anchorage Event Cache (Fairbanks)

October 13 – GCBDDC7  School Year Coffee Series: Indigenous Peoples’ Day (Anchorage)

November 21 – GCBB6CX  Team_Conway Visits Anchorage  (Anchorage)

Upcoming Souvenirs:

Cache In Trash Out® (CITO) 2025 – Season  September 1 – November 30 
      (attend a CITO event to qualify)

World Postcard Day – October 1
       (attend an event between September 28 and October 4 to qualify)

International Earthcache Day – October 10-12
      (log an Earthcache to qualify)

Adventure Day – October 17-19
      (log any 5 Adventure Lab locations to qualify)

Geocaching Intentional Film Festival (GIFF) – November 6-16

      (attend a GIFF event to qualify- details about upcoming GIFF events in Alaska will be announced soon!)

Celebrating 25 Years: no time limit

      (find all 5 treasures in “Celebrating 25 Years” Treasures collection to qualify)

For a full list of upcoming souvenirs, visit: 2025 Confirmed Souvenirs on the Geocaching Blog