Geocaching Milestones: Celebrating Your Accomplishments

Although this was covered in a recent podcast, I thought I would write a little article about milestones for our readers who don’t listen to the monthly podcasts.

The word milestone is usually used to define a specific point that someone has reached. Originally, it was literally a marker on the side of a road that said you had travelled a mile. However, since then, the term milestone has been used mark specific points of interest when someone has achieved something. Your first date, getting your driver’s license, graduating high school, getting married, having a kid, retiring, etc. Each milestone marks a specific event or point in time that seems to have significance. So even with geocaching, we find ourselves marking milestones in our history.

The first milestone obviously is the very first geocache you ever find. This is a major point for any new geocacher as it signifies the start on what could be a long journey to reaching a much higher number.

Then you hit 100 finds, then 500, and then perhaps 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, and beyond. Each milestone finds yourself looking back at the amount of caches you have found since you began.

So for some people, milestones are an even greater importance. The hitting of 1,000 finds is often thought of as a major milestone as it shows you have gone beyond just the occasional geocacher to someone who is indeed interested in continuing with the sport. Someone doesn’t go out and find 1,000 geocaches because they are bored. They find them because they want to.

For some, the celebration of the first 1,000 finds is about finding a very special geocache to mark as your milestone. Instead of a parking lot micro, you may make your 1,000 find milestone a nice hike, or a spectacular view, or some other significant geocache that can be marked as a milestone. For me, oddly enough it was in fact a guardrail cache in PEI. My fellow cachers on our trip took a photo of me at the location and it marked my 1,000^th find. It was pretty cool.

But after 1,000, it seems milestones tend to be less important until you start hitting much higher numbers like 5,000 or 10,000 finds. Some folks will indeed purchase milestone geocoins which mark their accomplishment with a nice coin and pin. Others might even have an event or just go out with a special group to mark the occasion. And lastly, many will simply just not care that they have passed a certain amount of finds as milestones are of little to no interest to them at all.

How about you? Have you celebrated any of your milestones with a special geocache, picture, coin, or other item?