High-tech tourists turn to geocaching

My boss actually pointed this article out to me this morning in the NB Business Journal. The original article can be read here. Looks like Saint John now has their own geocaching style tour which ends with with a SJ coin.

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Before going on vacation Rob Durdle does his homework.

But for Durdle searching through tourist guides for fun attractions and finding the cheapest hotels aren’t the most important parts. Instead he focuses on searching for hidden gems and usually stumbles across some beautiful, scenic views in the process.

Durdle is one of an estimated four to five million geocachers in the world.

Geocaching is a high-tech scavenger hunt where participants use a Global Positioning System receiver to find hidden boxes, some of which may lead the participant on an extended hunt while others may contain small prizes that can be kept or swapped.

Durdle says it’s a great way to discover a new area because it creates an incentive to explore.

“It’s fun to go hiking, but a lot of people struggle with it because there’s (often) no final destination,” he says.

“(Geocaching) is a fun, amazing thing to do which takes you to places you’ve never been before,” Durdle says excitedly.

Uptown Saint John Inc. is hoping a new geocaching-guided tour of the Port City’s historic peninsula will lure enthusiasts like Durdle to the city.

“You start at the Three Sisters Lamp and you are able to travel through the uptown with 10 stops,” says Craig Allen, a Saint John-based online marketing consultant that co-ordinated the project for Uptown Saint John. “It brings you to various parks, various historic buildings and so on.”

In the last box is a special Uptown Saint John geocaching coin, a local version of a hot collectors item among geocachers.

Saint John area resident Steve McLean designed the tour.

Players of the sport, some of whom compete for most caches found, are required to log found caches on geocaching.com and leave a comment if they want to get credit. If people like the Uptown Saint John caches and give them a good review, geocaching could be a way for the city to tap into a niche tourism market.

“Maybe we will gain a little recognition worldwide,” says Peter Asimakos, general manager of Uptown Saint John.

Because most smartphones now come with a built-in GPS receiver, and geocaching apps are available on most devices, Allen sees potential for the sport to attract new people.

There are more than 1.1 million geocaches hidden around the globe, which have been found almost 3.8 million times in the last 30 days, according to geocaching.com.

The grassroots game is popular among some cruise passengers. Durdle is currently planning a cruise trip to Greece around the best geocaching locations.

While not all geocachers are quite as fanatic as Durdle, he says many will travel for good caches hidden in scenic areas. As the head of the Maritime Geocaching Association he knows that hundreds of Atlantic Canadians travel around the region to play the game every year.

Though Durdle says most that try the high-tech scavenger hunt will likely already be in the city for other reasons, the uptown geocaching tour may attract some, especially return visitors since there are many others in the city particularly Rockwood Park.

“It’s an innovative way to experience the uptown area,” Allen says.

Geocaching courses cost very little to set up.

“That’s why it was kind of a no-brainer to do it,” Asimakos says. “It says that we’re kind of with it. We’re kind of on the cutting edge on what’s going on in the world from an Information technology point of view. And that speaks to our brand as a place.”