Free is good for now I would say. 40-50?? I would almost be willing to bet there some within blocks of your house. The first one I found was less then a block from mine. Infact now that I am into it there is one at my house. I would recomend a Garmin 60CSx for a hand held. But the others garmin make are good too. Like I suggested tho look for one that is "Caching Friendly" If you research it on the Garmin site and look at the info on them some will say geocaching friendly. Mainly if you feel you may do this regular go with something that you can upload "custom POIs" to. POI= Points of Interest. There are many options. Do you have a GPSr now? Anyway. If you have one like a garmin or tom tom you can probably input coords and still go search. Get the feel for it and go from there. remember at first it may be a pain but it will become easier and more addicting. Some get hard but on the "cache page" they are rated.1/1's are the easiest. 5/5's are the hardest. the first is the difficuly rating and the second number is the terrain rating. Start a free account. If you have a GPSr figure out what the coords are for your house and then input it to the site. It will then locate the caches near you and list them in the order of closest first. Anyway. I need to cruise. let me know how it turns out. Ill check back later.

 

I found my 19th today, and I haven't been more than 5 miles from my house.

 

Good for you Bill. I'm looking forward to my first.

 

I promised a review. Here it is.

I absolutely love this thing!!!

I got it on Friday and spent the day yesterday learning how to use it. It took me a couple of hours to transfer waypoints from my old Eagle Expedition to the Garmin 550. I did not have the ability to do it over a wire, so I had to type them in.

I was an early adopter of GPS technology. I guess I must have got it in 1999, because I have a deer kill site waypoint on it. Since I've had it I have logged most every big game kill site by myself and my hunting partners. Plus a lot of waypoints for ranch gates, roads, property owners, stock ponds, you name it. The point is, a GPS is very useful for a lot more than just Geocaching. If you hunt, fish, bike, hike or anything else in the great outdoors, you can use a GPS. Combine your GPS with a topo map, and you will always know where you are within a few yards.

Back to the Garmin 550. The electronic magnetic compass is amazing. It used to be that you always carried a compass with you in addition to your GPS. I have one strapped to the side of my old unit. The 550 has that built in. An old fashioned compass should still be part of your "10 essentials" because batteries can go dead.

The camera is better than I expected. No flash of course, but it is at least as good as some of the point and shoot cameras out there, and better than any cell phone camera I've ever seen.

It is a pricey unit, and you certainly don't need this to go geocaching. But if you want a touch screen unit, I think you will love the 550 as much as I do. If you don't need the camera, the Garmin 450 is the same unit without the camera.

 

Well went out geocaching today found 4 out of 8 tries, found one I have been trying to get to for 2 years, had to decipher a code first though.

 

Thanks for the review Bill. I am planning on getting the one with camera so I can shoot a pic or two of the trails I'm hiking. Just got some money owed to me so I'm using it on this unit. Again......... thank you.

 

I think it is awesome to see you all caching. See (I tell myself) I am not the only nut out here..LOL Anyway.. made it to 601 finds today. I am now shooting for 1000finds.. If anyone is interested there is an event tommarrow in Riverside. Myself and my family are goiing to try to attend. Would be kewl to meet some of you all out there. The event code is GC22YR0.. You will see my Big Blue (dirty)Beast there. It aint much but it gets me around. Oh and its dirty from caching out in the mud. Oh too much fun.. anyway.. Hope to see you all out there.

 

I think you'll like it, Serg. Every photo you take with the unit will automatically have the coordinates embedded in the picture tag. You can also attach a photo to any waypoint, so you will have a coordinate record as well as a photographic record of a place.

I could bring it to the G2G if you are interested. You'll probably already have yours by then.

 

I sure hope to have it by then Bill. It's the 500t ?

 

No, mine is a Garmin Oregon 550. The also have the 550T which includes topo maps for North America. The "T" model is about $100 more and I don't need topo maps. They can be added later if I change my mind.

I bought it at Amazon. No tax, and free shipping.
Amazon.com: Garmin Oregon 550 3-Inch Handheld GPS Navigator with 3.2MP Digital Camera: Electronics

 

Thanks for the link Bill, I just ordered it.

 

Cool. Let us know what you think.

 

I just recieved my 550 T I ordered and love it so far. I ordered from
The GPS Store, Inc. Garmin GPS Systems, Magellan, TomTom and Accessories

 

I will for sure.

 

For Keith and Serg, check out the knowledge base here:
Garmin Oregon Wiki - home

The one gripe with Garmin is that their manuals suck. Even the disk and online versions. But the site above fills in the gaps.