Geocaching dictionary

Here's a glossary of geocaching terms, courtesy of Groundspeak Inc.

Cache: In geocaching, it's a hidden container filled with a logbook and pencil/pen and possibly prizes. Caches often were used by explorers, miners and others to hide foodstuffs and other items for emergency purposes. People still hide caches of supplies today for similar reasons.

CITO (Cache In, Trash Out): Picking up trash along the way to and from a cache.

FTF (First To Find): The first person to find and log a cache.

Geocoin: Introduced in 2002, a geocoin is a collectible coin created by geocachers or geocaching organizations that can be tracked on www.geocaching.com. The geocoin becomes a hitchhiker carried from cache to cache (or person to person), picking up stories and images along the way. There are hundreds of unique coin styles out there, each representing a unique geocacher, group, association, state or country.

Geomuggle: A nongeocacher. Based on "Muggle" from the Harry Potter series, which is a nonmagical person. Usually this term is used when a nongeocacher looks puzzled as a geocacher makes circles with his or her GPS receiver, or when a nongeocacher accidentally finds a cache. Geomuggles are mostly harmless.

GPS (Global Positioning System): A network of satellites that works with a GPS receiver to determine your location on the planet. Geocaching uses GPS to help hide-and-seek caches.

Hitchhiker: An item placed in a cache with instructions to travel to other caches. Sometimes they have logbooks so you can log their travels. A Travel Bug is an example of a hitchhiker.

Letterboxing: Similar to geocaching, but you use a series of clues to find a container. Once you find the container (or letter box), you take a carved stamp from the box and stamp your personal logbook. You then take your carved stamp and stamp the letterbox's logbook.

Spoiler: Information that can give details away and ruin the experience of something. For example, telling someone the end of a movie before they see it. In geocaching, a spoiler gives away details of a cache location and can ruin the experience of the hunt.

Travel Bug: A Travel Bug is a hitchhiker, another trackable item.

Virtual cache: Adapted from "virtual reality." Virtual means "nothing physical there," so a virtual cache means there is no cache container — the location itself is the cache. Nothing is normally traded, except photos and experiences.

Waypoint: Named coordinates representing points on the surface of the earth. Geocaching uses a suggested waypoint for a cache, created automatically when a cache has been created.

— From www.geocaching.com.