So when does Planet Fitness install 360’ treadmills?
Geocaching. It’ll get you outside and moving for some purpose other than just to move. Go hunting for hidden stuff nearby, exercise your brain at the same time, and see some cool things that you probably didn’t realize were so close to you. I’ve found close to 700 caches so far in 22 US states, and it’s taken me to SO many cool off-the-beaten-path places.
Creating an account to document your finds is free, and the basic version of the app is free too. (But the free app has limited functionality, so I use it’s GPS navigation overlay in conjunction with the web browser map for full cache details.)
It is the best hobby. AMA!
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Used to do this a fair bit during undergrad when it was the new hotness. It can be fun, but also you can look like a crazy person if you are looking for a well hidden microcache. Scratches that 0451 itch of spotting a goodie hidden item.
This so much. I did it for a bit in Portland, OR with my kids just to have something fun to do while exploring the city and ran into too many things in private property or dangerous off-trail areas in parks to continue. Did have a few fun ones though that made me look like some kind of spy trading secrets, like one that was hidden in a tube under a pew in a church.
The shadiest I ever looked was reaching down into a vertical drain pipe around a light fixture in a public part and pulling out a plastic film roll case microcache, writing my username on the rolled up log book and then sneaking it back in.
I also set one up in a public park in the burbs near my parents house, but its a park that the kids from the highschool walkthrough/hang out in so somebody saw someone accessing it and then investigated it and threw everything around as kids do.
Even when i was that age I didn’t get why the first impulse for many people when finding an odd thing was to destroy it.
The sketchiest I’ve ever felt while caching was when I was in DC, just outside one of the Smithsonian buildings, and found a cache made of a ~1’ length of PVC pipe. When I pulled it out, I realized I had to open it, sign the log, and hide it again in the drainpipe within sight of the National Mall. Some dude was standing nearby, and I was fully expecting to get arrested, but it turned out he was an Aussie cacher waiting his turn to sign it.
And as for getting weird looks while caching, I discovered that wearing a blaze orange vest makes you invisible to anyone in a city. You can poke at walls, benches, signs, lampposts all day and no one will look at you or say a word. I originally got it for visibility while caching on trails, but I use it way more in the city.