Geocaching Australia

I am pretty new to caching, but the whole family is really enjoying 'treasure hunting' as the kids call it. We have been sucessfully using our iPhone4's to date but out of sheer frustration and an entire wasted afternoon due no comms through the app, we think maybe a GPS is the way to go. There is nothing worse than promising some treasure hunting and having the app on the phone freeze up and refuse to play for hours and hopefully a GPS will allow us to keep going even when comms are down, not to mention that for little kids a GPS will be a bit more robust than an iPhone.

So I won't buy a used GPS; not interested in that. I have seen that there is a caching ready GPS; the Magellan Explorist GC and given that this looks like a suitably beginnerish item I am wondering what people think of this unit. I like the idea that we can just download the caches we are intersted in finding, if I have to start loading coordinates into a unit, well it just won't happen. We would be highly unlikely to use the GPS for anything other than caching and with three little kids we won't be going too far off the beaten track.

So is the Magellen Explorist the only GPS that is caching ready? Or is there a competitor, and if so, which is the better unit to buy? I don't want to spend a heap, I've seen the Explorist for $180 whereas everything else looked to be at least twice the price.

Oh, and I assume they work everywhere, as in if I get one from the US, it's not like other products and won't work in Australia?

TIA

There's a whole forum devoted to hardware and software. There are a couple of "Which xxx GPS should I buy" threads.

Southern-Miffy wrote:So is the Magellen Explorist the only GPS that is caching ready? Or is there a competitor, and if so, which is the better unit to buy? I don't want to spend a heap, I've seen the Explorist for $180 whereas everything else looked to be at least twice the price.

Most if not all, Garmin handhelds have had Geocaching functionality in one way or another.

Southern-Miffy wrote:Oh, and I assume they work everywhere, as in if I get one from the US, it's not like other products and won't work in Australia?

TIA

Most GPS manufacturers sell Maps by region.
A mapping GPS purchased in the US is likely to have poor maps for Australia. Also consider that some people have had issues claiming warranty on US purchased units in Australia.

squalid wrote:There's a whole forum devoted to hardware and software. There are a couple of "Which xxx GPS should I buy" threads.

Yes, I did look through those but they are now several years old so of not much use really.

CraigRat wrote:Most if not all, Garmin handhelds have had Geocaching functionality in one way or another.

Most GPS manufacturers sell Maps by region.
A mapping GPS purchased in the US is likely to have poor maps for Australia. Also consider that some people have had issues claiming warranty on US purchased units in Australia.

Thanks for that info, I didn't know that about the map quality. Will look into the Garmins, do you know if they are straightforward to use as far as geocaching functionality goes?

Southern-Miffy wrote:

squalid wrote:There's a whole forum devoted to hardware and software. There are a couple of "Which xxx GPS should I buy" threads.

Yes, I did look through those but they are now several years old so of not much use really.

If you go to the last few pages, you'll find that they are very current, the threads are constantly updated as new equipment comes out.

I for one heartily recommend the eTrex range from Garmin, there will likely be a sale soon on the old model as the new version is released.

With Garmin mapping units, you can also load in Open Street Maps. Free! Wheee!

Check out this new baby....Garmin Montana 650T
4 inch screen, 4000 wpts, dual battery system, street navigation turn by turn etc.
http://sites.garmin.com/montana/
Cheers