Geocaching is a race without competitors, a treasure hunt without much treasure. Follow me as I explain what Geocaching is as well as a brief history of Global Positioning Systems (GPS). As a hobby Geocaching leverages the availability of cheap GPS devices able to display your latitude, longitude and altitude, together with geeky clues to guide you to a hidden stash.
A Brief History Of GPS
Indeed, if the passenger jet Korean Air Flight 007 hadn’t suffered navigation difficulties which led to it being shot down by the Soviet Union after accidentally crossing into their airspace, we might never have had free GPS capability made available to the public (see p248 of PDF “GPS History, Chronology, and Budgets” by Rand Corporation).
