A Geocaching coin is an item that can travel from geocache to geocache. Think of those “message in a bottles” that were thrown out to sea and then the person that found it would write a letter back. This is the 21st century version where many people can find it, take a photo, add a story, and post it on the web. You can even set a “mission” for the geocache coin to go on like ‘travel to places that begin with the letter M’ or ‘go to China’

Is it always a coin?

A geocaching coin can be a coin, but many people use this terminology to refer to anything that can travel from one geocache to another. You may also hear the terms travel bug or geocoin or trackables or anything else that people want to name it!

How do I get a Geocaching Coin?

This link below is to the basic Travel bug. You can then add on something to this to make it your own. I’ve seen a bottle opener, a toy car, and even a plastic cow that was cut in half and added to 2 travel bugs to see if they can come back together.

How do I track where it goes?

When you have your geocache coin, you will need to activate it from the manufacturer. Then you can set it free into a geocache and see where it goes on the geocache website. Here is an example of a trackable called “Holy Cow” that has travelled nearly 15,000 miles around the world. When I found it, I took a photo and added some commentary for the owner to see it’s adventures.

I like to take a photo of a Travel Bug to post online for the owner to be able to see the places it has visited as well as track it on a map.

Here’s a travel bug that is called “Spidy”.

Here’s an Moo-Cow Travel Bug at the ocean in Monterey, California

Here’s the map you see to track where your travel bug has been – there are log entries for each of the places it has been from the people that find it