Treasure Hunting for New Experiences
In high school, I daydreamed about going to college on the East Coast. I wanted to one day get out of the dry desert of my hometown, Tucson, Arizona, and escape to a magical land that had more than just two seasons: hot and hotter. I was excited to explore the fall foliage.
But I got so swept up in keeping up with the start of college — all of these incredible minds, pages and pages of reading, and extracurriculars to join — that I forgot my dream of exploring a new city. My day-to-day consists of crawling out of bed, eating, going to the library, procrastinating my work until the early morning, and crawling back into the same bed. Then rinse and repeat. As privileged as I feel to be receiving my amazing education, there is so much more to Cambridge than Harvard. I wanted to get out and explore, and I realized I could do this through one thing: Geocaching.
Geocaching, as described by its founder, is “a real-world outdoor adventure that is happening all the time, all around the world.” You download the Geocaching app, which gives you suggestions for new geocaches to go hunting for in your area. A geocache can be as small as a pill or as big as a shoe box. Smaller geocaches typically contain a logbook for the discoverers to sign and date. If you find a bigger one, you may even get a prize, and you leave one in return for the next wanderer to discover. Since it started in the early 2000s, the geocaching world has grown from a meager 75 people to a whopping 3 million.
I learned about geocaching a couple years ago from a viral Tik Tok. I was in a Covid-induced “Criminal Minds” binge, and this seemed like a great chance to be a detective. It seemed like an exciting opportunity to pull out my comically large magnifying glass and cosplay as Nancy Drew for a day, so I promised myself I’d try it. Of course, I just filed away the name in my notes app and resumed sitting on my couch for another four hours, only to find it again years later while trying to free up space in my iCloud.
It was a cold and rainy weekend that my friends and I bundled up in five layers to go out on this exploration in Cambridge. After signing up for a free version of the app, I filled out a short questionnaire and was matched with the perfect introductory cache. The only catch was that it was a 45-minute walk away in a part of the city I had never seen before. Given that we are all broke college students, we elected to walk. All we had was a compass leading the way. Despite the weather, I loved unplugging and talking about life while watching the leaves change colors. The fall chill was no match for having each other’s company.
When we arrived at the gates where the tracker led us, we saw a big sign reading, Cambridge Cemetery. As that may sound, it was perfect. I don’t quite know if it was the fog, greenery, or grounds, but this cemetery was just the right amount of spooky. I just had to be careful of stepping anywhere that could get me cursed by the ancient souls that were laid to rest.
After we took some time exploring the grounds, we went back to the task at hand: finding the geocache. We studied the map that showed us where the cache was located and examined trees and gravestones until we narrowed down the possible location of our cache to a 10-foot square of land.
We had underestimated the creativity of Cambridge geocachers. It took about 10 minutes of looking around for something we had no idea how to recognize before we started to lose hope. My friend even thought about climbing into the tree. Out of fear someone stole our treasure, we ended up using a hint. The hint said, “Old River Ave,” the same words on an antique road sign in the path that I only just noticed. On the sign, there was a tiny screw that appeared a little out of place, since it didn’t have rust on it like the others. The supposed “screw” popped right off of its little magnet when I grabbed it, and huzzah! There was our cache.
I was so happy my smile exhausted my facial muscles, and I ran over to a nearby bench to undo the top of the “screw.” Inside was a scroll the size of my pinky with names on it dating back several years. I pulled out my pen and signed our names on the next available line with pride.
Walking along The Charles back to campus, I realized this experience was exactly what I needed to get out of my funk. I got to explore like a kid again, if only for an hour. Even though we didn’t get money or something incredible in our cache, the real prize was the journey — catching up with my friends, finding a new hidden spot in Cambridge, and getting to experience my first real fall ever.