2023: My Geocaching Year in Review

January–December 2023

The J-Block crew at Midwest GeoBash in July 2023.Photo: Steven Pierson

I finished 2023 the same way I’ve rung in plenty of new years, talking with other geocachers. bapierson, LEGOexplorer, and I stopped at the 14th Annual New Years Eve Celebration (GCAF28T). I picked it as my 25,000th find. I’d started with a lamp post in 2009. A room full of familiar faces felt like a good place to mark how far the hobby had taken me.

The numbers

I logged 3,799 finds in 2023. That includes 2,592 individual Adventure Lab locations and 1,207 geocache finds and event attendances. March was my busiest month, with 860 finds, 782 of them Adventure Lab locations. A daily streak started on July 5 and reached 180 days by the end of December.

Geocache finds and event attendancesAdventure Lab locations

2023 finds by month

Month		Geocaches and events	Adventure Lab	Total
Jan		25	0	25
Feb		28	15	43
Mar		78	782	860
Apr		172	97	269
May		48	45	93
Jun		45	39	84
Jul		337	233	570
Aug		37	335	372
Sep		160	487	647
Oct		217	214	431
Nov		55	162	217
Dec		5	183	188
Year		1,207	2,592	3,799

2023 finds by cache type

Cache type		Finds
Traditional Cache		506
Mystery Cache		377
Wherigo Cache		132
Multi-Cache		73
Letterbox Hybrid		38
Virtual Cache		29
Event Cache		25
EarthCache		18
Cache In Trash Out (CITO)		3
Mega-Event Cache		3
GPS Adventures Maze		2
Locationless Cache		1
Total		1,207

Includes geocache finds and event attendances. Adventure Lab locations appear in the monthly chart.

2023 finds by location

State or country		Finds
Illinois		499
Michigan		308
Ohio		145
North Dakota		111
Spain		60
Wisconsin		40
Minnesota		26
Indiana		7
Andorra		3
France		3
Missouri		3
Nebraska		1
Total		1,206

U.S. finds are grouped by state and international finds by country. This chart excludes Adventure Lab locations and one Locationless find.

Family time and three new countries

bapierson and I visited LEGOexplorer in Madrid while he was studying there. Plaza del Callao (GC941W3) was my first find in Spain, and the three of us logged our first finds in France and Andorra on April 4. I’ve given the Spain vacation and the three-country day trip their own stories. They gave me plenty to write about before I ever got to the finds total.

The three of us with Dalí’s melting clock in Andorra la Vella.Photo: Steven Pierson

Coneys, a warp pipe, and a trip to Gilby

In April I went to MOGA 2023 Cars Coneys Caches (GC9RXK9) in Michigan with CanisMinor, Team Darkseid, and Theshyguy83. A geocaching event with coneys in the title gave me another chance to bring up my long-standing position on hot dogs and sandwiches.

At Midwest GeoBash 2023 (GC9WDWW), we met up with the J-Block crew for a long weekend. The theme had me comparing our cache run to Pac-Man in my log. In August, bapierson, Cache_the_GeoDog, and I made a day trip to Wisconsin for the West Bend $1000 Cache Ba$h 2023 (GC9YC0P).

Cache came along for our day trip to West Bend.Photo: Steven Pierson

September brought another kind of trip. djpd1023, SemperFidelis, Team Darkseid, and I took four days to drive more than 2,000 miles to North Dakota and back. We stopped for Minnesota’s oldest cache along the way and got to Gilby Gone Wild IV (GCA6VQ6), where there were familiar faces and new people to meet. The event log is only a few lines long. The road trip took a little longer.

Team Hotdog together at Gilby Gone Wild IV in North Dakota.Photo: Steven Pierson

A good place to finish

The map for 2023 stretches from Illinois to the Pyrenees. I still like that it ends with an annual get-together back home. We had a chance to catch up, say hello to people we hadn’t seen in a while, and end the year together. That was exactly the kind of find I wanted for 25,000.

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Field Notes

• 2023 finds: 3,799.
• Adventure Lab locations: 2,592.
• Geocache finds and event attendances: 1,207.
• 25,000th find: 14th Annual New Years Eve Celebration (GCAF28T), December 31.