Hello! My name is Dylan, caching name Mannard, and I'm the founder of Quest Scouts. I've been caching since 2006, and was inspired to create Quest Scouts while going for my goal caches of the 2014, (GC9614) Halfdome and (GC2JWK8) Rim to Rim of the Grand Canyon.
1) Geocachers are always up for a challenge.
Each month, Quest Scouts issues a new quest with its own theme. For instance, we recently released our first ever monthly quest, "All That Came Before," which is all about history.
Each quest has a variety of objectives to choose from, in categories like travel, visit, art, DIY, literature, media, find and more. Completing objectives earns you points, which vary depending on the amount of time and level of difficulty of the objective. Earn the required amount of points and you'v completed your quest!
2) Geocachers love badges of achievement. (And ours are real, physical badges!)
One of the great things about geocaching is being able to look back at your achievements. I for one am a huge fan of looking at geocoins from past events or coin challenges and remembering what it took me to "earn" them.
Badges from the Mission: Kickstart Special Quest. (Now retired.)
The first page for the 2015 badge book! Place your badge in the dotted circle once you've completed the All That Came Before quest.
Every quest in quest scouts has its own, uniquely designed badge! The Quest Scouts Code dictates that while you can buy a badge at any point, you should not display it until after you've completed your quest. Every quest's badges come in two forms, sticky and tag.
The sticky badge is meant to be adhered inside your badge book. Our 2015 Badge Book has a place for every monthly quest, as well as the four "special quests" we'll be offering. Tag badges are metal tags slightly larger than a nickel. They've got a hole in them, which makes them perfect for hanging!
Badges "retire" after the quest expires, so make sure to collect what you need while they're available.
Want to be the first to get our badges, a Quest Card and other goodies sent to your door each month?
Consider becoming a subscribing scout pack member!
3) Because Quest Scouts brings you to locations that are perfect for caching!
The Mission: Kickstart travel objective asked us to travel to a place of relevance to space travel! We ended up at an awesome rock museum and found a meteorite. (And yes, there was a cache there!)
When I started caching in 2006, the thing I loved most about it was the places it brought me. Sure, I love moving travel bugs and searching through swag as much as the next guy, but what I really love in hiking to the top of mountains, exploring city art installations and finding amazing locations I never would have known about.
Meteorite!
As I explained before, monthly quests have recurring objective themes. Two of the objectives geocachers will absolutely LOVE our "Visit" and "Travel" objectives. The travel objective asks you to road trip to new, interesting locations. For example, this month's history themed travel objective asks you to find historical landmarks.
The visit objective is similar to the travel objective, but usually involves admission of some sort. This month we're visiting history museums and sharing what we learned there.
While I still find new, interesting places while geocaching, with the cache density of 2015, it's hard to know whether or not a cache is placed because the location is awesome, or because somebody saw a blank spot that "needed a cache." (To each there own! I'm not judging.) Let Quest Scouts travel and visit objectives help you choose which locations you should visit, and make sure to cache while you're there!
4) Because it's all about the find!
Ok, ok, it isn't ALL about the find. But as a geocacher, there is something satisfying about finding and signing the logbook.
One of our monthly objectives is called "find," and focuses on location based games. While not always the case, a lot of the time our find objective will involve geocaching. The history find objective for the month asks you to find a geocache hidden in 2000, the year Dave Ulmer hid the first original geocache.
So, if you were to complete this month's find objective, you would not only fill in a Jasmer square, you'd also get 300 points toward the All That Came Before quest!
5) Quest Scouts is about community.
Posing for an Earth Cache in Tuolumne Meadows with my long time caching buddies!
I love my geocaching family. The friends that I cache with will be friends for life. Quest Scouts embraces the geocaching community. While not all Quest Scouts are geocachers, many of us will be! As Quest Scouts grows I hope to meet many of you at caching events all around the world. We want to be at events like the Geocaching Block Party, Midwest Geobash and Geowoodstock, offering event specific quests and badges.
Are you in?
If you're interested in getting involved in Quest Scouts, check out our currently active quests! Also, consider following us on Facebook, as that is often the first place we post about what we're up to. We also have a mailing list!
