Getting There Is Half The Fun

Anytime you make plans to go geocaching, whether it be a quick grab down the street, or a long day of hiking and caching in a state/regional park area, or an urban caching adventure, one of the first things you have to figure out is how you are going to get there. The nice thing about living in the San Francisco Bay Area, is you don't necessarily need to rely on a car to get around. In fact, sometimes you are better off without one.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Case in point: a caching buddy of mine was working on completing the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) series of caches, and I decided to come along with him to grab a few new caches of my own. So we hopped on our bikes, rode to the closest BART station, loaded our bikes on the next westbound BART train, and headed off to the Berekely / El Cerrito area along the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay.

Every BART station has a cache hidden in it, so we were immediately greeted with a cache-finding opportunity upon exiting the train at the North Berkeley station. From there, we rode our bikes north along the Ohlone Greenway, a wonderful class 1 bike trail that follows the BART right of way up to El Cerrito. The trail itself is home to numerous caches, making the bike ride that much the better.

All in all, we covered about 50 miles out and back (see GPSr track below) and found 10 caches in just a few hours. You would be hard pressed to find these same caches as efficiently, and have as much fun, by automobile.

So the next time you head out on that caching adventure, consider your transportation options carefully, as the right mode of travel can make your outing that much more enjoyable.

Cache On!