For me, I started doing it alone and it kept me sane during Covid lockdown. After events started back up again, I met a bunch of people, and haven’t really solo cached since then

Yup, geocaching has definitely taken me pretty far off the beaten path in the past.

Entirely possible that there are premium geocaches in that area, which you’d have to pay to see. Or it could also be puzzle caches, which would show up in a different (but likely close by) spot on the map

There’s a website, geocaching.com – it’s free to make an account, and there is a world map showing where geocaches are hidden.

The easiest type (traditional caches) will just have a location on the map where you go to find the container. Some of the more difficult ones, you might have to solve a puzzle before you can find out where you need to go looking

It happened. I planned for it in 2020, but got very sick (probably Covid) that week. I have been waiting 8 years for this chance!

If I happen to have a spare container with me, usually I’ll replace a damaged one. IMO if you found the original and know where it was, that’s not the same as putting out a random throwdown for a missing cache.

If it’s a specially made container, I’d probably just log Needs Maintenance, but if you’re just replacing a pill bottle with something similar I would think it’s fair game. In any case definitely mention it in your log

Personally, I’ve paid for it the last few years. But Geocaching is my main hobby, so it’s easily a worthwhile investment.

I get being against subscriptions out of principle though. I cached for years without paying for it. In my area only about 1/3 of caches are premium only, but that might be completely different in another part of the world