Explore historic Routes 5 & 20 by geocaching

By Meg Vanek

Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:43 AM EDT

The Routes 5 and 20 Tourism Promotion Group has announced the start of a new initiative for 2008, designed to attract visitors to this historic roadway.
The “Farms, Food and Fun Geochache Adventure” is a modern-day treasure hunt, combining the tools of the high tech GPS (Global Positioning System) unit with a bit of old fashioned detective work.

“We hope that geocaching will become all the rage on Routes 5 and 20 this summer and fall,” stated Lisa Burns, tourism director of the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce and coordinator of the geocaching project. “We have hidden 20 caches or ‘treasure boxes' at strategic points within the Routes 5 & 20 corridor and we are challenging visitors and local residents to locate five of the caches.”

Geochaching is a growing source of fun for all ages that got its start in 2000 in the state of Oregon. Since then it has spread internationally. Individuals and groups have set up caches all over the world and post online the location coordinates - latitude and longitude.

A cache is usually a small water-tight container with a logbook, pencil and trinkets. When a geocacher finds the cache, he or she writes in the logbook, takes a trinket and leaves a trinket, and then posts online that they have been successful.

Geocaching is a perfect way to explore the agricultural treasures of historic Routes 5 & 20. We have built our geocaching adventure around the theme “Farms, Food and Fun,” with clues to stops in Cayuga County including “Granny Smith lives here” and “Something to wine about.”

It's going to be a lot of fun finding the caches throughout the six counties. The Route 5 and 20 Web site, www.routes5and20.com will provide the modern-day detective with coordinates and clues to find the caches. Those that locate five caches are then eligible for our grand prize valued at $520, which will be awarded in November.

The “Routes 5 & 20 Farms, Food and Fun Geocache Adventure” continues through Oct. 31. Participants will record their finds on a special section of the Routes 5 & 20 Web site. Cache location information and clues will be posted online on both listed sites.

The Routes 5 & 20 Tourism Promotion Group is a collaborative effort of the tourism promotion agencies of Cayuga, Seneca, Ontario, Livingston and Genesee counties along with Skaneateles Area Chamber of Commerce.

Meg Vanek is the executive director at the Cayuga County Office of Tourism.

On the Net

For more information on this new phenomenon: Visit www.geocaching.com and www.routes5and20.com

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