Editor’s Note: This post is written by a member of LTV’s sponsored content team, The Leisure Explorers. Do you own a Leisure Travel Van and enjoy writing? Learn more about joining the team.
A small magnetic cylinder sits wedged behind a historical marker on a side street in Abilene, Kansas. It’s no bigger than a thimble. Inside, a tightly rolled logbook holds signatures of travelers from 24 states—couples on anniversaries, retirees crossing the Great Plains, and a family on day 28 of a road trip from Minneapolis to Texas. None of them planned to stop in Abilene. A set of GPS coordinates brought them here. What they found kept them overnight.
This is geocaching. For RV owners, especially those with compact RVs like a Leisure Travel Van, it may be an answer to persistent questions that arise for some owners after they buy their LTV: What hobbies can I pursue on the road? Where do I go?
What Geocaching is and How it Works
Geocaching is a global GPS treasure hunt. Participants use a smartphone app or handheld GPS to navigate to specific coordinates, where someone has hidden a container—the geocache. Containers range from micro-sized magnetic tubes to full-sized ammo cans filled with trinkets. Every cache holds a paper logbook. Find it, sign it, log it digitally, and move on. While you’re at a geocache, look around. You just might find a reason to stick around and explore an area that may be unknown to you.
More than three million active geocaches sit awaiting discovery in 191 countries, on all seven continents, and since 2008 aboard the International Space Station. The game began in May 2000 in Beavercreek, Oregon, and has grown in popularity. In the first six months of 2024 alone, geocachers worldwide posted over 83 million find logs.
How to Get Started
You can start your geocaching journey anytime, anywhere—it takes about five minutes. Download the free Geocaching app for Apple or Google Play for Android by Seattle-based Groundspeak (about 80 employees: it’s the largest geocaching platform). Create an account. A map fills the screen and displays nearby sites when you launch the app.
A premium membership unlocks the full database and advanced filters, but the free tier is enough to get hooked. The only gear you need: a GPS-enabled phone, a pen, and a willingness to look a bit foolish poking around a signpost like the Russell Stover sign in this story.
You’ll need internet connectivity to use the geocaching app. For offline use, premium members can download maps in advance, or pair the app with a dedicated handheld GPS unit—especially useful for remote RV routes where cell service may be spotty.
Often, a cache contains a written narrative from the person hiding the cache. This description may explain local history, nearby geology, or forgotten lore that the cacher researched for visitors. In this way, cache owners act as unpaid local guides, leading strangers to places no travel brochure mentions.
Why Geocaching Fits the RV Life and What Happens When It Does
A familiar pattern appears in RV forums and rallies. Someone buys an RV, outfits it, hits the road, and then ponders the questions of where to go, what to do, and “what hobbies can I develop as I wander in my RV”? RV life offers a sense of freedom but lacks structure for some owners.
Geocaching creates structure for RVers who ponder these questions. The geocaching app allows users to filter cache locations by terrain, difficulty of access, cache size, or cache type. You can chase a series of caches. Some participants place dozens of caches along a scenic byway, with each cache telling the next chapter in a story.
For owners of smaller, more agile RVs like the LTV, geocaching unlocks access to areas that larger RVs simply can’t reach. A narrow road may lead to a trailhead. A small-town main street might have no room to swing a 40-foot Class A around the block. County parks often have tight entrance lanes. The compact footprint of a van-based motorhome means the cache list doesn’t get trimmed by access problems.
You can adapt geocaching to your schedule. A quick five-minute walk to find a cache—a hidden container, typically containing a logbook — at a rest area breaks up the monotony of driving and gets you out and about. A multi-stage puzzle cache, which requires solving clues at each location, might take you on a two-mile hike to determine the final coordinates.
EarthCaches lacking physical containers require visiting a geologically significant site and answering observational questions. These stops become field lessons in geology, botany, or local ecology.
Social Connections
RV travelers find geocaching an interesting way to meet locals and other travelers. In 2025, the Midwest Open Geocaching Adventure (MOGA) drew hundreds of participants to Abilene, Kansas. The Abilene City Commission proclaimed March 24–30 as “Geocache Week.”
Geocaching also complements other popular RV hobbies, such as tools like iOverlander for boondocking. It adds a community-driven, gamified layer that turns routine drives into interactive adventures while layering seamlessly onto existing travel routines.
The social dimension of geocaching works in both directions. An online logging system fosters community. You can read what previous finders experienced and share your notes. You can develop a sense of connection with a cache owner and fellow seekers, without ever exchanging a word in person. For those who want face-to-face contact, events like MOGA offer it.
Abilene, Kansas: A Case Study in How Geocaching Reshapes a Stop
Abilene sits along Interstate 70 in central Kansas. It’s a town of roughly 6,500 people that punches well above its weight in reasons to visit. It is the hometown of Dwight D. Eisenhower, five-star general and 34th President of the United States, and the site of his presidential library, museum, and boyhood home. The 22-acre Eisenhower campus is administered by the National Archives.
USA TODAY named Abilene the Best Historic Small Town in America. But what Abilene has done with geocaching turns a multi-attraction stop into a full-day expedition.
The Visit Abilene, Kansas GeoTour (GT4FD)
The visit Abilene Geotour, launched in March 2025 by the Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau, is the only community-specific GeoTour in Kansas and one of roughly 80 worldwide. Twelve GPS-enabled containers, called geocaches, lead visitors through a GPS-guided loop of the town’s most significant historical and cultural sites. In the first three months of the program, nearly 300 geocachers from 24 states completed the tour. Self-reported passport data estimated that the GeoTour generated approximately 450 room nights and nearly $50,000 in direct visitor spending for the city of Abilene.
Yes, geocaching offers benefits for visitors and host destinations. The cache names at Abilene hint at the range of geocaches on offer. You’re going to need a bigger belt to lead to the World’s Largest Belt Buckle. Need a bigger boot, points to Abilene’s World’s Largest Spur. Educating a President leads to the Eisenhower campus.
Of course, since you are an LTVer, you won’t need a hotel room when you visit. You can contact the 24/7 Travel Store, as the name of the business implies, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at the intersection of I-70 and 2200 N. Buckeye Avenue, Abilene, KS 67410, to score an absolutely flat, concrete slab with full hookups for $43 night.
The Seelye Mansion
A visitor following the Abilene geocache list discovers more than a casual driver would discover. The Seelye Mansion at 1105 North Buckeye Avenue is an 11,000-square-foot Georgian home built in 1905 for Dr. A.B. Seelye, a patent medicine manufacturer. A New York architect designed his home, and most of its furnishings came from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and cost several million dollars—much more than the $55,000 Seelye spent to build the house.
Original Edison fixtures hang from the ceilings, and a Tiffany mosaic tile fireplace anchors the grand hall. A 1920 Steinway grand piano sits in the music room beside French gold furniture.
In the basement, a box-ball bowling alley from the 1904 World’s Fair still works for visitors. The balls are made of Ironwood and feel like iron.
Frank Lloyd Wright suggested interior renovations in the 1920s. A young Dwight Eisenhower once delivered ice here, later remembered by the Seelye sisters as a kid from “the other side of the tracks.” The mansion is named one of the 8 Wonders of Kansas Architecture.
Perhaps best of all, the Seelye Mansion is a working museum, meaning visitors can touch and sit in the furnishings in the home, and yes, this mansion is on the Abeline geocache list.
The Greyhound Museum
Just down the street from the Seelye Mansion, past the center of town, the Greyhound Hall of Fame Museum at 407 South Buckeye traces the history of greyhounds and racing from their origins to the modern era. Opened in 1973, it attracts about 30,000 visitors each year. Retired racing greyhounds with their owners greet guests at the door.
Atlas Obscura cites this museum in their The Ultimate List of Wonderfully Specific Museums. Admission is free. The museum is open Wednesday-Sunday: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm.
The Eisenhower Campus
You’ll find the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum at 200 SE 4th Street. Five galleries lead visitors through Eisenhower’s life, from his boyhood in Abilene through his command of the D-Day invasion and his two presidential terms. The campus includes his boyhood home on its original site, an 11-foot bronze statue, and the Place of Meditation—the final resting place of the President, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, and their firstborn son.
The museum holds approximately 30 million pages of historical records, 335,000 photographs, and 70,000 artifacts. Researchers from all over the world spend years researching the archives in connection with their work. Hours run Tuesday-Sunday: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm. Admission is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors 62 and over, and $10 for students. Military families of up to five members enter free.
Yes, the Eisenhower Campus is also on Abeline’s geocache list.
The Abilene Geocache Trail
Each of these stops exists independently, but the geocache trail connects them into a single narrative thread. A visitor picks up a geocache passport at the Abilene Visitors Center—located at the northwest end of 2nd Street, at the west end of the old train depot (look for the black mailbox on the building with the GeoTour sticker). Complete the trail, submit the passport with contact information, group size, length of stay, and spending data, and you can get a collectible geocoin via the U.S. mail. The rules are: one geocoin per caching name, on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. All 12 geocaches in Abilene are officially registered on geocaching.com.
The leadership Abilene demonstrates with geocaching influences communities across the country. A GeoTour transforms a town from a place travelers pass through into one they spend money in, stay overnight in, and remember. For the geocacher behind the wheel of an RV, it provides something a guidebook never quite delivers: a specific reason to get out, walk, look closely, and discover.
Start Your Geocaching Adventure Today
Before you pull out of a campground or RV park, download and open the geocaching app and scan the route ahead. Most interstate corridors show dense clusters of caches at rest areas, small-town parks, and scenic pull-offs. Plan two or three stops, sign the logbook, log the find, read the description the cache owner wrote, and it will point you toward something worth seeing.
For those who want structure, the GeoTour program offers curated trails in communities that have partnered with Geocaching HQ. Each cache functions as a guided walking or driving tour with a reward at the end.
Pro Tips
What if a cache is missing or “muggled” (taken by a non-cacher)? Log a “Needs Maintenance” note in the app—most owners respond quickly. Always practice “Cache In, Trash Out” (CITO) to leave an area better than you found it, aligning perfectly with responsible travel. Be aware of your surroundings in urban areas or when searching after dark. RVers with a toad vehicle can use it for tight spots, and terrain filters help match your mobility needs (families with kids, seniors, or those with limited mobility).
Aim for a find in every state, county, and national park. With geocaching, your LTV becomes a basecamp for a rolling, self-directed scavenger hunt.
Your Geocaching Journey
Over time, your geocaching find log will become a travel diary—dated, annotated, and mapped. Thousands of finds, spanning years of exploration, will light up as dots across the country. Each dot marks a place where you and your LTV stopped to discover something unexpected. Your LTV is the vehicle. Geocaching sites may invite you to yet undiscovered destinations.
We cite Abilene here as one of thousands of examples of where you could begin your geocaching journey. But the truth is, you can start with your LTV in your local community or just about anywhere at any time.
Ready to turn your next LTV trip into an expedition? Download the app today and search for caches along your route. Share your first find in the comments below with us. Who knows? You might discover answers to those questions that bug some RVers: What hobbies can I pursue on the road? Where do I go?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://leisurevans.com/blog/geocaching-turns-every-rv-trip-into-a-journey-of-discovery/