The city of Kent has movie theaters, concert venues, and among other things, a downtown shopping district. Kent, which is known largely for Kent State University, also has an enjoyable nightlife with various bars, clubs and hotspots.

The problem is most activities cost money.

One of the perks of geocaching is that it is a cheap hobby.

“The nice thing about it is that it’s free,” says Dave Herpy, the coordinator of the Adventure Center at Kent State’s Student Recreation and Health Center. “Once you spend the money for the GPS, you have it forever.”

A GPS unit can cost from $100 to more than a thousand dollars. The kind of unit needed for geocaching, however, are the cheaper ones, not the ones people use to navigate streets.

The area surrounding Kent seems to be a hotbed for geocaching activity. Searching the Geocaching Web site for caches within 25 miles of the city shows a staggering 1,307. Eight of these are on the Kent State campus alone.

Herpy first got involved in geocaching in spring 2008 after a colleague pushed him to start a geocaching program at the recreation center.

“I thought it was a really cool activity, something really new and different,” he says. “I’m used to the typical camping and hiking and this kind of combines technology with the great outdoors.”

In a world where people spend countless hours in front of computer screens, Herpy likes the sport for combining technology with being outside. Being an avid outdoorsman himself – some of his favorite activities are skiing and kayaking – he has taken a liking to the hybrid sport.

While it is a family game, not every cache is easy to find. A GPS can only put the user within a hundred feet or so of the cache, sometimes it requires a sharp set of eyes and a quick mind to find where it is hidden.

“You got to look for the signs of where they might be planted,” Herpy says. “They might be planted in dead trees, tree trunks, in the branches, they can be anywhere.”

Herpy says he has heard of caches being placed on islands so that the only way to get to them is by taking a boat to them. Other caches he has heard of are set at the top of cliffs or on the side of rock faces.