Today’s treasure hunters do not ride wooden ships around the globe, nor are they professors of archeology who are searching for the Ark of the Covenant with Nazis hot on their tails, like Indiana Jones.

They are also not all Angelina Jolie lookalikes, raiding tombs and rummaging through jungles while still looking breathtaking.

Many treasure hunters are not what they appear in the movies. Guns are not – usually – needed for protection. Neither is spandex. Today they rely mostly on a solitary tool to track down their prize: A GPS unit.

Geocaching is a newer activity that has only been around since about May 2000 and is almost identical to the treasure hunts of yesteryear. Instead of using a treasure map, geocachers use their GPS units to find caches others have left. The caches contain log books people can sign to let the placer know they were there. Sometimes there are also trinkets to take from the cache, but if you take something you must leave something. Thanks to www.geocaching.com, enthusiasts can log in to the Web site to find the coordinates for a cache. Later, they can log back in and record their find.

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