I got this idea after meeting DudleyGrunt and finding his "Introduction To OpenCaching North America" (OU04AE) and thinking it would be nice to have a cache for folks to see and log, when I go to various events and talk to people about OpenCaching. This is a quilt that my awesome wifey made me. The front is Geocaching themed, and the back has a panel of material to be used as a log book. Feel free to to log this, whether you are new to the site or have been a member since Day One. Bring a sharpie!
OpenCaching North America (available at opencaching.us / .ca & .mx) was launched 18 August 2010 (as OpenCaching US). In 2011, Coffee Peddlers was looking at launching OpenCaching Canada. Instead, we joined forces to cover all of North America with a single site.
OpenCaching is a community of nation-based websites that offer a free and open portal for all of those who are interested in the activity of geocaching. The goal is to provide a higher quality cache listing service in a user friendly format with features that members of the geocaching community have requested.
OpenCaching.EU is the portal site that indexes and provides links to these various country website locations. Ohter countries with OpenCaching websites include Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Norway/Sweden, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The OpenCaching community sites offer all services to all users at no cost. There are no fee-based "premium memberships". Every geocache is listed and accessible to everyone for free.
Additionally, OpenCaching sites allow users to rate and report on existing geocaches. This allows users to see what other cachers think of the cache and it encourages participants to place higher quality caches. The rating system also greatly reduces the problem of abandoned or unsatisfactory caches still being listed after repeated negative comments or posts in the cache logs.