Weekend Getaway From Vancouver: Gold Country Geo Tourism
The kids are heading back to school today, but we hope there’s lots of nice weather left before the rain sets in. If you’re looking for a great weekend getaway idea, check out geo tourism in BC’s Gold Country.
Gold Country is located in the Southern Interior and includes communities from Merritt to Logan Lake, Lytton to Cache Creek, and many more. Three years ago the local tourism bureaus in Gold Country decided it would be a good idea to combine geocaching, tourism and history and created 72 caches in communities all through the southern interior of British Columbia. Celebrating the history of the area these caches bring geocachers from all over to find the caches and learn about the communities. This summer they released phase two with another 40 or so new caches.
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a worldwide treasure hunt played with a GPS – a.k.a. Global Positioning System – unit. With coordinates and clues you look for caches hidden all over the world. The first cache was placed in Oregon in 2000 and the coordinates were posted on the web. Since the first cache was placed hundreds of thousands of caches have been placed. Cache coordinates can be found on geocaching.com.
Why Gold Country?
I love that Gold Country is only a few hours outside the Lower Mainland, and yet the difference in the scenery is breathtaking. The coastal mountains are green and seem more rounded, the mountains around Hope are a mix of jagged and peaky and green forested slopes. Then as we get closer to the BC Interior the mountains and foothills are sandy sage. Even the hills of trees killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle have their own beauty. Add in the river valleys and desert expanses and you have a vast palette of colour and texture.
Explore Beautiful BC and its History
Take a chance and explore beautiful BC with the Gold Country or New Pathways to Gold. Not only will you see beautiful countryside, historic sites, and maybe some treasure, you will be taken to places you will likely not get to see unless you are a local. Every time we geocache there is some new beautiful place that we would not have found on our own. Have fun exploring!
