A Great GPS for Beginning Geocachers

It’s the time of year again. The Holidays. I have already started getting the “geocaching gift” suggestion questions. It seems many people are trying to buy early or on layaway, as they find retailers starting the Christmas sale season earlier every year. So this year, I’m going to try to get ahead of the game and make a few recommendations here, before the frantic emails start arriving! I didn’t really have to think to hard to make this suggestion. If you are interested in buying a really, really good entry level GPS for a beginning geocacher, buy the “Garmin eTrex Vista HCx” mapping handheld GPS.

I have often been asked why I prefer the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx to the Garmin eTrex Legend HCx. Two reasons: the electronic compass and the barometric altimeter. The Vista has them and the Legend doesn’t. Now you may be thinking that a compass isn’t really important if you have a GPS unit. After-all, once you get to the coordinate location you just have to rummage around and look for the cache. Right? Well, maybe. But, if your are at the cross section of two trails, in heavy tree cover and the cache listing has a hint that says, “the cache is behind the third tree on the southwest corner”. It would be nice to have a “electronic compass”, now wouldn’t it. The same holds true for parking garages and the “barometric altimater” feature. Eight stories of parked cars, surveillance cameras and only one location for the cache. I never thought I would use the altimeter. I was wrong. Variations of both of these situation have happened to me several times over the years. Each time I am thankful over and over again I made the choice I did. I may have spent and extra forty dollars upfront to have these features, but I have saved more than triple that amount’s worth of aggravation on long days of geocaching. Click here to view a side by side comparison of features between the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx and the Garmin eTrex Legend HCx

I still have my first Garmin eTrex Vista Cx. It is still my GPS of choice for urban caching. It is small, fits in the palm of my hand and tucks away quickly without generating much notice from people nearby. It easily blends in with the urban environment unlike my other favorite GPS; the DeLorme PN-40. But that’s another story for another day.

Here is video on using the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx for geocaching.

UPDATE: Congratulations to “StrangeMinds” on your Garmin eTrex Vista Cx purchase!