Handicaching? Handicaching? I hear you all say, has Craig completely lost it? What the heck is handicahcing?!

I became aware of Geocaching last year through a friend, but to be honest, I would have had a similar reaction about handicaching until a few hours ago when I read a post by Liz Carr on the BBC Ouch blog. So to break it down, here’s a quick YouTube introduction from the friendly guys at Geocaching.com:

So, there you are, it’s all about a game to find hidden little treasures around the country using GPS devices and GPS enabled mobile phones! But what’s the difference between Geocaching and Handicaching?

Well, with Geocaching each cache that you look for (the hidden little treasure) normally have a star rating from one to five to indicate how difficult the terrain is with one star being the easiest.

The problem according to Handicaching.com is that the Geocache Rating System uses one star for caches that are wheelchair accessible. This idea is flawed in several ways which include:

• The rating system or the wheelchair aspect of the system is often overlooked by cache hiders, who can rate the terrain for caches higher or lower than they actually are
• A cache that may be wheelchair accessible may not be accessible to people with other types of disabilities, or even people who cannot use a wheelchair for anything other than short distances
• Many non-disabled people are unsure of what constitutes accessible and are therefore unable to rate or mark a cache accordingly

So basically, Handicaching decided to come up with their own system and make it truly accessible for disabled people.

Not only may Handicaching be fun for the participants but I can also think of lots of practical uses for disabled people such as marking disabled toilets, entrances to public buildings, safe crossings for roads, maybe even mark accessible routes along foot and canal tow paths. I think that Handicaching could really be a useful tool for disabled tourists wanting to get out into the great outdoors and have their own GPS map to help guide them through the countryside.

For further information please visit the Handicaching, Geocaching and Ouch! websites.

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