Easy long/lat lookup for geocaching

I’m hoping to get a little geocaching in this weekend on a brief camping trip. My first step was to head over to geocaching.com and search for any geocaches near where we’ll be camping. Of course there were, but it can be difficult sometimes to know exactly how close they are if you only have a zip code to go from. If you know the latitude and longitude for the place you’re staying then you can do an advanced search at geocaching.com for caches in that vicinity. (Hint: From the advanced search choose “By Coordinate” and then “Decimal Degrees.”) You get much more precise results and you can more easily tell if a particular cache is within easy range.

But how to get the latitude and longitude you need? Google Maps to the rescue. Begin by doing a search for the approximate area. We’re going to be in Lake Elmo Park Reserve. Here’s the trick: as soon as you start clicking and dragging around on the map, Google starts including the latitude and longitude in the URL which you can see by clicking on “Link to this page” in the upper-right part of the screen. Just center the map on your point of interest by double-clicking on it and you’re all set. You’ll get an URL something like:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=lake+elmo,
+mn&ll=44.981010,-92.908115&spn=0.031606,0.052104&hl=en

where you will find the latitude and longitude which in this case are 44.981010 and -92.908115 respectively. (Watch the plusses and minuses. Positive is for N and W, Negative is for S and E.) Once you’ve got those numbers, you’ll all set to do your search. I’ll think we’ll give Bring It Around, Elmo 1 2 3, and What Comes Around… a try.