Geocaching‪®‬ 4+

While I agree with Doris45, that operating the app under a basic membership has its limitations, the app still does what it says it will do. The features available with a premium membership are because those people pay for the service. Groundspeak / Geocaching is no different than any other service that has a free basic and a paying premium membership system. The bottom line is it does what it says it will do.

That being said, I am giving it 4 stars (I would give it 4.5 or even 4.75 if I could, just not a full 5) because I still find little glitches and some limitations that annoy me (i.e. only being able to see /load caches if zoomed in under a certain level / limit on number of caches visible at one time). Where I am, caches are spread out and I would rather see a wide view rather than needing to scroll over and then load a new area. But given the option of the app on a phone or a GPS that I have to upload and its other limitations, I choose the app on a smart phone any day (where I still have cell service).

I started geocaching almost 10 years ago - hubby and I loved all aspects of it enough to fork over the $10 for the full app (pricey back then). But, then, the app stopped working because groundspeak required more money from users. This seemed unfair, as half of the community were happily volunteering time and supplies to create the caches in the first place. Then, the subscription model of $5/month! To access data that is uploaded by others on caches that are maintained by others! And, that the majority of users only access a few times per year, and usually as a fun and leisurely activity with kids or friends! I spend less than half that for hardcore business and productivity apps that I use DAILY, like several times a day! Sadly, I left geocaching for several years because I was so turned off by this. I just came back as several people have asked me about it and I find that there still have been no major developments to justify this cost. Just basic design tweaks here and there. This is so disappointing, as geocaching is a fantastic activity that once brought people from all over the world together and relied on the volunteer efforts of placers and maintainers. It still has those aspects but is definitely tainted by greed somewhere in the mix. 😢

This app is amazing and did use it all the time! But there are a few things I think you should look into. Firstly, there is no way to edit a geocache desciption or add images one it has been created. This is a problem for me because there are certain things I hadn't mapped out about my cache that I really needed to add, and no matter what I did, nothing. Second, the fact that I have to may a 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑙𝑦 fee is terrible. I wouldn't make my consumers pay 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 to get access to all the geocaches on a 𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 app, no less, but if you're gonna make a payment, at least make it a one-time thing. This way more people will want to get the membership- because it's simpler, but also you will get more money this way. Everything is just less complex. The last thing isn't so bad, although sometimes it is a problem for me, not being able to "tag" someone else who helped you with the geocache. I think you should be able to link them as well.

So to recap, editing a cache, the subscription payment, and others. Please fix these and this could be a 5-star rating. But other than that, this app is great!