GPS Downloading 101

I (Sandy here) wrote up the following tutorial for my friend in Ireland who is a new geocacher. She just got her GPS and wanted to know how to load it up with geocaches! We decided to share it here, since it might be helpful to some of our beginning geocachers who are still entering caches by hand.

The pieces you need:

1. A Cable - Your GPS should have come with a cable to connect to the computer, most likely via USB

2. A file of waypoints - you get this from Geocaching.com (see below)

3. Software that will transfer the waypoints to the GPS. I recommend EasyGPS (see below)

OK, so to get the file of waypoints (#2), there are a couple of options. You don't HAVE to get a premium membership, but it is cheap ($30 per year) and you get tons of cool features. The best thing is "pocket queries" where you can set all kinds of parameters (location, difficulty level, type of cache, size of container, etc) and it emails you the file. Voila!

But, until you sign up for that - here is the other option. On any search page on geocaching.com (for example, if you are searching for caches in your zipcode or country) there are "check boxes" on the right that you can check for the caches you are interested in. Then at the bottom, click "download waypoints" and save the GEOCACHING.LOC file to your desktop.

Now you have the waypoints, you need the software (#3). Go here and download & install EasyGPS [Windows only]. It's very straightforward and it's free. The first time you run the program, it will ask you to "setup" your GPS - you just have to choose your GPS unit from the list, and then choose how it connects to the computer (USB, serial).

Then, choose "open" and select the GEOCACHING.LOC file that you created earlier and it will bring all the waypoints into the program! Connect your GPS, choose "Send to GPS" and you're done!

The only other thing you will want to do, is print out the cache information from the cache page - for the ones you want to go find. Unless you're ready to go "paperless" with a Palm, but that is another tutorial! =)

Additional Notes:
1. GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) is another very popular program to manage and download geocaches. You can try it out for free, and then register it for $20. [Windows only]

2. If you get a premium membership, you can have the pocket queries sent to you in GPX format instead of LOC. Both EasyGPS and GSAK accept both formats.

3. If you are on a Mac, try GPS Connect (A Freeware Garmin GPS Connection Tool for Mac OS X) or some of the links on this page