Geocaching in Australia With Kids: The App That Gets Toddlers Walking for Hours

I’ll be honest with you — I didn’t expect our three-year-old to care about geocaching.

I figured she’d lose interest after two minutes, demand to be carried, and ask for the iPad. Instead, on our 17-day Tasmania trip, she found her first geocache inside a cave at Hastings, hunted Munzees at the Pennicott Wilderness Journeys wharf on Bruny Island, and completed an Adventure Lab series through the historic streets of Battery Point in Hobart, all without a single mention of screen time.

If you travel with kids and haven’t done this yet, let me show you what you’re missing.

At a Glance

• What it is: Geocaching, Munzee, and Adventure Labs, a family of GPS-based outdoor treasure hunt games
• Best age: 2+ (seriously, Kailani started at 3 and is hooked)
• Cost: Free to start. Geocaching Premium is $45 AUD/year. Munzee is free, but does have a Premium option.
• What you need: Just a smartphone
• Accounts: Find us on Geocaching as ReallyTravelingFam and on Munzee as Muzwon
• Why it works: Kids forget they’re “going for a walk.” They think they’re on a mission.
• These are outdoor activity apps. Your kids will be outside moving, not staring at a screen.

What Is Geocaching? (And What’s the Difference Between Geocaching, Munzee, and Adventure Labs?)

There are three apps we use regularly as a family. They’re related but different, and each scratches a different itch.

Geocaching — The Original

Geocaching is the original GPS treasure hunt, and it’s been around since 2000. Someone hides a physical container (a “cache”) somewhere in the world — under a rock, inside a hollow log, magnetically stuck to a fence post — logs its coordinates on the Geocaching app, and you go find it.

When you find it, you sign the physical logbook inside, then log it digitally in the app. That’s it. Except it never gets old, because every cache is different and every location tells a story.

The basic app is free. There’s a premium membership (around $45 AUD per year) that unlocks more cache types and better filtering — worth it once you’re hooked, but not necessary to start.

Download: Geocaching app

Adventure Labs — Geocaching’s Cooler Younger Sibling

Adventure Labs are location-based quiz trails. Someone designs a series of 5 stops — each at a real location — and at each stop, you answer a question about what you can see or read there. You don’t find a physical container; you find the place and engage with it.

Why does this work brilliantly with kids? Because it turns a standard heritage walk into a mission. We did the Battery Point Adventure Lab in Hobart on our last evening there, and we genuinely wouldn’t have explored half of what we saw without it. It was a beautiful neighbourhood, and the lab had us reading plaques, looking at old buildings, and exploring laneways we’d have walked straight past.

Adventure Labs is completely free and included with the Geocaching family of apps. If you like, you can also download the standalone Adventure Lab app here.

What is Munzee? The Digital Scavenger Hunt

Munzee is slightly different — there’s no physical container. Instead, someone sticks a QR code sticker somewhere (a sign, a bench, a piece of street art), and you scan it with the Munzee app to capture it. You earn points based on the type of Munzee you find.

It sounds simpler than geocaching, and in some ways it is, but it’s perfectly calibrated for toddlers. Kailani can spot a Munzee sticker faster than either of us now. She treats it like a game of eye-spy. And because there are Munzees literally everywhere — in most suburban streets, parks, and tourist areas — you’re rarely without something to find.

You can also deploy your own Munzees. We’ve started placing them in locations we visit, which gives Kailani a sense of ownership — “that’s OUR Munzee.”

Download: Munzee app

Why It Works So Well With Toddlers Specifically

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about toddlers and walking: they don’t mind distance. What they hate is purposeless distance.

Tell a three-year-old you’re going for a two-kilometre walk and watch their face. Tell them you’re going on a treasure hunt to find a secret box that someone hid in the forest, and suddenly they’re leading the way.

The mission reframe is everything. Geocaching gives kids an external reason to keep walking that has nothing to do with your agenda. You’re not asking them to walk because you want to explore — you’re both walking because the GPS says the treasure is this way.

On our Maria Island day trip, Kailani walked somewhere between 10 and 12 kilometres across the island. She did most of it herself. She had geocache finds and Munzee captures to aim for the whole way. I’m convinced she walked twice as far as she would have otherwise.

Real Moments From Our Tasmania Trip

I’m not going to oversell this; here are some actual moments from our 17 days in Tasmania.

Hastings Cave, Southern Tasmania

After a swim in the thermal pool, we spotted a geocache listed near the cave entrance. Kailani was exhausted from the swim and starting to droop. The geocache completely reset her. We found a small container tucked near a sign, signed the log with her name, and she talked about it for the rest of the drive home.

Battery Point, Hobart

On our last evening in Hobart, we almost just sat in the hotel room. Instead, we loaded up the Adventure Lab for Battery Point. We spent 45 minutes wandering one of Hobart’s most historic precincts, stopping at convict-era buildings and reading about characters from the 1800s. Kailani created a distraction by dancing in the street while Jomana found a cache hidden in plain sight. It was genuinely one of the best evenings of the trip — and it cost nothing.

Pennicott Wharf, Bruny Island

Even after our Bruny Island Wilderness Cruise turned around early due to conditions, Kailani jumped off the boat and immediately spotted a Munzee on a nearby sign. Total elapsed time from disappointment to delight: approximately 40 seconds.

Hartz Mountain, Southern Tasmania

We found two geocaches on the Lake Esperance and Ladies Tarn walk — one at each lake. The kids who don’t believe in “just walking” will walk to find a cache. Kailani walked for four hours that day. She was three years old.

How to Get Started — Practically

1. Download both apps. Start with the Geocaching app (covers both regular caches and Adventure Labs). Add Munzee separately.
2. Set up your account. Pick a family username — ours is ReallyTravelingFam on Geocaching and Muzwon on Munzee. You’ll log every find under this name permanently. Feel free to look us up and co-log locations if you find one of ours.
3. Find your first traditional cache. Open the Geocaching app, zoom into your suburb or wherever you are, and look for the green icons. Filter to “Traditional” cache type — these are the easiest to find as a beginner. Sort by difficulty 1–2. Find it.
4. Don’t give up after two minutes. Geocaching has a term for the moment you’re convinced the cache doesn’t exist: “going muggle.” It’s almost always there. Slow down, look lower, look smaller than you think.
5. Let your little one find it. Even if you’ve spotted it, hold back. Let your child be the one who physically opens the container. The pride on their face is worth it every time.

Tips for Geocaching With Toddlers

• Stick to difficulty 1–2 caches to start. Difficulty 3+ often involves climbing, problem-solving, or multi-stage hunts that can frustrate small kids.
• Terrain rating matters more than difficulty. A difficulty 1 cache on rough terrain (rating 4) is harder with a toddler than a difficulty 2 on a flat path (terrain 1).
• Build it into existing walks. Don’t make geocaching the whole activity — use it to enhance a walk you were already doing. Check for caches along your planned route the night before.
• Let them log it. When you find a cache with a physical logbook, let your child sign it themselves (even if it’s just a scribble). That log stays there forever.
• Munzee for the impatient days. On days when Kailani just wasn’t up for a walk, a quick Munzee hunt in a park or town centre gave her a win without requiring commitment.
• Deploy a Munzee at places that matter. We now place Munzees at meaningful spots from our trips. It’s a small legacy — other families will capture our Munzee for years to come.

A Note on Screen Time (The Irony)

Yes, you need a phone to do all of this. The difference is that the phone is a tool in service of the real world, not a replacement for it. Kailani uses the Munzee app to scan something — then she’s done with the screen and running to the next one. The physical world is the game. The screen is just the scoreboard.

Every parent has their own position on screen time, and I’m not here to lecture anyone. But in our experience, twenty minutes of purposeful app use that produces two hours of outdoor exploration is a trade we’ll take every time.

Where to Find More Caches on Your Next Australian Family Trip

We’ve found geocaches, Adventure Labs, and Munzees across the following destinations — check out our posts for specific finds:

• Bruny Island Family Day Trip — Munzees at the wharf, great finds along the Sheepwash Bay track
• Maria Island Family Guide — two geocaches on the island and two virtual Munzees. If you want more, hunt the marina at Triabunna before you board or on your return — plenty to find there.
• Hobart With Kids — the Battery Point Adventure Lab is unmissable.
• Tasmania Family Itinerary — our full 17-day route with cache highlights throughout

Final Thought

Have you geocached with kids? We’d love to hear your finds — drop a comment below or tag us on Instagram @reallytraveling.

We’re not affiliated with Geocaching.com or Munzee — we just genuinely use both every trip.