5 Tips for Geocaching Stealth

To the untrained eye, geocachers can look a little suspicious. Improve your stealth skills and avoid drawing unwanted attention from muggles with these five tips.

Geocaches highlighted in the video:

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Night at the Diner by Marco Frydshou

[yoraffetto]

Orange vest. Wear it. People will assume you're doing something related to construction, gas lines, or whatever. And then you presumably have a reason to be inspecting an area so closely.

[thebuttonmushroom]

Honesty has always been the best policy for me when I get well and truly muggled. Most of the time they are either curious or confused but I have never met anyone who has a problem with it. The police even helped me look for the cache!

[Bluelamb]

As Jeff Blackmar has said, the 'suspicious behaviour' is not in retrieving the cache discretely once you know where it is, it's in the frustrating 20 minute search for the well hidden nano that has no hint and a million possible hiding spots!

If you're skulking around you look suspicious, so don't skulk! Look like you belong and act normally and you'll not get a second glance. If the cache description says 'extreme stealth required' then that's a poor place for a cache. The cacheowner had best be prepared to replace it

[Devnci]

I always like to make sure to have something illegal in my back pocket, that way if anyone asks what I am doing I can go to jail and protect the Geocache.

[Scarabaeus]

The problem in being stealthy is not the grabbing but the searching for the cache.

[DaRk_ViVi]

Nice tips, but every time I do urban caching it's very hard to not look like a drug dealer. IMHO using stealth tricks make it look even more suspicious.

[rjohnson]

Waving my hand and saying, "These aren't the droids you're looking for" gets them every time.

[Flip_FTW]

... Or you could just go about your business looking for the cache and if anyone asks what you are doing just tell them that you're geocaching. 
I've met other geocachers, people who have heard of it but were not really sure what it was and outright converted muggles to try Geocaching themselves one time by doing this. 
If you're worried about looking suspicious, you will look suspicious.

[davidtomamusic]

These only really work if you know exactly where it is. What if it's a hard one that you need to really look for?

[MsRickismom]

I put my purse or backpack about where I think the cache is, and people think I'm retrieving something from it.

[hockeyhooligan]

I use the uniform approach. I have a shirt with a company logo on it and go about my business. I have even told others I am taking GPS Coordinate readings for finding property lines or looking for survey markers. I have found if you look and act like you belong no one gives you a second look except the nosey old lady across the way. LOL

Every cacher should have a dog....  Dogs are awesome caching partners, and make for great diversions.  You can stand or wander around just about anywhere and it looks like you're just waiting for your dog to do something.  Pretending to pickup dog poo while finding a cache low to the ground is good too.  

[ronaldarbour]

I've used the safety vest and I often take a camera with a small tripod to make it look as if i am photographing insects and plants

[KortaGalathil]

My technique is taking photographs with a big SLR camera. Or as I like to call it "the photography student". No-one questions an art/photography student photographing a random bush or bench really close up... :p
 You're also less likely to get in trouble as if you are impersonating an official in any way.

[KnightOfGaea]

All of these methods assume you know exactly where the cache is hiding. Most aren't so easy to find as you have to often look under several nooks and crannies to locate it. The best method I've found is simply waiting for muggle traffic to lighten or to come back later. Obviously, in the city that never sleeps, this could be problematic. But it's better than doing the shoe tying trick every 5 feet until you find the cache.

[vertumnis]

Those are tips for retrieving - not for searching.

[lonnamoreno]

I like your approach. I have used the taking pictures of the area as a great way to search around.

[AuthenticMage]

I'm a relatively new cacher, but I have noticed that if you have ear buds plugged in your phone no one questions why you are holding it and looking at it occasionally

[DadInTaiwan]

Yep, number 5. I'm always "taking artsy photos" when trying to get close and search some area. 

[wakingup]

many people ask us if we are surveying the boundries or parcel of yes we are.