Munzee Madness

I found a new get-outside-and-find-stuff-with-advanced-technology game.  As you know, I have been Geocaching for the last couple of years.  While this is a fun activity, a combination between Letterboxing and Orienteering, it has its frustrations.  Geocaches are hidden containers with paper in it that is often wet (moldy) and hard to write on.  In larger city centers, there are few places to hide anything bigger than a pack of gum, and containers frequently gets stolen by innocent and not-so-innocent "muggles", making them impossible to find and get credit for.  The owners of these missing containers can take weeks or months to replace them when they are damaged or lost.

This new hide-and-seek game is called Munzee, and instead of finding containers, you seek out Qr code stickers plastered all over the city; stickers that blend in with other graffiti or labels, which most of the public will just walk past without a second glance. The Qr stickers are about 1 1/2" and waterproof, stuck to light poles, street signs, cable boxes and other metal containers--anything that seems permanent and isn't private property.  Once you scan it as found, you earn points for the "capture".  Most are 5 points each, but you can earn more with special Munzees, like mysteries, motels, diamonds, and Clan Munzees.  The link above explains all the different types.  You also earn points for any finders of stickers that you have placed.

It's a fairly new game--only been around for about 3 years (as opposed to a decade, as Geocaching, and about 1/3 of the finds are in Germany where it caught on first, about as many as there are now in the US)--so there are not as many particpants or finds, but it's really cheap and easy to deploy a new Munzee.  It's as simple as slapping a sticker on, scanning it, and typing in a name.  Boom!  I ordered a bunch of stickers and will start venturing into areas to deploy them.  There's certainly not as much maintenance...if the sticker disappears, you can just retire it, or go back and put a new sticker there.

They're also much easier to find than Geocaches.  They have to be put in places where you can actually scan with your phone, so they're more out in the open; easier to spot.  Another bonus: they're often clustered together so it's easy to get 20 or more in just a couple hours.  Today's walk around the lake garnered 27 finds in about 90 minutes.  Unfortunately, all that walking--about 2 1/2 miles--has done a number on my feet.  They're really quite sore now.

I've been knitting a bunch on the Norwegian Olympic sweater.  Making progress--just a few rows a night, often because half-way through a row, I realize that I've made a mistake and I have to back up quite a ways to fix it.  It'll take a while.  Maybe even until next winter...but that's OK.  I'll love it all the more when it's finished!