Geocaching Headquarters Seattle, Washington, United States
By Groundspeak Crew on 22-Jul-04. Waypoint GCK25B

#16019 - 4:00:00 PM; Day 27 of the great USA and Canada Road Trip with Sol de lune. The first leg took us from Minneapolis through to Washington DC. That was followed by a flight west and attendance at Geowoodstock XVIII and the Geocaching 20th Anniversary Celebration. Completed our Jasmer yesterday with GCD, followed by the resident APE cache. Today brings us to the centre of the caching universe with a visit to Geocaching Headquarters, our final bucket list cache.The day started with a CITO near HQ followed by caching in and around Fremont. Including Adventure Labs, we picked up nine different cache types for the day!I have been waiting for the big day to arrive and now the time is here. Shame about the limited access due to Covid, but still an enjoyable experience. Thanks to the Lackeys who hosted us today and made the visit memorable. Another Bucket List item achieved!Greetings from Australia and TFTC Geocaching HQ

Booked in for 22 August. WooHoo

Finally I have made it to the Mecca of caching. Great to get there all the way from australia.

Tftc

**Find # 6246**
**5 April 2019 10:42 am**
Found during our visit from Melbourne, Australia.
A wonderful opportunity to visit GCHQ and meet the team.
This is the mecca of our addiction, and we feel so privileged to have been here to see it and meet everybody.

**Thanks for the fun Geocaching HQ**

Wow. Made it to Headquarters. Lots of fun seeing the displays and discovering all the trackables. Nice to meet TeaIsCozy. Found cache in good condition. TFTC

Very happy to finally make the find on this one.... it has been on my radar ever since I first found out about the opportunity to visit HQ shortly after starting caching many years ago, when the HQ was in a different location. A couple of years ago I got close, but not close enough, so on this trip I locked in a day dedicated to this visit and the geotour. Logged twice just to make sure - in the tradional log book & the photo log book. Visited a couple of trackables & discovered plenty more. Met several lackeys at the nearby event that was conveniently being held - thanks Jeff for the heads up. I should have kept my head up too when returning to HQ because I managed to smash into the glass door
Otherwise a fantastic pilgrimage and many thanks for the tag. TFTC - and keeping this unique game/sport/activity going!

WOW!!
a dream of ours to visit HQ became a reality. Great to meet many of the people that make our game possible and continue to develop the game.Thanks to Sven for showing us around. Great to meet many of the staff.
Keep up the good work!

TFTC
SS

4:20:00 PM. It was a long haul and 3 flights to get here but we made it. We had a great time and enjoyed looking around the shop and buying a couple of trinkets to take home with us. The young ladies did a great job and it was nice to meet you. Dropped a couple of TB's to continue their travels.Thanks Geocaching HQ for placing this cache.

We are visiting from Bendigo in Victoria Australia. We arrived in San Francisco and then headed off on a 20 day cruise with some geocaching along the way.

We weren't sure we were going to make it to HQ but when we completed the geotour we made a special effort to get the passport stamped and pick up a coin before we departed to the airport to go home. We had a great time exploring and grabbed a couple of trackables to bring with us. TFTC

Thanks to some very generous Hawaiian cachers,
we were able to join their group tour of HQ.
Arrived early, and we were greeted warmly.
Bought some geocoins, and discovered many trackables.

Many thanks for the tour, it was very interesting.

Visiting our newly activated TB

We started planning our trip to the US many moons ago, and of course, we really wanted to visit HQ! So with a bit of planning, we added a Seattle leg to our adventure, and booked in to visit all of the Lackeys and Signal We had just come from completing some of the GeoTour, so were really pumped for our visit We made our way into HQ, and were greeted by Holly, as well as our very helpful contact for the Mega we were organising, Amy The first thing we did, was sign the paperwork, and officially convert GC4X31B to a Mega Event!!! Woo Hoo!!! A huge thanks to Amy for all the help and guidance she ahs given us, Well, with that exciting business done, we made our way around the office, visiting all of the lackeys, and having a few great chats with names which we have all heard, and it was great to meet so many of them personally We won't go into all the exciting business behind those doors, but wow, what a fantastic organisation



We were finally back in the foyer, where we had a great chat with Holly, who was an absolute gem, very informative, and the perfect person to be greeting everyone, and to have a chat with We explored the shop, grabbed a couple of things, and took a few photos in the photo booth, as well as played around a little in general We soon located the trasure chest that is the holy grail of Geocaching, and opened it up to reveal the logbook We happily added our name to the logbook, and had a read through some of the previous entries



Well what else can we say really? We came, we saw, and we conquered our goal of finally reaching Geocaching HQ [^]

TFTC and experience Geocaching HQ! One we will never forget!!!



Gaz'n'Kab



*[QLD Mega 2015 Stanthorpe - GC4X31B](http://coord.info/GC4X31B)[www.qldmega.com](http://qldmega.com)[www.qldmega.com/register](http://qldmega.com/register)*

I didn't come to Seattle because Geocaching HQ is there. It was a place I chose for a stopover to break up 30 hours of travel time between Bangor in Maine and Hawaii. However, when I then found out that's where HQ is I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss by not visiting it. And I'm pleased I did visit it, as it was fun. Thank you Holly for being a great host and welcoming us there; and also thank you to the other people we met.
I took along the collection of trackables I have gathered from caches in the USA and Canada to have their photographs taken at HQ. They are on their way to Australia to be released there.
TFTC and the friendly welcome.

What a fantastic experience it was to visit HQ. This was a pilgrimage for us, all the way from Tasmania, Australia. The staff were incredibly friendly which enhanced the experience. Carly was genuinely friendly and made us feel very welcome. We took lots of photos and one of the many TB's. What a great way to finish our US holiday.

Found this on my US/Canada trip where I visited & found caches in 14 states in the USA and 1 Province in Canada.

Was lucky enough today to be able to take the tour of the Groundspeak Headquarters. Was one of the highlights of my trip and many thanks to all the people at Groundspeak who gave up a bit of their time to talk to us on the tour. And was amazed to actually see my little town of Wallaroo represented on your large map.

Thanks Everyone at Geocaching HQ for the tour.

Found whilst on a holiday with Chip to North America.

I can honestly say that I had never even dreamed of finding this geocache and claiming such a unique icon. About three months ago Chip decided that she wanted to come to Canada to visit her best friend (he is currently working there). I was luke warm on the idea. Eventually she convinced me that leaving my coccon of a local town (Wollongong) was a good idea. And thus it was decided, we would be visiting Canada... but where... Vancouver Island.

OH WOW I said!! That is just across from Seattle... And you know what is in Seatte! (of course, Chip had no idea!).

Suddenly I was excited and enthusiastic about the trip, and the exctiment of actually leaving Australia really built on me.

In the end, I would not say that this was the highlight of our holiday. But, in geocaching terms, nothing will quite beat it, that is for sure.

We purchased a couple of t-shirts, logged online to brag to all of my caching friends back home, posed for a photo, and Chip left a lot of bugs and took a lot more.

Thank you so much for being so warm, friendly and wlecoming. Keep up the good work that allows myself and others to enjoy our hobby/sport/addiction/obbsession.

(Oh, and it was great to actually see the hamsters that keep the website ticking over!!)

Cheers (and hello from Wollongong, NSW, Australia)

Just booked my flights to travel from Australia to Vancouver Island in July. I will certainly be booking in to come here and log this cache!

Very excited!

Dropped in to the lilypad with the current members of the Crew. Carolyn, Bruce and Bronwyn with me for the signing of the lily leaf.

Grabbed a couple of TB from the assortment and Carolyn bought a teeshirt for me.

Great fitting conclusion to a 19 day drive from LA

1. Picking up 13 caches for my Jasmer challenge. (only one left now)
2. Visited the Original Stash Plaque.
3. My lowest cache find in Death Valley.
4. My highest cache find in Yellowstone.
5. 15km hiking to get some old ones in Portland.
6. 400m hike with 100m altitude to get Potter Pond.
7. finds in 8 US states.

Good to meet a few of the lackeys.

Visited today and was very happy and honoured to log the cache. It was fantastic today to meet the Lackeys. Thanks to Kate for arranging my special delivery! Also to Jeremy and Bryan, two founders of this great game. Thanks for signing my book. Dropped off some TB’s and picked some up. Also I enjoyed meeting lots of other Geocachers from around the world. Today for me was a trip to Disneyland! TFTC T: TB’S L: TB’S

Coin Drop

Many thanks for the chance to visit, drop some coins, and meet some other cacher's

Bitsprayer - New Zealand

This entry was edited by Bitsprayer on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 at 03:54:04 UTC.

Thanks!

Well, the main reason for picking Seattle as part of our US holiday was to visit HQ. Today was the day and we arrived at the appointed time.....via taxi. No buses were running from our part of Downtown as POTUS was in town.....

Anyway, on arrival we were met by Katie, who gave us the run down on what we could do. We snapped photo's at the cache chest, jumped into the photo booth, checked out (and bought) items from the stand, watched the 'found' screen through up a find (nothing from Oz) and then grabbed a few more photo's outside the main doors.

A great way to spend 30 minutes at the 'nerve centre' and take some memories back to Australia with us.

Thanks to Katie, and all at HQ.......a great visit.

Test

Got dragged to Headquarters with the Earthbound family so I guess I should claim it! Got the t-shirt to prove it! EB Nano got bored really quickly...once he'd done the photo booth. The Chief had a lovely chat with the desk lackeys while we checked out the geocoins and stuff. Thanks for the visit.

Dipping a TB that we picked here but was logged in a cache in Florida, oops.

Well we held off on some caching so we could celebrate our 3000th find here today.
We were looked after by the wonderful staff for an hour who graciously took time out of their workday to talk to us. We really appreciated that. Good to talk to a fellow Aussie on the staff, as well.
Thank you for letting us visit, look forward to seeing some of you at the NZ Mega in October

Made the visit to the Lily Pad today and met some very friendly lackeys.

Even saw a South Australian cache come up on the screen while we were there.

Dropped in some TB's and pathtags and picked up a heap to take back to Australia.

Thanks for the continuing adventures.

Cache number 230 for the juc_cacher team, my only one today and most likely my last in Seattle this trip, so a milestone in many ways !

Great to meet some fellow cachers and some Groundspeak lackeys here today and to "find" and log the great big cache.

After a bit of a chat and admiring the trackables, I grabbed a few to give them some down-under adventures when I fly out tomorrow.

On my way out, I caught up with Peter from Austria who kindly offered me a lift to town, which ended up with a ride on the monorail and a most interesting tour of the Seattle Underground that I never knew existed and which I almost certainly wouldn't have ever visited. So, thanks Peter and thanks Groundspeak..caching takes you places you never expected, that's for sure !

From the moment that Fellamee Lady had consented that we could take a detour to Seattle on our vacation to attempt the Geotriad*, I had been looking forward to this.
We arrived a little early for our appointment and the delightful Katie and Karen made us feel welcome, we marveled at the office foyer, the incredible number of squirrels and caches.
Our eyes fell out of their sockets when we saw the cache. It took a long time to look through the various sections of travel bugs, swag, coins and bits and pieces. Fellamee Lass was in her element constantly finding new hidden gems.
We met some other cachers who were also completing their pilgrimage. We met with MissJenn - one of the Lackeys - who divulged tips on her typical travel essentials (not what you might think!)
We had our photos taken in the photobooth, and now our photo adorns the front desk.
We were given honorary HQ travel tags. We took photos of everything. We bought a cuddly Signal the frog for Fellamee Lass.
We launched the Bride Travelbug off so that hopefully she can make it to her wedding in Malaysia, Happy Travels. We picked up an international travelbug that we can hopefully help along its way.
We saw Celia's Hat (TB3KZP0) and realised that the guy next to us had retrieved it from where we dropped it in BC!
It took us a while to ensure that Fellamee Lass hadn't hidden any squirrels on her person and to restore the swag that she had mixed in with the travelbugs.
But eventually it was over, we were emotionally exhausted, it had been like a weekend at DisneyWorld crammed into 30 minutes.
We hung around and grabbed a bite in the area but realised any plain old caching would be a big anti-climax so we returned to earth and recommenced our holiday, what little is left of it.
Thanks for the cache, thanks for the invite and thanks for geocaching.

* the permanent archiving of GC1169 meant no geotriad

This entry was edited by fellamee_lad on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 5:58:57 AM UTC.

This entry was edited by fellamee_lad on Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 06:33:43 UTC.

Had a good time visiting with GhostGums and RoseGums.

Thanks Katie and Annie for their great hospitality today, and real made for a great visit. Also thanks for Nicole for help setting it up. It was quite interesting seeing all the TB's/GC's and the shear number of people who have visited. The screen above the cache was absorbing seeing all the logs being posted around the world.

Visted with MrMeccano, RoseGums and Arzosah.

Dropped off a number of TB and GC's that we brought with us from Australia.

Thanks for a great visit

Visited the Lily Pad today with idajo2. It was great meeting all the lackeys, and the other cachers visiting today. Thanks!

Found by Peoria Bill. Great idea to stage a separate event for the HQ visit. TFC Peoria Bill :>)

Wow! Thank you, thank you, and thank you. Our lives have become so much more interesting since starting geocaching. We have been to places near where we live that we never knew existed, we have had adventures, tested our 4WD skills, spent weekends away to geocache in new areas, climbed mountains, walked across streams, made new friends, gotten some great and well needed exercise, and I could go on and on. Thanks for changing our lives. What a fantastic weekend we've had here in Seattle too. Thanks for all the work you've put in organizing it all and for all you do year round. Hip, hip, hooray! Three cheers for the Groundspeak team!!!

Dropping my Lackey coin for the fun of it and to put a few miles on it. Thanks again for the fun. [goldBUTTERDISH[/gold]

Ready for my 2pm tour!!! Myself and possibly 1 or 2 other cachers will be there to celebrate my 3K find, and my first in Washington State. It will be Groundspeak Headquarters. See you in, well 12 hours your time!!! Can Hardly Wait!!! Thanx neoncacher

Sara and Nicole were great and made us feel very welcome as they showed us the Groundspeak HQ. Nice folks, both of them. Thanks for the tour and the coins. Forgot to bring the geocoin we meant to drop, so just discovered the trackables that were there and didn't retrieve any. Signed the logbook and left an origami-folded Where's George bill. Took a glass drop thing. mmcgr proved once again that he isn't photogenic, but Minnie is. Thanks very much for allowing us to visit and for your part in keeping geocaching a pleasant activity. This completes the triad for us.
mmcgr & Minnie

It was great to finally visit Groundspeak headquarters (12,820 Kilometres from home) and meet some of the Lackeys. Thanks to Sarah and Nicole for the warm welcome and for finding Sandy for us when it was made known that we were part of the OzMega organising Committee. It was great to meet Sandy who was very helpful during the organising of OzMega Wagga Wagga, Australia's first Mega Event. We had our photos taken and they are now on the wall in the rogues gallery.

#794 - Wow! Well, I have to admit it feels great to have finally crossed this cache off of our list. Thanks to the Lackeys for helping to make this momentous occasion happen and for taking the time to pose for photos with us. Left one of our coins to join the collection there. TFTH!

Where: Groundspeak HQ, new digs in Fremont.
When: 1 July 2010
Why: Meet up with visiting SoCal cachers fizzymagic and Team Yofa.

I gotta say, I like the new HQ location much more than the old one. Fizzymagic told me he had an appt. here at 3 pm and I figured that was a good a place as any to meet him and his traveling pardner, Team Yofa. It took us a bit to figure out how to actually access the 3rd floor nerve center but eventually we prevailed. A fun half hour was spent chatting up a few of the staff. A highlight was the appearance of Moun10bike whom I'd not seen in a couple of years - back when he worked for the evil empire. I suggested to all that would listen that a new HQ visit deserved a different icon than an old HQ visit. Kinda doubt that's gonna happen but if, and until, it does I'm gonna this as a new visit (double logging, oh no!). Hey, it's a compeltely different place, different hiding place, etc. We took a few pictures (to be posted in due time) and headed off for a couple fun caching adventures.

cheers
fishiam

My first stop in this amazingly beautiful area you all call home. Also my 3000th find!!! Thanks to Sara & Nicole for the "tour" and the photo Booth opp!!! Super sweet ladies who I am sure have seen their fill of catchers, for the week. Thanks for making 3k super special!!!
Thanx neoncacher
Decatur, Alabama

Team "OOOPH THUD" is honored to be allowed to get in on one of the tours. Karen and Nicole are really great PR people. We really enjoyed our visit with them both. I even got to put a pathtag on the Oklahoma slot of the map. I am looking forward to the rest of the activities of the weekend. Thank you for putting up with all the Woodstock cachers that want to "DO IT ALL."

I'm dropping myself off. [^]

W-O-W! W-O-W! W-O-W! Thanks so much to Sara for all her gymnastics to get us a last minute appointment for a visit today. During such a busy time, she made it work for us! And we - Team Luvbassn and me - had such a great time during our visit. Kudos to both Sara and Nicole for being such wonderful and engaging hosts! Groundspeak should be proud!

We signed the logs, traded trackables, took pixs in the photo booth, chatted, laughed, took photos of Groundspeak Headquarters, gratefully accepted the wonderful 10th anniversary coin, and just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! Thanks again, GS, for having us during this busy time!

Left three trackables and took three. Had 2:00 pm appointment. Met and chatted with SNOOGANS! (Thanks for your signature item!) Just a great time!

Came out to see the new Groundspeak HQ. Sara and Nicole greeted us at the entrance and showed us all the neat stuff. MissJenn managed to sneak away from a very important meeting to speak with some of us. There was a bunch of other cachers visiting at the same time. Got to play with the photo booth. Can't wait to see what happens on Sunday. Thanks to the entire Groundspeak staff for allowing us into your operation.

What fun to get lost in colour with the new GPSr.

(It's Eynowd's fault though, honest. He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.)

Just a quick note to log my new Groundspeak Lackey geocoin through this one...

#392 at 1515

How embarrassing! Dvixen and I were supposed to be there at 1400, but had trouble finding the place, and didn't arrive until 1415, despite having been sitting in the donut shop across the road only minutes before.

Had a wonderful time checking out the Google Screen, and logging all of the TBs in the big cache there. It was good to meet Robb_Dogg as well, who brought a metric truckload of coins and TBs, which I discovered.

I left a set of Aussie Coasters, and a bunch of TBs and coins, and took a few coins and TBs to take home to Australia with me.

Thanks for letting me come visit! It was great!

An Aussie, up from Down Under

Logging a TB that I picked up here in/out for correct tracking

The highlight of my conference-visit to Seattle, and a great 900th cache to find. Thanks Very Much to Signal and his staff for a memorable experience and all the fun! Signed the log, dropped six TBs/geocoins off, and picked some up to head home to New Mexico with me. Not to be missed!

Mecca! Thanks for taking the time to let me in and look around guys. Very cool to see the inner workings of the machine, the people behind the code and some plans for the future. I'm overloaded with trackables bound for Aus now - hope I don't go over the baggage limit. Thanks again, much appreciated.

Smurf was playing chauffeur for MacccaMum & MaccaDad today, so felt rather honoured to be be included in the invitation to the headquarters building! We're also originally from Australia (Adelaide), but we're based on the Eastside for a couple of years. It was wonderful to finally meet some of the faces behind the pixel icons and behind the scenes, and to get a tour of the palatial surrounds. Thanks to Jeremy, Bryan, Elias and the gang for your hospitality, and glad to meet up with fellow visitors Sugar Glider Sweatshop and Puppers. Thanks also to Heidi for the introduction.

First we tried bribery, then blackmailing (unfortunately, Jeremy and crowd are clean), and finally resorted to hiring one of those planes that drags a note (it didn't work). Back at the drawing board we devised a scheme that got us close...and then through the front door! We were surprised to see some other spy-type characters ahead of us, but appreciated the fact that they had cleared the area. Managed to nab an item or two (but not the Mount10Bike coins showing as being attached to the cache!) before we slithered out the back door. Great fun all around!

Mary & David from Melbourne, Australia, paid a visit to the Lily Pad at 1400. We were delighted to enter the holy of geocaching holies and have the opportunity to take the grand tour. We saw where it all happens and met Jeremy, Bryan, Elias and the rest of the crew. An added bonus was to meet the other guests, Sugar Glider Sweatshop and Puppers. Took a geocaching.com sticker, left an Australian koala. We also collected the 'What Goes Around' geocoin. Our thanks not only for the cache but for the hospitality, and for fuelling our passion for this addictive activity. Thanks also to Heidi for the introduction.

Passed through Seattle on our way from Portland to Whidbey Island today. It was fun to see the palatial surroundings, and wonderful to meet a bunch of the folks who do the behind-the-scenes work. Thanks for the goodies and the hospitality.

What's that I hear? Is that the Mission Impossible theme song emanating from this cache?
Oh, never mind - it's just Team GPSaxophone's cell phone.

It was good to be back and see y'all again. Emphasis on "y'all." So many lackeys! I was glad to test and the play with the new idea. Can't wait for it to be finalized!