Local Treasures: Geocaching Across America documents my on-going forays into the world of/through geocaching. While the introduction explores the cultural significance of the game, the body of the text explores the personal significance—both for me and for the players whose geocaches I have had the chance to visit.

The photographs offer an unusual glimpse of the landscape, of place profoundly democratized by creative players: these spots are among the many thousands chosen, by people whom I will likely never meet, to share with me and with other strangers. The locations may have been selected because they are beautiful, or funny, or important. Perhaps they are simply the most pleasing spot near that person’s home. Whatever the reason, these places are a cross-section of the world where we live now, our ordinary environment charged with significance for and by the individuals who singled out these spots among all others. Coupled with the photographs are lyrical vignettes, stories prompted by my visits to these varied sites. About surveillance or transcendence, about getting lost or learning to notice, the stories map the imaginative universe I wandered while walking to and from the geocaches others hid.

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