Why You Should Visit "The Geocaching Capital of the Midwest" (West Bend, WI)

Craig’s internet went down, so I grabbed the mic, opened GarageBand, and turned a quiet week into a full-on geocaching travel report. If you’ve ever wondered what makes a mega event feel genuinely worth the drive, West Bend, Wisconsin has an answer: the $1,000 West Bend Cash Bash, a town that embraces geocachers, and a lineup of brand-new hides that are actually creative, polished, and fun to do back-to-back.<br><br>I walk through why West Bend has built a reputation as the geocaching capital of the Midwest, from the scale (they advertise 1,200 geocaches within 10 miles) to the tradition of releasing 50 new caches for the event. I break down how the cash raffle and prize tickets work, what the “all things Wisconsin” theme looks like on the trail, and the specific caches that made me laugh out loud, including a cheese shop-style container, a Quick Trip multi that nails the gas station vibe, a Hodag creature build, and even a cow you get to “milk” to earn the find.<br><br>There’s also the people side: seeing familiar faces, meeting newer geocaching creators Mitch and Becca, and trading my shareables in person for the first time. I wrap with practical planning tips for next year (timing, lodging, and why an Airbnb can beat inflated hotel rates) plus a bonus detour to the Miller Brewery tour in Milwaukee, complete with a geocache that’s been around since 2001.<br><br>If you enjoy geocaching stories, gadget caches, Midwest travel, and destination-worthy hide quality, subscribe, share this with a caching friend, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

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Craig’s Offline, So It’s Solo

Speaker 0:10

Hey friends, it's Josh, and this is a little bit different episode of the Treasurers of Our Town podcast, as you can probably tell because it is just me also myself. There might be more singing in this episode because Craig is not here. And you might be thinking, oh no, why is my favorite Aussie not on the Treasures of Our Town podcast? Well, he has a little bit of a delay. You know, we do our delays and upgrades. And so here's the delay. Apparently, Craig's Starlink, which is the thing that helps him get internet to his homestead, apparently that went down, and he is waiting for a replacement of his internet access. So it's pretty difficult to do a podcast where people are in different locations and not have the internet. So for this week, you just get me. The production level is probably way worse because Craig's the tech guy of this podcast. So I'm just sitting here with my microphone and the good old garage band attempting to give something to you guys. You can't go two weeks without Craig and Josh, right? So you're gonna get half of it. And that's just an episode with me talking to myself, which is actually a pretty challenging thing. I think this is the first time ever that this podcast has had only one voice on it because I'm all by myself. But regardless, we're gonna continue on upgrades and delays. My delay is that Craig is not here. That is my delay. I'm bummed about that. Love to talk to him. And one of the great things about this podcast is that it disciplines you to essentially talk to your friends. Talk to my friend Craig. So that that's that's my that's my downgrade. That's my delay, is that Craig is not here. My upgrade is is that here in Minnesota, I'm about to talk about the weather now. But you know, I don't typically talk about the weather, but it is so beautiful. It is dry, sunny, beautiful day in late August, and I can feel it. I can feel the fall starting to sneak its way here in Minnesota, and fall is the best time of year, I think, in Minnesota. If Craig was here, he would be calling it autumn, not fall, or he would mock me by saying fall. I don't think I say fall that way, but I'm gonna say autumn for him because if he was here, he would say autumn. And so for this episode, it is not gonna be probably as long as it usually is because I've got nobody to bounce off my thoughts with. I have nobody to ask questions or follow-ups because I'm all by myself. That's probably the fourth time I've done that. I need to stop doing that.

Why West Bend Keeps Calling Back

Speaker 3:39

But two weeks ago, I just got back from West Bend, Wisconsin, which is the home of the thousand dollar West Bend Cashback Bash. And so this is a little travel report from that event. And because I just talked about it just a little bit, and I thought, oh, what could I talk about by myself? I could talk about something I experienced without Craig. Craig was with me there last year, and this year it was Minnesota boy. And so I'm gonna talk about the West Bend Cashback bash. I'm struggling with that word bash, and what keeps bringing me back year after year? If this is my third year in a row attending, but I have attended this event years ago, and then there was a little bit of a gap. This is a really busy time of year for me in my day job because I am the director of training of my company, and I'm training all the new people in the month of August. So sometimes I cannot, cannot always make it to the West Bend Cash Bash. But I did this time. I did it again for the third year in a row. It is only about a five and a half hour drive for me. So this is the closest mega to me from my home residence, which is of course Minneapolis, Minnesota. Although, though, that was different this year because MOGA was in Des Moines, which is four hours away. So it is not the closest mega to me this year, but typically it is the closest mega to me. And I have visited West Bend several times, obviously with a cash bash, but actually I've also spent a long weekend there because it is a great geo destination. It is a great geocaching destination, even if you don't want to go to or can't go to the thousand dollar West Bend Cash Bash. Um, West Bend has branded itself the geocaching capital of the Midwest. They advertise 1,200 geocaches within 10 miles. So, friends, this is a legitimate destination for geocachers. So, 2026, it was the 18th annual event. They hold the event at Regner Park. But let's be honest, the event really isn't in Regner Park. The final, like that's the home base, and that is where they end the event. But this, friends, is a geocaching event because every year they put out 66 to 50. This year it was 50 brand new geocaches for the event. And the goal is to find as many as possible. I believe for every seven caches that you find of the new caches, you get a raffle ticket for the prizes at the end of the event. So the more caches you find, the more chances you have to win prizes. And they had some great prizes this year. So that was really great. But also, you can win money. I can't think of any other geocaching event where you can actually win money. But the West Bend Cash Bash, you can. The $1,000 West Bend Cash Bash. The total raffle amount is uh $1,000. The grand prize is $500 and then $250 and then $100 and then $100 and then $50. And it's so funny, every year when I go, I joke that I am going to the West Bend Cash Bash to lose the bash. But I really don't lose because I have such a great time. And this year was no exception. Every year they have a theme, and this year's theme was all things Wisconsin. All things Wisconsin. So we're talking about what are we talking about? The Green Bay Packers. We're talking about the Brewers, the Milwaukee Bucks. We're talking about the hodag, which is like this mythical Wisconsin creature. All the geocaches were themed, Wisconsin theme. And so that was a lot of fun. Although a little tough for me because I actually lived in Wisconsin for two years or for eight years of my life as a child. So I have somewhat of a connection to Wisconsin, but I've lived in Minnesota both most of my life. And if you don't know, if you're not from the upper Midwest here, Wisconsin and Minnesota are pretty pretty big rivals, especially when it comes to NFL football. Especially when it comes to Vikings versus the Packers. But the theme this year was all things Wisconsin. Oh, there was a there was a cheese cache. There was a cow cache. And we'll we'll talk a little bit. Will I I'm all alone because I'm all by myself. I'll talk a little bit about some of the fun caches that I found. But it is a free mega event. You don't have to, you don't have to pay anything, of course, just with any like any geocaching event, there is, you know, packages and coins and all that good stuff. But you when you arrive there, when you check in, they give you this uh for free, this really, you know, one of those drawstring bags with and it has the logo of the event on it, and it's filled with goodies, filled with coupons and things to support the West Bend um area. And this event is all put together, it's organized by the West Bend Chamber of Commerce, as they have named themselves and dubbed themselves the geocaching capital of the Midwest.

How The Cache Bash Actually Works

Speaker 9:35

But what really makes this geocaching event amazing are the hiders. They have a collection of, I think 15 to 16 hiders, and and you can tell, you can tell that they all are very thoughtful on the theme, and they have a great group of hiders. And so just a big special shout out to those hiders because the caches, every single one is creative. A lot of times they're cute, a lot of times they're gadget caches, but it's so fun to see the minds of these hiders as they try to do a good job with the theme. So this year there were 50 new geocaches um that were that were placed, and they went live. I believe they go live at noon on the Friday. Unfortunately, I had to work that Friday, so Minnesota Boy and I were not able to leave until after work on Friday, which means we had all day Saturday to find these geocaches. And I would like to say we had time to find, I think we did pretty good. We found 35 of the 50. So there's still 15 out there that we did not find. But it's not just just geocaching. There were adventure labs, there were vendors. Um, Cache B's Cash Supplies was there. We had wooden and nickel geocoin, a former uh sponsor of the geocaching vlogger. They've made some wooden coins for me in the past, and then the Space Coast Geocaching Space Coast Geocaching store was up here. They made quite a halt, you know. They're from Florida, so they came all the way up for this event. So again, the angle of this is that you can leave this event, you can make win big money. Show me the money, you can win big money, and you can become $500 richer. Which, spoiler alert, I did not. It's so funny too when when they announce the cash prizes, a lot of times, a lot of times it's children that win, which is really fun. But one of the things that's cool is they when they give out the money at the very end, they have like the gigantic checks, which is an awesome photo up. I just I just want to have I want to hold a giant check someday in my life. That'd be pretty cool to be able to hold a giant check. So I'm gonna put that out in the universe. I'm gonna manifest that I someday will get to hold a gigantic check. It doesn't even have to be for a lot of money. It would be funny to be a one dollar check. It was so funny. I just found this is kind of a rabbit trail. I just saw something on social media where a guy in Iowa won a won a one dollar scratch ticket, and so then he went to the Iowa lottery office and he wanted to hold a check, a giant check for one dollar and get his picture taken. I thought that was pretty funny. So, all right, let's go through the weekend. Basically, the weekend was this it was travel there, stay at Airbnb, geocache all day with Minnesota Boy. Made quite a few um pieces of content that is slowly coming out on Instagram and TikTok and my YouTube channel, mostly doing shorts because um there's just so many great caches, so many cute caches. So I left work on Friday about five o'clock, drove to Minnesota Boys' house. Minnesota boy drove, what a nice guy, but also he wouldn't have it any other way because he gets a little bit of car sick. So he he actually quite enjoys or needs to actually drive. So we made our way, beelined it over to West Bend 94. Interstate 94. Not my favorite, not my favorite road to be on, but had some good conversation. We stopped at the old quick trip. Speaking of Wisconsin, Quick Trip, it is probably the best gas station in the state of Wisconsin. I'd like to stop at a quick trip. And actually, keep that in your mind because there was a really cool quick trip themed geocache, which was actually one of my favorites, and I'll get to that a little bit. But West Bend, I don't know, I should know this information. I don't know what the population of West Bend is. I'm thinking it is like it feels like it's like 15,000, maybe. So it's not tiny tiny, and it has a lot to offer. One of the highlights of um the city is a Regner Park. Regner Park, it is a beautiful. They hold this event in a beautiful park. There's just like this giant splash pad there. Um, there's a video, I think, years ago, where I actually went swimming in that splash pad because I think there was an adventure lab in the middle of the splash pad or the middle of this the swimming area. The downtown area of West Bend is quaint with nice little restaurants. There's a beautiful like marquee that says West Bend. Um, I've I've eaten at many of a local restaurant. They have a bar there. I don't know if the bar is still there, but get this there's a bar there called Muggles, and you gotta, you gotta go to Muggles someday. I I have a little video of me going to Muggles and like getting kicked out of Muggles because I'm a geocacher. And like because, you know, the bar is only for the muggles, not for the geocaches. And but anyway, it's a it's a beautiful little town that fully supports geocaching. I mean, they've been doing this event for 18 years. And here's one of the things that really, you know, we always talk about um, you know, the geocaching community is aging, which it is actually, it is aging. But this event feels a little bit different because we do see quite a few young families with young kids doing this event because they've been doing this event so long in this community. And I think there are actually local people that that decide like this is their weekend, the geocache. Like they're not geocaching, you know, hardcore for the whole year, but they know when the cash bash is happening and they make it a day for them for their family to go geocaching, which means there's there's more young families and more young people than normal, than your normal mega event, because they have built such a great tradition here in West Bend. Um, and you know, I I would visit West Bend even if without the cache bash, because here's one of the things all these caches, I mean, 18 years of cat of this this event means that every year there's fresh new caches. So there's caches that have been the really well done ones from other years, other themes that have stick around. So they don't they don't typically archive all the caches from previous years. They they keep some of them. Of course, they archive some because you know they're they're gonna run out of room, basically. But the really good ones they keep. So you could come to West Bend anytime and still experience uh a lot of great geocaching because they keep they keep some of those those caches active, which is really cool. But the nice thing about the cache bash is those 50 new ones that come out, they are pristine, they're in such great shape because you know, because they're brand new. And that's one of the reasons I especially for the last three years, I've enjoyed coming to the cache bash because it's pristine, pristine geocaching. So um if you if you come, the the this the city has has quite a bit to offer in restaurants and and all good things. So even if even if your your spouse or your partner, your friend doesn't geocache, I think they could still have a lot of fun for a nice weekend in West Bend. So let's talk about the experience.

The Best Wisconsin-Themed Caches

Speaker 17:29

Again, great caches. Let me talk about a couple of my favorite geocaches, and I won't, I know I won't spoil it, but talk about some of the themes. I found a geocache that you know you opened up. I opened it up, and the inside of it there were just boxes. And on the outside of the boxes was different kinds of cheeses. And here in Wisconsin, there's a lot of cheese shops. And so this was like a basically a geocache that was like a geocaching cheese shop, which was kind of fun. And they had all kinds of different cheeses, cheeses, and each box had you know swag in it, but only one, of course, had the logbook. So I've seen that strategy hide before, but it was really clever to have it be all about cheese. One of my favorites was a multi-cache that was themed on the the gas station quick trip, which is uh obviously a popular geocache uh sorry, popular, popular um gas station. That's the word I'm looking for. And so it was a multi-cache. And the first one, a lot of people stop at at gas stations for the bathrooms, and and quick room is known for their clean, I'll say clean-ish bathrooms. So the first one you was basically a bathroom toilet that gave you the coordinates to the next location, which ended up being a gas pump. And it was a gas pump gadget cache, and it was so well done, and it just made me smile. Um, there was also a very well-constructed cache that was the the hodag, which is a mythical creature, kind of a monster-like uh creature here in here in Wisconsin or there in Wisconsin. That was really adorable. Let me think of other ones that we experienced. Yeah, there was one where I had to milk a cow, um, which is something I've done in Hanover, Germany. So I had some experience, experience milking a geocache. So that was really great. Um, but yeah, I found uh about 35, 36 of them. And and each each geocache, there's a stamp there or there's a code so that you put it on your card. So when you turn it in, they you have proof that you have found them. Now, Minnesota boy and I, we arrived on Saturday. We didn't want to waste any time. We wanted to just start geocaching, and we really didn't just we didn't care about the prizes, but I did actually care about the cash prize. Um, everybody that that registers gets a ticket, one ticket to win the money. Um, so the money uh ticket has nothing to do with the amount of geocaches that you found. Um, that was only for the prizes. Um, so that was great. Some people that I ran into.

Familiar Faces And New Creators

Speaker 20:03

Um, of course, you ran into some of the same people year after year. Uh, ran into our friend Hailmeister from geocaching with Hailmeister, got to see him. I got to meet for the first time some new newish geocaching YouTubers, um, young people in their 20s. How cool is that? A little bit of an anomaly. Um, their name is Mitch and Becca, and I got to meet them for the first time. I'd been watching some of their videos. They're Wisconsin-based. Um, I think they live somewhere near the Wisconsin Dells area, which we've had um conversation about the Wisconsin Dells here on this podcast. And they put out some real they're putting out some really high quality geocaching videos. So shout out to them. Check out Mitch and Beck Becca. And we got to uh I got to have dinner with them. We went to my favorite chain. Now, you know, I want to encourage y'all, if you're in a new area, support local. But West Bend, they do have, they do have a Texas Roadhouse. And uh, you know how much I love the Roadhouse. Minnesota Boy actually loves the roadhouse as well. Unfortunately, we were not able to sit in Willie's Corner, which is the corner of the restaurant dedicated to Willie Nelson. Every single Texas Roadhouse has a Willie Willie's corner. Couldn't sit there. But um got in right away, had my steak, and we just had some great conversation with Mitch and Becca, as well as a Hailmeister was there as well. And here's another thing that's fun too is this this event has been going on for a long time. I think my first one I went was maybe I want to say 12 years ago, 13 years ago. And so there were people, there were some individuals in their early 20s that had met me when they were children, which makes me feel old and makes me realize how long I've been doing uh the the vlogging. And um, so uh a 20 something person came up to me. Me and said, Do you recognize me? And it actually I did recognize them, but I remember them when they were like eight years old. So that's crazy. The geocaching communities growing up, and it is fun to see. You know, somebody that was eight years old geocaching with their parents, and they're still out there uh geocaching with their parents. It was just kind of fun to see. Another thing that was cool is that this was the first time that I got to experience giving out my shareables, which is the digital sort of artwork that you can give to people in person or you can give to caches that you find. So I gave a lot of my uh the geocaching vlogger found your geocache shareable to I think pretty much all the hiders because the the caches were so good. But then I for the very first time I got to give out well, not the first time, because I gave my my first ones in person to Minnesota Boy, but I got to trade and give some shareables to some people that were at the event, which was which was really cool. So if you were there, thanks so much for trading shareables with me. That was that was really, really neat. So the energy at Regnar Park is great. It was well attended. I mean, I think by by the look of the group picture, I would say, I mean, I would say maybe 700, 800 people there. Not sure. Not everybody, not everybody was there for the photo, but but it was great. And they're gonna continue on. Next year is gonna be year 19. It's really good, really well organized. It's so cool that the Chamber of Commerce of West Bend really embraces embraces this event as well.

Where To Stay And How To Plan

Speaker 23:37

Um, so I would recommend, I would recommend that if you're near the Milwaukee area, so West Bend is about 35 minutes north of Milwaukee, recommend that you make your way up there. Um it's worth it's worth the stop, it's a worth the long weekend. Um, if you want to experience the whole event, you should a lot of people arrive there Thursday night so they can get a full day of cashing in Friday. It's pretty difficult to get all 50 cashes on one day. Um the one thing, the one thing is is that's tricky is that I've my experiences at West Bend, they really crank up the hotel prices. Like one night in an average hotel was $200. So Minnesota by boy and I shared an Airbnb about 30 minutes away, which was a good good idea. And this Airbnb was nice because it had it had I like a good Airbnb with a lot of fun, it had air hockey, it had a pool table, and so yeah, Airbnb is the way to go. I would I would get ahead of that because the Airbnb hosts don't know that there is um an amazing geocaching event happening, so they're not gonna crank up their prices for that. So uh look now. You can I think you can book an Airbnb out a year in advance if people have opened it up to them. So I would suggest Airbnb, some people camp or you know, maybe get ahead of it and try to get that whole hotel room. So it's good, it's great for newer cachers, it's great for families. Um, it was it was it was a lot of fun, and uh it's a beautiful area outside. You know, it's not just in the caches, aren't just in West Bend proper. There's some smaller towns on the outside. As you can imagine, there's caches everywhere. We're talking 1,200 caches. That's a lot of caches in um 12, 15 mile area. Also, you should know, about 15 miles away from West Bend is GC3B is in Boy One. It's about 15 miles away, and that is Wisconsin's oldest active geocache. So there's another reason to be in that area because the oldest geocache is there as well. So it was a good time. It was a good event with Minnesota Boy, and uh, I will go again. But

Miller High Life Tour And A Classic Cache

Speaker 26:05

Sunday morning, Minnesota Boy and I did something very special, something that we talk about a lot here. You all know my favorite cheap beer is Miller High Life because it is the champagne of beers, and so I looked at Minnesota Boy the night after the cash bash. I think we were driving back to our Airbnb and I was like, hey Tim, um I have always wanted to tour and visit the Miller beer brewing company brewery tour. And I looked on the website and I noticed they were having Sunday tours, and Tim was all for that. And so Sunday morning, we did not do any geocaching, although we did, because there is a geocache actually right at the Miller Brewery tour. It's a very old one, actually. It's sort of in grandfathered in. But we decided to do the Miller, I'm gonna call it the Miller High Life tour, which was really a really good tour. It was, I think it was about $25 a piece, and we got four, count them, one, two, three. We have four drinks. One before the tour, two during the tour, and one after the tour. The gift shop was amazing, had all kinds of Miller High Life merch. There was something there that I kind of regret getting, but it was a little bit expensive. You guys, if you listen to my to this podcast, or if you watch my YouTube channel, you know I love vinyl records. Vinyl records is kind of like my other hobby. Get this. They have a vinyl record that is filled with real Miller High Life. It's a record filled with beer. And I thought they were sold out and they had them there, but they were $85. So I held back and I did not get the Miller High Life um record. But if any of you are listening and thinking, boy, you know, Josh's 50th birthday is coming up in a little over a year, and you want to get me a gift? The Miller High Life dive bar record that is filled with beer, that would be a really cool gift. I'm just putting it out there. I'm just putting it out in the universe. But the tour was great. Uh, we got to go into the caves where they used to like store the beer, and there was like a hologram in the tour. It was it was a really well-done tour. It was a lot of fun. And I don't know, I always like to see, I like to see the behind-the-scenes stuff. It's kind of like, you know, when I was a kid and I watched Mr. Rogers and you watch how crayons are being made. It was really cool to see how the beer was being made. Although it was pretty quiet because it was a Sunday that we did the tour. So that was another fun thing. And we got a smiley for it too. There was a geocache right there at the at the Miller Brewery Tour. And I think I might be able to tell you, let's see, I'm gonna try to keep talking, tell you what GC code is that Miller tour. Yes, um, pretty old. The cache is called LPS008, and the the GC code for the Miller High Life or Miller Tour is GC1E as an elephant, B as a boy, A as an apple. This is a cache that was hidden July 21st, 2001. So this cache was over 25 years old. It's amazing. The description really cracks me up. It says this is a commercial cache, a liquid cache at the end of the trail. Be sure to show up Monday through Saturday during the day. It's kids are allowed. They have alternative samples to try for kitties. Enjoy. Um, the cache activities start here. You have to follow the trail. A guide will direct you, basically the tour, to the end. And at the end lies three to four containers with golden contents. So it was a geocache with some golden contents. So that's

Quick Wrap And Next Time

Speaker 30:09

a little update. Did not want to leave you with two more weeks without the Treasures of Our Town podcast. So, yes, this is a little bit different. We miss Craig, but we will be back on track in two weeks. But I hope you enjoy some of my insights and some of my travel log of me uh doing the West Bend Cash Bash, which was now two weeks ago. All right. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Uh, we'll see you next time.

unknown 30:36

Bye.