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Movement is such an important part of the Paleo lifestyle, so I want to bring you some creative ideas of how you can “exercise” without having to exercise. And with the crazy popularity of Pokemon Go lately, I thought talking about a similar but seemingly more safe activity for your family (you know, one where hopefully you don't walk off cliffs, come across dead bodies, or get robbed) might be appropriate.

Geocaching has been around for quite some time and those of you with older kids may have participated in it when it was pretty crazy popular about 5-10 years ago. Back then you really needed a GPS unit to be able to find anything, but due to how most smart phones now include GPS, it is something pretty much anyone can do now.

If you aren't at all familiar, geocaching is like a modern day treasure hunt. You look up the location of a nearby geocache (we use our iPhones and this geocaching app) and then zero in on the location. Once there, you should find a container. These containers range in contents from just being a simple logbook of sorts where you sign your name to state that you found it, to a bounty of small toys and other inexpensive items. Sometimes it is pretty easy to find the containers, and other times things like the terrain or the location make it harder. Either way though, it is fun to search for them and then quite a thrill to find them (the app we use also indicates the difficulty).

We love going for hikes in the mountains here in Colorado, but the beauty and sereneness sometimes gets lost on our kids and they get a bit bored. The “are we done yets” start coming out with a heaping side of whine. But if we can get cell signal and start searching for a nearby geocache, we can sometimes spend several hours hiking around looking and the kids never whine. And we even have a bunch nearby in our neighborhood so on a lazy Sunday afternoon we will ride our bikes around looking. I also know of several business parks that have a bunch of geocaches too, so if yours does, you can spend your lunch hour pretending to be an adventurous pirate.

The basic rules of geocaching are that if you you want to take something, you are supposed to leave something of equal or greater value. But sometimes we just go through the contents and put it all back without making any switches. And bring a pen as well to sign the log book.

We started doing this when our youngest was almost 2 and he was still able to participate (though we did most of the navigating and he just looked), but our 6 year old loves taking the phone and navigating too, so definitely something people from ages 2-102 can do. Pretty easy, doesn't require any investment, and gets you outside moving without having to “exercise”. Win win!

Have you tried geocaching? What fun things have you found?

Oh and P.S., I'm not judging you if you play Pokemon Go. My family literally just passed by me as I was writing this on their way out the door to go play. So do whatever works for you, just offering you an alternative and either way, get moving!!