Geocaching Merit Badge

Nine requirements, and requirement 8 is a four-way choice where the quick route may not be open to you. Cache to Eagle needs your council to run one; the Travel Bug and the hidden cache each need thirty days of monitoring, and the cache also needs a three-month maintenance plan. Answer requirement 8 first, not eighth.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

The plan behind this

Geocaching Merit Badge The nine requirements with requirement 8 drawn as the four-way fork it is, so the thirty-day and three-month clocks on three of its four routes are visible before anybody commits to one. 22 steps

Answer requirement 8 first

Requirement 8 says do ONE of the following, and offers four routes. They are not the same size, and the difference is measured in months.

Route	What it costs
(a) Cache to Eagle. Visit three locations in your council's series	An afternoon (if your council runs one
(b) Travel Bug) make one, release it, monitor it	30 days, plus a log to keep
(c) Hide a cache. Set it up, follow the logs, archive it	30 days of logs, a three-month maintenance plan you are personally responsible for, and an obligation to archive it afterwards
(d) CITO, explain it, describe practising it, then make containers or host an event	An afternoon, or a whole event if you host one

The trap is the shape of that table. Route (a) is the short one, and it is the one route you might not be allowed to take. It depends on a Cache to Eagle series existing in your council, which is a fact about where you live. The two obvious substitutes each need a month.

So find out about your council's series before you plan anything else. If there isn't one, requirement 8 starts today.

Two requirements need a parent or guardian, and one needs an account

Requirement 7 needs your parent or guardian's permission, their help setting up a free account on geocaching.com, and then finding an actual cache. Requirements 8(b) and 8(c) need that permission again to follow things online.

That is a conversation to have at the start of the badge, not on the evening you hoped to finish it.

Requirement 9 needs somebody else's diary

Planning a geohunt for a troop, a pack, a school or a place of worship, with a theme, at least four waypoints, teaching the players to use a GPS unit, and actually playing the game: is not a solo requirement. It needs a group willing to turn up and a date they agree to.

It is numbered last and it has the longest booking lead on the badge. Start asking early.

What this page is

The Geocaching merit badge, drawn so that the clocks inside requirement 8 and the permissions inside requirement 7 are visible from the start. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.

Sources for this page

Geocaching Merit Badge Requirements, Merit Badge Hub, last modified 2025-09-19 · The requirements themselves, and the free official pamphlet linked from them.
Guide to Advancement, 2025, Section 7.0.0.3 · The process every merit badge is earned through, which this page does not repeat.
Guide to Advancement, 2025, Section 7.0.4.3 · Which version of a changed requirement applies to a Scout who has already started.
Guide to Advancement, 2025, Section 4.0.0.1 · Why the requirements are not in the Guide to Advancement and are expected to change annually.

Last checked against its sources on 13 August 2026.