HUNTING FOR TREASURE ACROSS NORTHERN MICHIGAN: Geocaching:

It's an activity invented in 2000, and it has been picking up steam across Northern Michigan and worldwide. The high-tech adventure basically involves finding coordinates for hidden treasures on the Internet, seeking them out through hand-held GPS units, then replacing found treasure with trinkets of your own and writing in the provided logbook. The craze is so popular in this part of the state there are more than 1,300 public geocaches in the Traverse City area alone, according to the city's convention and visitor's bureau.

My family and I have done a little geocaching, and the kids are eager to try some more. It's fun, fairly simple (though finding some of the caches is far from easy), and it gets you out of the house for a bit. By checking out geochaching.com you can find a quick afternoon activity nearly anywhere.

It's also led to geocaching-related activities:

This year, Holiday Vacation Rentals has added a new twist. Anyone who rents one of its 100-plus vacation homes or condominiums -- most in the Boyne City and Harbor Springs area -- can follow a private geocache route that has elements of a scavenger hunt thrown in. They provide the GPS unit, along with mapped routes that take you from clue to clue and eventually to the "treasure."

Sounds fun.