by Not that geocaching wasn’t already cool! This new film streaming on Netflix stars Kea Peahu who plays a delightfully charming and adventurous young girl raised in New York City but with family heritage from Hawaii. The film kicks off with Pili, played by Peahu, on a geocache hunt with a friend on the streets of Brooklyn.
If you’re not exactly sure what geocaching is or are just interested in learning more, check out our intro guide to geocaching.
Pili’s plans for summer camp in the Catskills are ruined when her family has to go to Hawaii to help her ailing grandpa after a health scare. It’s particularly funny to see the geocaching adventurous Pili complaining about being stuck in Hawaii instead of getting to go to the Catskills. No offense to the Catskills, but it’s hard to beat Hawaii, particularly for adventure seekers like young Pili.
Thankfully for Pili, her grandpa has a family secret about a long lost pirate treasure possibly hidden somewhere on the island of O’ahu. And what lovely coincidence that Pili has been training her whole life for just such a treasure hunt!
The treasure hunt that follows is not exactly geocaching in its typical sense, though there are certainly some similar elements. Most geocachers for one aren’t looking for secret treasure hidden by pirates hundreds of years before GPS was a thing. But in many ways that makes the adventure even more fun! A lot of modern geocachers complain about how the ubiquity of GPS has made it far too easy and not enough of a challenge. That’s opened the door for the hobby to a lot more people, but has perhaps taken away some of the thrilling adventure of it all.
However, experienced geocachers will tell you that there’s a lot more to it than plugging in GPS coordinates, especially when dealing with more advanced geocaches. It’s not uncommon to follow a series of clues like those portrayed in Finding ‘Ohana. What makes geocaching so fun is that it combines puzzle-solving and adventure in a great way.
My main concern is that this movie is probably setting expectations a bit high, especially for first-timers. There’s plenty of geocaching to be done in Hawaii, but unless you have the funds to invest in travel, you’ll probably be stuck geocaching closer to home. The urban jungle of NYC in the opening sequence of this film certainly provides its own unique challenges, but it may be difficult to get the same feeling of exploring unchartered territory when you’re geocaching in Akron or something. The film also puts the characters in dangerous situations that should be avoided by responsible geocachers in the real world.
And of course the caches you’ll be after in real life are put there by people recently. That isn’t to say you won’t discover some really cool treasure, but don’t expect to find legendary pirate gold. You’ll be dealing with far more modern puzzles and exploring places that most other geocachers will have access too as well. That’s part of the fun of geocaching, though. Sometimes you’re racing to be the first one to the prize, as Pili and her friend were doing in the film’s opening, or you’re opening a cache that’s been found by others before and looking to see what surprises they’ve left behind for you.
Still it’s great to see geocaching put front-and-center in a film like this, and it’s been a well-received film at that with a Rotten Tomato score of 81% Fresh. As the name implies, it’s certainly a family film and that could turn-off some older viewers and could even upset some hardcore geocachers since it creates a kid’s fantasy version of the hobby. But I’m sure it’ll get lots of young people interested in geocaching, and that’s great because it’s a wonderful hobby and actually gets more exciting and interesting the more people participate.
I’d love to see a sequel to this movie and could easily see the adventurous Pili putting her geocaching skills to use to find all kinds of lost Polynesian treasures. The whole cast of characters were a lot of fun to hang out with and watch on this adventure, and ultimately I think it teaches a good lesson that’s applicable to geocaching as well: The real geocache is the friends you make along the way.
