Imagine this.

Your significant other asks you if you've won at geocaching yet. Your local grocery store clerk asks you why you buy new batteries every week. You whip out your Mac and a moment later you both find yourselves flying dramatically across the face of the earth. As you do so you point out small markers that dot the landscape, detailing harrowing adventure after adventure. A look comes over your now entranced friend's eyes - they finally get it.

This is how to do it.

1.) Google Earth is so amazing it can read both .loc and .gpx files (thanks to Robert Lipe for the heads-up). Whether you've used GPSBabel+, my Automator workflow, or you've done any converting manually you should have one of the two types of files at your disposal. If you've used GeoToad to gather cache info from Geocaching.com you'll find a few extra surprises.

2.) Open Google Earth, then open your .loc or .gpx file. Watch as you dramatically zoom in on your cache location, and notice how Google Earth automatically recognizes the coordinates and displays the alphanumeric waypoint name.

3.) Notice that this location is listed as GPS Device under the Temporary Places in the left-hand column. With this still selected, hit Cmd-S or go File>Save>Save Place as... and save the geocache location wherever you'd like. I've created a Geocaches folder in my Documents folder where I save all of these files to. I also save these files as the number cache it is for me instead of by names. So when I finally save my 1000th cache to Google Earth, I will save it as "1000.kmz".

4.) Create a folder called Geocaches in My Places, and place the GPS Device file here by dragging on the little icon.

5.) Make sure your friends don't drool all over any electronic devices you may have out. Congrats.

  • This also works with any Track Logs you may have logged and saved. Use GPSBabel+ to convert them from "Magellan SD files (as for eXplorist)" to "Google Earth (Keyhole) Markup Language". If you have issues with this check out the GPSr + Mac page.
  • Continue like normal - open Google Earth, open the new .kml file, then save it. It looks awesome.