It all began, for me, shortly after my induction into geocaching in April 2003. In the summer months of that year, infatuated with my newfound hobby, I spent many long nights with a friend, at his kitchen table, dreaming of a magazine for geocachers.

It would begin as a Web site, we concurred (he was a computer geek; I was just a retired journalist, a face). And because the darned sport is so exciting, it would naturally evolve into a magazine. After all, there are geocachers everywhere.

I just didn’t know there were others out there who shared my dreams; the general forums at geocaching.com provided the catalyst that brought us together.

But we were not the first. In June '01, a short-lived topic aired in the same forums asking, Any Interest in a geocaching magazine? One of the responses was, "... how many geocachers are there out there?" Today, we know there are many more than ever imagined in 2001.

In October '03, the question Geocaching magazine?... surfaced again, this time with more fervor. And it was this topic that introduced the three principles of Today’s Cacher. Jerry Carter (El Diablo, our publisher) entered the conversation early, with drive. I immediately latched on for the ride with a host of others. Still alive in December, the topic attracted the attention of Sean Wormuth (GeoWorms, our production manager), and unknown to us at the time, a metamorphosis began. The forum thread was weaving itself into the conception of Today’s Cacher.

Many discussions and a New Year celebration later, Today’s Cacher appeared on the Internet, again introduced in the gc.com forums. The original site had appeared, with it’s own URL in rough format, and no stories, only “teasers” for the first scheduled issue March '04. Reactions to the site varied from support to skepticism.

Since that time, a lot of people have contributed hundreds of articles and photos to our Web site. Among those who are no longer active contributors, we offer a special “thank you” to Christina Raving, Carleen Pruess and Tee King, all former editors. There are many others, too numerous to mention.

Our current staff is introduced in About Us.

In our early months, we were astonished to receive 100,000 website hits a month. A year later, we are averaging more than 1.5 million hits a month.

A Limited Liability Corporation, we plan to publish a slick page magazine available for distribution in June '05. Learn how you can get your first copy at our website store. We also offer a free mailing list where you can follow the progress of our magazine and receive updates about our Web site.

The Story of Signal, And the Hiring of Hydee, a detailed (and embellished) account of the origin and development of the mascot and the founders of Groundspeak appeared in our first issue in March '04 and was a huge hit. In April, we published The Birth of MIGO describing the very successful efforts of local cachers resulting in the formation of one of the strongest geocaching organizations existing today.

An exclusive interview with Dave Ulmer, The Father of Geocaching appeared in our May issue along with a unique article about Blind Geocachers.

Geocacher University was featured in June and we ran an essay contest, What Makes a Cache Cool? (The results appeared in July.)

In August '04, we learned about bandwidth when we published a short video of Dave Ulmer with his first “stash.”

September featured Geodashing and a good story on Handicapped Accessible Caches.

Two Chilling Interviews haunted our readers in October and we ran a great article about Caching in Iraq in November.

Earth Caches and Moving Caches were well read in December and January, and last month’s hit was a story about huge boulders found in trees and the caches near them.