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"Air Safari New Mexico: Adventures in GeoCaching" will be utilized to help promote Tourism and General Aviation activities in the State of New Mexico; and can be used by schools throughout New Mexico (to help teach math, science, geography, mapping, etc...); and by interested individuals across the nation (for travel and GeoCaching adventure) – helping to promote increased general aviation activity and awareness thereof, plus general tourism. Additionally, Air Safari New Mexico is Officially Endorsed by the Aviation Division of the New Mexico Department of Transportation. Also, ongoing discussions with the New Mexico Airport Managers Association indicate that they may lend support as well.

The main thrust of Air Safari New Mexico is to promote use/activity at General Aviation Airports throughout New Mexico, as well as promotion of general education & tourism. Geocaching is almost like a modern-day “treasure hunt,” wherein a limited number of small tokens are hidden at a locale, to be retrieved by the hunters. Air Safari booklets would be produced on-demand and sold to potential “hunters.” Each airport/town included in the project will have 2 to 6 pages in the booklet with aerial and ground photographs of the airport and nearby attractions; along with coordinates, hints and instructions for the various geocache sites at each locale. A website and online database will be set up to coordinate and monitor geocaching activity (www.AirSafariNewMexico.com). Also, each included airport would have a custom-created stamp with the airport's logo, and participants can get their book stamped (on the designated spot in the book) at each airport they visit, regardless of retrieval of tokens. Depending on other support venues, there may be various prizes available based on the number of airports a participant visits; and there may be a prize/reward structure setup for the geocaching activities as well. A web-link to a sample mock-up layout of the book can be found here (large file, about 10MB): http://www.heronaerospace.com/PublicShare/AirSafariSpecPages.pdf

For those unfamiliar with GeoCaching, the main idea behind the activity is to hide something at a given location, and then provide geographical coordinates &/or hints to find the item (“stash” or “cache”). Hints &/or further instructions can be part of the cache (to find another cache &/or do a particular activity), and “geocachers” can move items from cache to cache – it all depends upon the rules for a given cache or items in the cache. In some cases, as in the case of Air Safari New Mexico, items would be tracked from cache to cache on the web. For more information on GeoCaching &/or its educational value, see these example sites below:

http://www.geocaching.com/

http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/outreach/gps.html

http://www.evalamar.com/GPS/index.htm

With the success of this project in the State of New Mexico, we would endeavor to start similar projects in other states as well.

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You can also Support Air Safari New Mexico by Purchasing the Products Below:

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