Geocaching Puzzle Tools

Coordinate Toolkit

Convert between coordinate formats, and measure distance, bearing, projection and midpoints between points.

Convert

Degrees and decimal minutes, decimal degrees, or degrees/minutes/seconds. The hemisphere letter can lead or trail.

Between two points

Project a waypoint

For a cache that says “from the posted coordinates, go 250 m on a bearing of 073”.

Why the coordinate notation matters

Geocaching writes coordinates as degrees and decimal minutes, like N 51° 24.570 W 000° 12.345, while most maths, and most mapping sites, use decimal degrees. Mixing them up is the single most common way to end up hunting in the wrong field: 51 24.570 is 51.4095 degrees, not 51.2457.

Watch the longitude too. A puzzle that yields 000 12.345 is just west of Greenwich, and dropping the sign puts you the same distance east of it. If a decoded answer lands somewhere implausible, a flipped hemisphere is the first thing to check.

  • Coordinate Formula Solver Work out the coordinates hidden behind letters like N 51 2A.B70, keeping only the answers close enough to the posted coordinates to be real.
  • Coordinate Sniffer Paste a whole cache page and have every coordinate, half coordinate and suspicious run of digits in it pointed out.
  • Decode Anything Throw a mysterious string at every common cipher at once, and see the readings ranked with anything coordinate-shaped at the top.