What Is A Muggle In Geocaching: Definition & Etiquette

A muggle is a non-geocacher who doesn’t know anything about geocaching. It will become inevitable for you to meet a muggle while geocaching sooner or later. Therefore it’s a common term in the geocaching community and belongs to the basic repertoire.

If you’re interested in learning even more about muggles in the world of geocaching and how to deal with them in reality, just keep reading.

What’s The Definition of Muggles in Geocaching?

In general, a muggle is a person who is not involved in geocaching and doesn’t know anything about this activity. A synonym for muggle is geomuggle.

If a geocache is removed or manipulated by a muggle, it is said that this cache was looted, plundered, or “muggled”. Even if you get caught by a muggle while hiding or searching for a cache, you’re considered “muggled”.

We found another interesting definition of a muggle during our research: “A person who hasn’t discovered geocaching yet”.

Etiquette: How to Behave When Muggles Are Around?

There are some simple ways of avoiding and not arousing the attention of muggles while geocaching. Nevertheless, sometimes contact is unavoidable.

• Stay inconspicuous: Humans are curious creatures. Try to be as discreet as possible when searching or hiding a cache. If you behave conspicuously when observed by muggles, you will only attract their curiosity. When you are gone, they will definitely take a look at this cache and maybe remove it from its hiding place.
• Stay alert: The best way to avoid muggles is to recognize them quickly and behave inconspicuously. You can’t prevent a muggle’s attention if you are unaware of your environment.
• Come back later: To remain undetected, it’s often necessary to just cancel searching or hiding and come back later when there is no muggle around anymore. Sometimes geocaching requires patience.
• Stay friendly: If a likable muggle asks you what you’re doing: Tell them about geocaching or give them a so-called muggle card (more about this later). Maybe you can turn this muggle into an active geocacher to grow the community bigger. It’s not always a good idea to act as a gatekeeper and keep all your secrets.
• Act naturally: All in all, just behave naturally while geocaching. It’s the most effective way of avoiding muggles.

What Are Muggle Cards?

Muggle cards are like business cards for geocachers. You can find them online in different languages to print by yourself. They explain geocaching for beginners and defuse the suspicion of the muggle.

So if the contact with a muggle is unavoidable and they start a conversation about what you’re doing, you just give them one of these muggle cards.

Muggle cards deflect your suspicion, and maybe you make the muggle curious about geocaching. In the best case, you just recruited a fresh geocacher.

Where Does The Term Muggle Come From?

The term muggle is not an invention of the geocaching community themselves. Initially, the term originated from the Harry Potter universe.

In Harry Potter, a muggle is a non-magical person who is not involved in the world of witchcraft and magical creatures. A muggle doesn’t know anything about this and lives his or her everyday life.