Part II

Ok, here is part 2 of the essentials. Now, an integral part of geocaching, and a main attraction to the sport, is, of course, the GPS. There are MANY options on the market today; the two frontrunners are garmin and magellan. Although there ARE other handhelds out there (please, make sure that the one you get is weather proof), these two are the ones you will run into the most. I, personally, have always used garmin products. Others swear by magellans. Its kinda like the coke/pepsi thing. Each one has its ups & downs. I currently own a GPSMAP60Cx, which is their premier GPS at this moment. It is capable of storing maps, has a removeable memory card, has autorouting (more on that later), and even has a geocaching feature, which allows you to log the geocache, and go to the next closest one. Its a feature I really like. There is also a calendar feature, which logs all your finds each day, so you dont have to actually remember them.
The next thing I carry for electronics is a camera. I use a Nikon Coolpix L3. Camera choice is yours. I keep mine in a plastic bag, inside a case, to keep moisture from getting to it. It takes AA batts, same as all my other electronic stuff, so I dont need to carry different types of batteries. For me, a digital camera is best, as I can download my pictures to the net. Again, the choice is yours.
Next up is a walkie talkie. I honestly have never used mine caching; some do, some dont. I carry it simply because. IT also takes AAs.
LAst one for now, my PDA. My PDA is a Garmin Iqueue 3600. IT serves several purposes; first, its a PDA (duh). Second, this model is also a GPS, and, with a car kit and external antenna, it is my car navigation system. This has autorouting (plug in an address, and it routes from where you are to where you want to be), voice turn by turn directions, and works reasonably well. Third, I use my PDA for paperless caching. You can read more on that there. But, it beats the heck out of carrying tons of paper with you. One word on caching with PDA's; get a good case for it. There are several weatherproof cases on the market today. The one I use allows me to write through the heavy plastic front of it, and, it floats. You want to protect your investment.
speaking of investment, you can get a good used pda off of ebay for a song. All you need is one that is capable of hotsyncing, and has palm os 3.0 or later, for uploading files to it. More on that later.
Well, thats all for now. Hope you found this all informative!