It's a modern-day treasure hunt, led by technology beyond a pirate's wildest dreams - and the treasure is stashed across the world.

The game known as geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing), has been steadily growing in popularity since 2000, and has captured the interest of many would-be adventurers.

The rules of the game are simple: look up coordinates on the Internet that act as a map to a "treasure," then go find it.

The game itself, however, gets a bit more complicated.

People all over the world put together what are called "caches," which are basically containers made to hold different kinds of items, and place items inside the containers and hide them anywhere in the world.

The person who hides the cache then goes online and posts its GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates, which act as a guide for anyone who has their own GPS unit.

GPS coordinates will lead a person to within roughly 20 feet of a cache, which is close enough to search the surrounding area visually.

Caches may be hidden in the woods, in a large city, in the mountains, under water, on the edge of a cliff or virtually any other place imaginable - thus the game's appeal to those looking for adventure.

Michael Stroud, a 19-year-old Utah County resident went geocaching with his Boy Scout troop.

"It's really fun," Stroud said. "It's great to go out and look for things you've never seen before."

What is normally found inside a cache? Well, to start with there is always a logbook. Whoever finds the cache puts their name, date and time they opened the cache and any other interesting information they decide to write down in the logbook.

There's also usually an item (or items) inside the cache. The idea is that the person who finds the cache will remove an item, and then replace it with another they bring with them.

The kinds of items that are left vary greatly. Sometimes compact discs, action figures or other trinkets are the norm, but there is the occasional cache where someone decides to leave something of much greater value - like cash.

In that sense, it really is like a modern day GPS-assisted treasure hunt.

Captain Jack Sparrow would be jealous.

Shawn Curtis, a 23-year-old political science major, has been interested in geocaching for over two years.

"Geocaching is like being a pirate, except a bunch of coordinates mark the spot instead of an "X," Curtis said. "You don't wear puffy shirts or a sword, and you don't get a parrot or a peg leg. Notwithstanding, geocaching is still exciting."

It's not always fun and games, however. Lynn Rhodes, a salesclerk at the Adventure Resource Center on the UVSC campus had a slightly different experience.

"It was a little disappointing," Rhodes said, explaining that he looked for nearly two hours, only to discover an empty cache. "It seemed like a lot of work for not a lot of fun."

Ideally a cache would never be left empty, if the person who left it occasionally monitors its contents.

People looking to play the game need only invest in a GPS unit and an Internet connection, and they can be on their way to hunting.

GPS units range in cost from $80 to $1000 or more, depending on the model. Even the cheapest models, however, have all of the features needed to start.

There are also plenty of Web sites that offer lists of GPS coordinates for caches, with geocaching.com being one of the most popular.