Sunday, March 18, 2012

Underground Railroad Geotour Looking For Funding

geotour

Geocaching is a rapidly expanding activity with more than 6 million active geocachers around the world searching for hidden objects. But what if those caches were strung together to tell a story or the history of something like the Underground Railroad? Well, that’s what geotourism is all about, and there is a kickstarter project currently looking for backers to fund the creation of a geotour for just that purpose.

Gary Jenkins, creator of the documentary film  Freedom Seekers: Stories From the Western Underground Railroad, and a geocaching expert Melissa Gard are looking create a historical geotour of the railroad consisting of 8-10 caches along the path that John Brown and the 13 Freedom Seekers took. The trip will go from Bates County, Missouri north to Nebraska City, Nebraska. The project is looking to raise $5,000 by August 27. As of this publishing date, the kickstarter currently only has $135 pledged with 27 days to go. To take a look at the kickstarter page for the underground railroad geotour, click here.

The Western Underground Railroad was created in the 1800s to help slaves escape from their owners in the South to the North, where they could try and start a new life. It is a great part of our country’s history, displaying the best of human compassion and daring. And now, through the power of crowdfunding on Kickstarter, history lovers might soon have a way to retrace the path of the Railroad with a Geotour placed along the route

Geotours, for those not familiar with the term, combine geocaching, history and tourism with a trail of geocaches with prizes and occasionally information about the tour. There are hundreds of geocaches around the globe with varying difficulty and goals. Many of them feature some sort of collectible geocoin or other souvenir at the end of the tour. If funded, this geotour will be added to the official list on Geocaching.com, and will also have collectible geocoin trackers themed for the Underground Railroad.

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