Want to hunt for treasure? There may be a cache.

SPOT an utterly valueless item -- a tiny toy soldier, a button, a marble -- lying at the base of a telephone pole or atop a fence post, and you probably wouldn’t pay it much attention. If anything, you might just curse the litterbug who left it there. But hide that valueless item, offer enticing clues to its location, and suddenly it’s worth seeking out.

So it is with geocaching, a novel activity in which players stash a cache of articles in a public area, then post basic geographical coordinates and hints to its precise location at the game’s official website. There, other players -- typically armed with a global positioning system tracking device -- can access the information to track it down.

Thickening the plot considerably, caches come in varying sizes (from thimble-sized micro to ammo-box-sized large), degrees of difficulty (from an easy 1 to a hard 5) and type: A traditional cache can contain objects left by the hider or simply the mandatory logbook in which successful finders scrawl their user names; a mystery cache with a puzzle or riddle, whose solution reveals the location; a scavenger-hunt multi-cache, in which preliminary caches contain clues to finding the next cache; or a virtual cache, usually an existing landmark that finders must describe to the “hider” to complete the hunt.

A little flummoxed by all the details but curious to try out the sport, I recruited a whole family of geocaching enthusiasts: Travis Vail, an avuncular zoology, biology and ecology professor at Golden West College; his strapping 17-year-old son, Tim; and his button-cute 6-year-old daughter, Mikaela.

Arriving at Groundwork coffee shop in downtown Los Angeles, “cache box” in tow -- packed with gloves, a mirror with an extendable handle, several flashlights plus a telescoping magnetic one -- Professor Vail booted up his laptop and downloaded a slew of cache coordinates and information to his GPS finder. Thus armed, our little quartet hit the streets, finding, to my surprise, a plethora of caches hidden within walking distance of the L.A. Times, all while carefully avoiding “muggles” -- non-geocachers following our movements. Finally, switching to the Vail family minivan, we hit the open road, our wanderlust guided by satellite, to find even more.

Want to check out our wild goose chase up close? Promise you won’t act like a no-good muggle and reveal our secrets? Then check out the video and more photos at latimes.com/geocaching and join the adventure.