Gold Panning With Your Family Can be a Fun Weekend Activity

Did your family have to skip its annual family vacation due to the financial reasons?  If you did, I'll bet you're looking for inexpensive alternatives to expensive family vacations.  A very inexpensive family outing that you may enjoy is gold panning.  The whole family is sure to enjoy it and it doesn't cost much to get started.

Many people who are interested in starting to learn the hobby of gold panning are especially impressed with how inexpensive this hobby actually is.  For less than $100 you can buy everything that your family will need.  Chances are that you already have many of the things you'll need at home like shovels and plastic buckets.  All you'll need to buy now are some gold pans, and a few little odds and ends like plastic eyedroppers and plastic bottles for storing the gold that your family finds.

It can be a little difficult learning a new hobby.  Especially one that you may not know anything about such as gold panning.  To get your family set up properly in this new hobby, I recommend that you join a local gold panning club.  These clubs have many weekend get togethers where they spend the weekend panning for gold in local rivers.  This is the best way to learn the secrets of gold panning from people who are eager to teach you and people who have already learned the ropes.

Now that you've gotten started in the hobby of gold panning, it's time to find some places of your own to do a little gold panning.  The club members will be more than willing to help you learn but more than likely they're going to be a little bit secretive about their favorite hot spot.  The best way to find your own hot spot is to look in locations where other people have already found gold.  You might wonder how you're going to find that information out.  Well, let me give you my secret.  I use the web site called www.goldmapsonline.com that sells computer generated gold panning maps.  These maps show all the registered gold mining claims in my area. I live in California so I bought the California gold map.  By knowing where other people have successfully found gold, I can look in similar places.  I'm not allowed to pan for gold on someone else's claim but nothing stopping me from panning for gold on the nearby stretch of the same river.