When the Sangrey family wanted to take a trip around the world, they didn't have to leave Lancaster.

Thanks to the Cultures of Lancaster City geocache tour, created by Kids and Cultures, the Sangreys experienced many of the ethnic restaurants and businesses located in the downtown area where they live.

Billed as an "urban hike," Cultures of Lancaster City takes families on a high-tech treasure hunt. Using a recreational GPS unit, tour-goers follow a series of clues, plugging in coordinates at each location to take them to the next stop.

"The goal is to find the final cache at the end of the tour," says Timm Wenger, who created the tour with his family. "It's a fun family activity that provides a challenge and gets everyone outside, enjoying nature."

Wenger got the idea for the tour last fall, after his family caught the geocaching bug and purchased a recreational GPS unit. (It differs from a GPS unit found in your car, he says, because it depicts your route "as the crow flies," not by street map.)

"I wanted to set up this tour because most people don't realize the treasure we have downtown culturally, especially with restaurants," says Wenger, who lives in the city with his wife Kristina, daughter Katia and son Thaniel. "Lancaster is so much more than meat and potatoes."

Through their nonprofit organization, Kids and Cultures, the Wengers have often relied on ethnic restaurants and businesses to help bring cultures of the world to children in Lancaster.

"These businesses have become our friends," Wenger says. "We want to do everything we can to support them and let people know they exist."

Wenger says he had a wealth of options to consider when choosing locations for stops on the tour.

While he doesn't want to reveal the exact location of any stops, for fear of spoiling the fun of finding them, he will say that tour participants will visit Korean, Greek, Colombian, Japanese, Italian, Mexican and Dominican establishments, among others.

To get started on the tour, participants visit www.kidsandcultures.com/geocache and find a link with the initial coordinates. (For people without a GPS, a low-tech version can also be completed by printing clues from the Web site.)

"At each location on the tour, there is a clue visible from the outside — often something on the sign out front," Wenger says. "From that clue, you fill in a number for the coordinate of the final cache, which contains a log book that you sign to show you completed the tour."

Although the clues are outside at the locations, Wenger emphasizes that he hopes participants stop in and patronize the places on the tour.

"We want people to have a drink, take a look at the menu, talk to the owner," he says.

Wenger began organizing the tour in November; he finalized it this spring.

The Sangreys were the first family to find the final cache.

"We've been geocaching for over two years now and have found over 500 caches," Corey Sangrey says. "This ended up being the nearest one to our house that we had not already found."

In geocache circles, being the first to find a cache is considered an honor.

"It's known as being 'FTF,' for 'first to find,' in geocache lingo," Sangrey says.

His wife Margo has worked downtown for more than 15 years, so she was familiar with many of the locations on the hunt, but the family as a whole had not visited many of them before the tour.

"Had it not been for this cache, we might not have taken the time as a family to visit these restaurants," Corey says. "Since doing this geocache, we have taken our kids back to eat at some of the locations."

That's exactly what Wenger hopes the tour will accomplish.

"As people who live in the city, we want to encourage those who might not normally come into the city to try an adventure like this one and discover something they might not have known before," he says.

"It's a way to enrich their lives with new cultures."