About Me

I am the average rockhound in that I will and often do, search to the end of the earth for a mineral specimen. However, I am one of the few that will divulge the tricks of this mysterious trade as I know them.

I like to influence people to go out and hunt for rocks, because I think if you tried to simply explain the sense of adventure, surprise, and jubilation involved in searching for and finding a specific mineral specimen, a large percentage of people would cock their head at you, confused. The only way to understand is to go searching for yourself.

I’ve been collecting rocks ever since I was a small child. I grew up in Slovakia, a beautiful, small country that catches the eastern corner of the Alps. Back then I’d bring rocks home from hikes in the mountains with my family. Now I am 31 and have gone rockhounding in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Iran, and all around the USA. 

I’ve spent 3 summers in Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, and Florida, and I look fondly on the finds from those areas in my collection. Some of my favorite finds ever are opals in the famous opal mines near Presov, Slovakia, and Czech garnet in Czech Central Mountains.

I am an active member of a Facebook group called ‘Rockhounds‘ where I answer other members’ questions and post articles from time to time.

My Personal Goals

I keep several personal goals for my future aside from the world of rockhounding:

• To be a good husband and father.
• To rockhound in the treasure haven of Oregon.
• And to climb a mountain higher than 5000m.

About This Website

I want to share experience and knowledge with rockhounds from all walks of life through my website. This should be a place where all rockhounds find anything and everything that they need for rockhounding: locations, geological information, value, and other facts about all different kinds of rocks, minerals, and crystals. I also include important How-To guides for essential rockhounding processes like tumbling, taking care of rocks, polishing, and more.

I make sure my blog contains current and accurate information. I try to help with every step of the rockhounding process so my blog can be a reliable source of data for your searches as well as inspiration for them.

I try to make sure that whatever you decide, you can find out how and what to use here.

Website Goals

Thank you for checking out my website. I hope it has provided useful information to you and that you come back when you need more! The goals for this website are:

• To reach at least 500,000 site visitors per month with the rockhounding content here.
• To cover all important topics, something which I cannot imagine will be fulfilled until there are at least 300 articles, probably more.

Website’s Expert Supervision

Articles published on this website are under the supervision of the gemologist expert Olena (LinkedIn profile). She is a Ph.D. candidate (Mineralogy) holding an Applied Jewelry Professional diploma from GIA (Gemological Institute of America). She is publishing her scientific work on minerals and gemstones on the accredited scientific portal Scorpus (her author profile).

She likes to share amazing facts and statistics about uncommon and hidden patterns in the minerals and rocks kingdom on her Instagram account so feel free to follow her, you will not regret 🙂

Contacts and Social Media

I also actively post additional rockhounding content on Pinterest: you can follow HowToFindRocks on Pinterest here:

If you have feedback on the content here or suggestions for articles that you would value, please contact me at john@howtofindrocks.com (I can’t guarantee I’ll respond, as I try to focus all my time on creating more comprehensive content for this website).

Happy hounding!