Letterboxing – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere
After last week's introduction to geocaching, I thought this
week, I should introduce geocaching's low-tech predecessor: letterboxing.
Geocaching and letterboxing share a lot in common. The idea
for both is to go out into the world, often into nature, and find the hidden
container. In geocaching, there will be a logbook, and possibly some swag for
trade in the container. In letterboxing, there will be a logbook and a stamp.
You can bring your own stamp to mark the logbook with, or just write your name,
and you can use the stamp in the letterbox to mark your own book to show you
made the find. You should not trade or take anything from a letterbox.
The benefits of letterboxing is that no special technology
is required (other than looking the letterbox up online before leaving home.)
Instead of GPS coordinates, letterboxing uses landmarks and more old-fashioned
treasure hunting terms. For example you could be instructed to find a
particularly noticeable tree, and go ten paces to the north, then turn right,
and so on.
The downside of letterboxes is that there are far fewer of
them around than geocaches. The website we've used is www.letterboxing.org, but we've only found two
letterboxes. If you are an experienced letterboxer, and have other online
resources you can share, please do so in the comments.
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