Thursday, June 10, 2010

Letterboxing 101

We crossed #6 off our bucket list today...letterboxing. It's not well known but I'm hoping that will change. Will you help me spread the word? Letterboxing is very similar to geo caching. You don't use a gps and instead of trading trinkets you trade stamps. Here's what you need to get started...a notebook or sketch book, a stamp pad, a stamp, a pen and a bag to carry it in. The tradition is to make your own stamp and there are kits you can buy online or in a craft store. Use your imagination! It's tricky at first and it's something I'd like to get better at. I recommend throwing in some wipes and paper towels into your bag too because those boxes can be really dirty! You can find list of hidden boxes at www.letterboxing.org and at www.atlasquest.com. There are boxes hidden all over the United States. I print out the ones we want to try and find and follow the directions. We didn't have very good luck today. I searched for 5 and only found 2 of them. But it was fun looking! When you find a box it will have a stamp and a little paper pad in it. You stamp their stamp in your book and then you take your stamp and stamp it in their book. You can also make a little note in their book. It's so fun to look back and see all the different stamps. This is the very first stamp we found! I like to journal a little bit about our adventure finding the stamps!
Here are the two stamps we found today. These people are seriously talented when it comes to making their stamps!
My son was NOT happy. He has terrible allergies and we had just spent some time in weeds looking for a box we never did find.
This is the last place we stopped by today. We found the box in this little deli on a golf course!
This is a really fun family activity. Some boxes are easier to find than others. That's what makes it a perfect activity for everybody. I can't wait to make my own boxes to hide!

2 comments:

Laura said...

Sounds fun! We do geo caching as a family and the kids love it. We will have to give this a try.

Diane said...

Great idea and always so nice to see a family doing a project together :o)

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