Thursday, October 28, 2010

Most Uniquely Titled First Post Ever

As far as what to expect from this blog, I'll be sharing information about letterboxing practices and etiquette as I learn, and of course stories and photos from my own personal exploits.


What is letterboxing you might ask? I only recently stumbled across it myself, so it's difficult to describe just yet, but suffice to say that letterboxing is sort of like a cross between a scavenger hunt and art collecting. There are a handful of people that carve their own stamps (or use commercial ones, though carving your own seems to be the old school way to do it) and bundle these stamps up with log books which are then hidden in various locales. A lot of them seem to be placed in rural areas, and you'll find that a lot of basic safety information that applies to hiking applies to letterboxing as well, though that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of urban and suburban treasures to be discovered. You can keep a personal find book and stamp it with what you find, sort of like an autograph album or a brag book. You can also leave your own personal stamp and signature in the logbook that's typically included in a letterbox, showing everyone that comes after that you were there before them.

Hints and clues as to where letterboxes are hidden can be found in any number of online hubs. I've found out about a few locations local to me through letterboxing.org, though there's a ton of other great sites out there as well. I'm still working on designing my own personal stamp, and I'm probably going to register at a hub soon just so I can notify other letterboxers of my finds. I'd really like to post one out myself, but I'll probably wait to do that until after the new year, once I've gotten a little more familiar with the hobby. Take a look around, you might find out that' there's treasure hidden all around you, or has been for years and you never knew about it.

2 comments:

  1. oh that's cool! its like a world wide scavenger hunt! :D

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  2. Oh dude, that sounds so cool! Definitely following you. I want to vicariously live through your adventures before going on my own

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