Want a low-cost, educational, super fun family activity that will you get outside this summer? Try letterboxing!
A few years ago my family stumbled upon this unique hobby, and it’s become a favorite activity that inspires creativity, an appreciation of the outdoors, and quality time together.
“Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming treasure hunt style outdoor quest,” reads the North American letterboxing hub, letterboxing.org. “A wide variety of adventures can be found to suit all ages.”
The goal of letterboxing is to find a hidden plastic box somewhere in nature. It begins with a set of clues gathered from a website; the two most popular are letterboxing.org and www.atlasquest.com. Search your area, and you’re bound to find a multitude of clues; there are letterboxes all over the world!
Some clues are riddles; others are orienteering exercises that will have you dusting off your compass, and others are straight-forward directions.
Before our family set out on our first letterboxing mission a few years ago, we spent a Saturday afternoon creating our own rubberstamps, which became our letterboxing signatures.
It started with a short brainstorming session around the computer. I asked each person to think of something that represents their personality, and I did a search on Google Images for easy-to-trace clip art. It was as simple as typing, “Frogs Clip Art.”
Once we printed off the chosen images, we were ready to make our stamp. I found inexpensive rectangular wooden boards in the craft section at Wal-Mart, and my husband sawed them in two and sanded the edges – a perfect backing for a rubber stamp. While at Wal-Mart, I picked up a bottle of rubber cement, an ink pad, and an Exacto Knife. Then I headed over to Michael’s craft supply store for the rubber. I found a large sheet of pink rubber (eraser material) in the drafting supply section, and we cut it into eight pieces (one for each member of our family, plus one to make a family stamp).
Detailed instructions on how to make the stamp can be found here.
The last step was to choose our trail names and write them on the front of the respective stamps. A trail name is a letterboxing alias. Since my stamp is a picture of an owl reading a book, my trail name is BiblioDona (book woman). My husband’s is “E Minor” to accompany his music note stamp. We even created a trail name for our family stamp — Eagle Sprouts.
When the stamps were dried, we packed a letterboxing bag. I put all of the stamps into a plastic container, along with an ink pad and a pen. Another container houses each family member’s sketch pad to record their letterbox findings. The bag has its own supply of sunscreen and bug spray, along with outdoor adventure tools: a good compass, binoculars, magnifying glass, field guides, pencils, and a few empty jars and Ziplocs for any nature treasures found along the way.
All we need to grab on our way out are some water bottles, a camera, and a set of clues, and we’re ready for a letterboxing adventure at the spur of the moment!
Most letterboxes are hidden somewhere in nature. Once found, the stamping up ritual begins. Every letterbox has its own stamp, note pad, and ink. To stamp up, letterboxers use the box’s rubber stamp to record their finding in a note pad. Along with the stamp, the letterboxer will record the name of the letterbox and the date it was found. Then each person uses their own stamp to leave a record of their visit in the box’s note pad, along with their trail name and the date.
The educational opportunities of this hobby are vast. It can be a form of physical education, orienteering, problem-solving, arts and crafts, geography, writing, computer skills, nature study, and safety awareness.
In addition to finding boxes, families can create and place boxes, challenging older kids to write clues in a variety of ways. You can practice rhyming skills and write a cryptic poem. You can learn how to use a compass and write orienteering clues. Once the box is placed, you can log onto a letterboxing site and post your clues for others to find.
Learning doesn’t have to stop after the box is found. Study cartography and have the kids make a map of their search area. Have students write an article about their experience and submit it to your local paper. Kids can teach a class at a scout meeting on how to make a rubber stamp. Teens can blog about their experiences.
Study photography, and have kids couple a letterboxing hunt with an outdoor photo shoot. Raise the stakes and challenge them to enter it in the county fair.
Before heading out, stress safety precautions. Often boxes are hidden in holes and under brush. Make sure kids use sticks and not their hands to probe a pile of leaves or scoop out a hole in a tree. Look over field guides to learn about venomous reptiles and bugs, as well as injurious plants, and teach students to hike cautiously.
Geocaching is the high-tech younger sibling of letterboxing. A handheld GPS (global positioning system) is used to place and find boxes that contain small treats, or caches. When a cache is found, the geocacher would log their visit, take a treat from the box (usually a small, inexpensive toy or trinket) and leave a treat in return.
Both hobbies offer great family summer activities. For more information, consult the following sites.
–Jenni
We do geocaching! I think it would be fun to look into letterboxing if only to get some ideas to make the trinkets left behind in geocaching more educational. Or to teach compass skills in addition to GPS skills. I am going to copy your idea of having a letterboxing/geocaching bag ready to go, if you don’t mind!