Activity Overview
Embark on a treasure quest, explore the great outdoors and get lots of exercise with the fun and engaging family activity of Letterboxing. Letterboxing is a treasure hunt to find hidden boxes all over the United States.
Basically, letterboxers from all over hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places and post clues to finding the box online on one many websites. Interestingly enough, clues to finding some of the most highly sought after boxes are found by word of mouth.
Letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp and an ink pad. Upon discovery, those on the letterboxing quest can make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's log book . If you check out the website below, you'll be amazed at the amount of boxes in your area! just waiting to be uncovered.
Materials Needed
- log book (memo pad)
- personal stamp
- ink pad
- a simple compass
- Printed clues from the website
- Optional: Bug spray & sunscreen
How to Do It
- Print off the clues for the box you want to search for. Be careful while searching though....you want to be discreet, especially if there are people around!
- When you find your treasure, simply stamp their book and use their stamp to stamp yours. I always write a short note and the date in the books as well.
- Additionally, we find it fun to snap a picture of the kids with the box for our personal log book.
- When rehiding the box, make sure you hide it completely and precisely where you found it and make sure you seal up all bags so it maintains the integrity that it had when you located it, so as not to spoil it for others or soil what is inside.
