You've GOT to check this out!
 

Today we learned about a great new hobby that combines stamping and treasure hunting. Great for the entire family! (Hmmm...might get me off my tush playing on this darned computer and spending hours on SCS!)

www.letterboxing.org

www.letterboxing.info

Check it out at these web addresses!

This is so cool!! I haven't heard of this activity before but can see how fun it can be for my family as we enjoy hiking and road trips. I plan on creating a box with passports to stamp on and numerous local letterbox clues as a family Christmas gift.
Thanks for sharing,
June

That is sooo fun! there are lots that are near me! I am going on a letterbox hunt!

Letterboxing
 

This is awesome!!! Thanks for posting this, my nieces and newphew are going to make our own stamps and try this out today. :D

I actually read about this in a rubber stamper about 2 years ago. It does sound pretty neat.

Very cool! I think my son and I will do this next summer (too cold now!). How fun for a kid to do this (and grown ups too!).

thanks for sharing!

Thanks for this link. This sounds like great fun. I'll be taking my grandson on one of these treasure hunts next time I'm in Washington state. :lol:

Another FABULOUS and SO FUN activity is to take this to the next level and go Geocaching! It's treasure hunting, but uses a handheld GPS (global positioning satellite navigation system) to find the treasure. It involves hiking, or just walking sometimes, and can be simple or extreme. It is SOO fun, and a WONDERFUL family activity! If you don't have a GPS, they are really pretty reasonably prices these days, especially with all the holiday sales! We use little knick knacks we have lying around (Kids Meal toys are great) for the treasures. It really is a lot of fun - we love it! :lol: :lol: Here's the link:

www.geocaching.com

Have fun! - J. :wink:

Neat! There is one in Mountain View!

I'll let you know if I find it.

TFS!

Short4J,

We have been interested in geocaching for some time now, but have been financially unable to afford the GPS and that has severely limited that option for us! It does sound like so much fun! But as my DH was looking for a geocaching book for my brother-in-law for Christmas, Amazon had one double-packaged with a book on letterboxing, and decided to check it out. Since the kids and I are so heavily into rubberstamping, and we had all been interested in the geocaching, this was the perfect solution for all of us! We can't wait to get started!

Wow, can't wait to spend some time in there.

We started letterboxing two years ago, and the kids love it! We traveled to NJ to visit family and got my sis and her husband totally hooked on it. They actually plan thier vacations around where they can find letterboxes. They even found a " hitchhiker" two weeks ago. When we visit after Christmas we plan on bringing it back with us to place here!

What is a hitchhiker?

Thanks for sharing that website. I've never heard of letterboxing or geocaching, but they sound like lots of fun! And cheap to do the letterboxing. I discovered on the website there are two letterboxes hidden about a mile from my house!!! Now I just have to handcarve a rubber stamp and I can go search for them with my kids. Really appreciate learning about this hobby! Thanks!

This is so cool the Fisrt Kansas mystery is abou th little town that I live i kew it when i First red the discrpition.
thank for shareing

Keri,
From the Geocaching site:
What is a Groundspeak Travel Bug?

Simply put, a Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online.

Thanks for clearing that up....not too sure I would want someone following me online thought :shock: of course if someone wanted to find me all they would need to do is come to this site!! LOL

This is so not a new hobby. It has been around since the early 1900s. I've had a letterbox for over a year now.

Interesting...who'd have thought?!?
TFS, I've never heard of this before and it does look fun!!!

It is totally fun! Last time I checked my letterbox I had 12 or so people that have found it and stamped it!

(And I didn't think anybody would ever bother looking for it!)

Wow!
 

This seems like a great gift idea:

Cool stamped journal

Cool stamped pen

Cool hand-carved stamped

Cool miscellaneous things like a compass, etc.

and the web site address!

My 13 year old nephew lives in a city with at least 5 letterboxes, and I think this is what I'll give him for Christmas!

This is so cool!
Here's one that's only 1/2 hr. from my house:
http://www.letterboxing.org/BoxView....Sinclair_Point

When the weather is a bit better, I'll go find it.

Thanks for the link!
:)

What a great idea to give this to someone for Christmas! I woke up this morning with my mind a'buzzin' at how I can send this to my sisters and their families this year. What I would like to do is send them a package so they can a) start finding some letterboxes in their area, and 2) make and hide their own letterboxes.

The part I am MOST excited about is if I could find someone in their area to hide a letterbox just for them, then I could wrap up the clues for them for Christmas, as their gift. Then, their first find would be all their "get-started" tools! BUT - I live about 1600 miles away from them. :cry: Does anyone on here know anyone near Hanover, PA or Center Conway, NH that would be willing to help me out on this adventure? I would be more than willing to do it for anyone who has any relatives in my area (CO) that would like to do the same thing. What a fun thing to do over Christmas break! Any clues to some "helpers" for me is MUCH appreciated!! Thanks much! - J. :wink:

Letterboxing is very very fun! My daughter and I placed one in Bodega Bay California in the summer of 03. We hand carved a stamp and log book for the box and a stamp and book for ourselves. Much less expensive than the geocache route. the letterbox web site is wonderful!

For those of you who have already checked out the original link I posted, but are still watching the topic, here is an additional link with some good information:

www.letterboxing.info

I'll be editting my original post to include this one as well for new viewers.

I hope you all are enjoying this as much as I am!

What a great idea, short4j, to have the initial letterbox include the supply of goodies; I only live 1 1/2 hours from my nephew so this is much more doable for me.

I'm thinking any combination of postage/letterwriting/travel/compass stamps would be thematic for the journal cover.

I haven't looked yet to see what others are doing for the hand carved stamps. Years ago we cut adhesive backed foam with scissors to make our own stamps, but I wonder if carving them (like lineoleum blocks with xacto blades) is more of what is done for letterboxing. . . any ideas out their?

In any case, I'm thinking part of the gift could be the supplies for the receiver to make his/her own stamp, rather than a completed personal stamp.

This is really neat!
 

I have looked through 4 of the 6 here locally. One I knew where is was right off the bat. And I know my son will get a kick going there to find it.

I have seen stamps made from those white plastic mars erasers--I think there was even an ad in a stamping magazine about special supplies they have come out with.

Thanks so much for sharing this...we are going to have a lot of fun--I had NO idea this existed.

Anne

Cindy-- thanks for the information about letterboxing. I am giving my 9 year-old daughter and one of her friends the Letterboxer's Companion by Randy Hall, a nice sketchbook, and a couple of Mars erasers to carve for Christmas.

Her friend has just successfully finished his first year of chemotheraphy for leukemia and I think this will be a great way to get them outside. We took them both to see National Treasure and they loved it, so I thought they would love to find there own treasures.

I can't beleive there is an activity that is so perfect for the two of them---thank you so much.

BTW--one of the chapter subheadings is "stamping up" hee hee we are everywhere! It isn't about the company though.

Anne

Oh WOW this is so neat :D There's 1 about 30 mins from us and then a WHOLE BUNCHE that are only an hr. a way!!! WOOHOO I know what we'll be doing this summer (well the 30 min 1 might be done today :wink: )

We have been hiking at some of the local parks since we are not playing indoor soccer this winter. This looks like it would be a blast. WooHoo! I checked the link and there is one in the park just down the road. My children and I are going to check it our and then do our own as a family project.

Thanks for the info :P

Thanks for this great website! There is only one in my town and it is in a park that is closed for the winter! :cry: So, I might just have to drive to a nearby town and check out that one (not sure it is even still there as the website said it had been destroyed and the placer was going to have replace it!) I might just have to find a place to make a new one here in my town!

My book group went geocaching as one of our book group meetings, it was really fun! Luckily, there were two members who had GPS's, so we went in two groups this summer. We placed a polaroid picture of our entire book group in each box, one member has already been recognized by a local friend! (We didn't put our individual names on the picture!)

I have several stampers/crafters in this book group, so we may just have to make the letterbox up ourselves and place it here so it can be found in the winter as well as other seasons! Thanks for the great idea!