Saturday, September 27

Hide and Seek: Exchange Art

I've recently discovered something I didn't know existed: letterboxing. I've spent the afternoon decorating my notebook at left and printing out clues.

Essentially people all over the world hand carve or buy a rubber stamp, put it with a blank notebook inside a weatherproof box and hide it. Then they write up a clue describing how to find it, and post it online. Once located, explorers stamp their own notebook with said stamp and bring a stamp of their own to mark the notebook they found. When I have described this practice, people often ask, "Why?" That question never entered my mind. I only thought, "Where?!" If that's also your first thought, you can start searching (and learn more about its origins in England) here or here.


Most of the stamps are hand carved so it's like going on a scavenger hunt to exchange art. 

What's cooler than that?

Happy letterboxing!

2 comments:

Yankee Girl 1881 said...

so it's kinda like a Geo-cache. that's a simialar concept where you follow clues to a hidden box of "treasure". once found you may take an item but replace it with another. it uses gps and/or tracking skills to find the box.

Ginger said...

Yep, you got it except you don't need any fancy equipment. Just a compass (sometimes) and a notepad, ink and stamp. Go look for some and let me know what you find!