Letterboxing Honeymoon
If you like
puzzles, mysteries, orienteering, and tromping happily through the
countryside, letterboxing may be the perfect way to turn your honeymoon
(or part of it) into a gentle adventure.
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"What's letterboxing?"
you're wondering. Essentially it's a game of hide-and-seek. The "hiders"
are letterbox enthusiasts who hide a letterbox—a plastic bottle with a
screw cap—in clever places in the countryside. The letterbox contains a
logbook and a unique stamp (oftentimes hand-carved). The person who hid
the letterbox then devises clues for finding it, which are published on
a clue sheet online or in a letterbox catalogue. The clues might involve
solving puzzles or doing some orienteering; frequently the clue sheet
has a literary twist, telling a story or narrative.
The "seekers" generally
have a good time hiking around the countryside searching for the
letterbox. When the quarry is found, the seeker gets to ink his or her
personal logbook with the unique stamp from the letterbox, as well as
inking the logbook in the letterbox with their own unique stamp. Many
letterboxers have hundreds of stamps in their logbooks.
A related, and more
popular, sport is geocaching. With geocaching, hunters use a GPS device
to locate the "cache," which usually contains a fun trinket; the finder
gets to keep the object, and is expected to leave something else in its
place. We've focused on letterboxing here because it seems like a more
romantic way to spend a honeymoon.
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Things to Do on a Letterboxing
Honeymoon
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Together with your
spouse-to-be, hand-carve a stamp that symbolizes your relationships
or personality as a couple.
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Go to the Letterboxing
North America site (link below) and find letterbox clue sheets for
your honeymoon destination. Spend part of your honeymoon searching
for letterboxes.
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Leave letterboxes
wherever you go on your honeymoon (you could be the first to leave a
letterbox on some Caribbean island!). Write the clue sheet as a
couple. See the geocache Robert and Annette Trent left on Bora Bora
during their honeymoon (link below).
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Or plan your honeymoon
around letterboxing. Surf the web for interesting letterbox clue
sheets and make them your ultimate destination.
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Letterboxing North America
This site will get you started with
information, equipment, and clues.
They Live and Breathe Letterboxing
This is the 1998 Smithsonian article
that helped to popularize letterboxing in the United States.
Omaha World Herald Letterboxing Article
This April 2004 article describes
letterboxing in Nebraska, including some funny personal stories,
interesting facts, and the art of making customized stamps.
Geocaching.com
If you're interested in geocaching,
start at the official geocache hunt site.
Bora Bora Island Honeymoon Cache
This should take you to Google's cache
of the geocache Robert and Annette Trent placed on Bora Bora during
their honeymoon.
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Your honeymoon story
Have you done this trip (whether on
your honeymoon or other travel)? We'd love to hear about your experience
so we can share it with others . . . just
drop us a line.
Last Updated:
July 24, 2004 |
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Honeymoons