Secret Southern Couture: How to Create A Letterbox for Friends or Family   

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

How to Create A Letterbox for Friends or Family

In England, letterboxing is an art more than 150 years old, but it is just now gaining popularity in the United States. The increased interest may come partly from its close relationship to geocaching or from the many recent books and movies about puzzle-themed treasure hunting. A few you might be familiar with are The DaVinci Code and National Treasure, but Michael Stadther’s A Treasure’s Trove is more closely related to what letterboxing is all about. For whatever reason, creating a letterbox is gaining a foothold here and has caught the attention of those of us spending more time indoors. With that in mind, we can to show you how to create a letterbox for friends or family.

How to Create A Letterbox for Friends or Family


Letterboxing involves finding clues on the Internet and following them to a hidden waterproof box containing a rubber stamp and a logbook. Letterboxers use the stamp to mark their own personal logbook and stamp the box’s logbook with their own handmade stamps. If you do not have a rubber stamp kit, simple print off a sheet of horse clipart and glue or tape them in as you find your clues.

Boxes are located in public places (usually state parks and similar outdoor recreation areas), and anyone can create and place boxes, writing their own clues for others to find them. Once you really dig into the art of letterboxing, you will be surprised to see just how many fellow adventure's boxes you find out in the wild.

Making a personal rubber stamp or using the farm clipart glue method and hiking through the woods offer the satisfactions of a job well done. A sense of accomplishment while crafting something with their own hands, solving puzzles, discovering new places, and taking in the beauty of nature. Letterboxers know how to enjoy the simple pleasures of life in the great outdoors. This is something you can even thrive in while remaining 6 feet away from other travels. Especially since most boxes are in off the beaten path locations or public ones that are vast and offer a lot of space to breathe safely. 

Another draw for letterboxing is its low cost. For the price of an eraser, a pencil, a notebook, and some carving tools, you can create a letterbox for friends or family to enjoy. A compass and map are also helpful, but even those expenses are small compared to the cost of the GPS equipment required for geocaching. 

Letterboxing can be a learning adventure too. It is a great way to teach children some principles that will help them be frugal and responsible adults. By taking children letterboxing, adults can demonstrate that adventure lies not only in expensive vacations and online gaming but also in a trip to the local park. This is a great way for children to learn that the free things in life are often the most memorable and enjoyable. 

For those how are homeschooling or outschooling, letterbox creation and use is a great tool for education. Children learn to be resourceful (by making their own stamps or finding low cost to no cost clipart online) and to share their skills with others (by making and placing letterboxes and clues). Letterboxing also teaches thinking and navigation skills and provides an opportunity for parents to talk with their children about conservation and taking care of both natural and man-made resources, an idea that helps ensure that your grandchildren will be able to go letterboxing with their children.

What ideas do you have for creating your own letterbox adventure?