Hunting For Treasure
The treasure hunt is alive and well. Remember how much fun it was to bury items and then hunt for them, either on your own or with groups of friends? Some people have never tired of that thrill and there are a number of ways you can still enjoy finding buried treasure.
Letterboxing
With letterboxing small boxes are hidden various locations. They contain a unique stamp (which is often handmade) and a logbook. Those are the basics but they may include other things as well. The idea is that when you find a letterbox you use the stamp inside it to stamp your own personal logbook whilst using your own signature stamp to mark the logbook contained in the letterbox. In order to find the letterboxes all you need to do is follow the clues which are left on letterboxing community sites.
Hitchhikers
A twist on letterboxing is that sometimes a letterbox contains another letterbox which the finder must remove and take to another location, placing it inside a third letterbox.
Geocaching
Geocaching is similar to a letterboxing but brings the treasure hunt into the 21st century with the use of GPS receivers. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:
Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a Tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook. Larger containers can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value.
If you think that it takes the fun out of the hunt, think again. The GPS coordinates will only put you within about 20 feet of where the cache is hidden so there is still some hunting to be done. In addition, depending on the type of cache, there may be other tasks to do to make the hunt more interesting.
Waymarking
Waymarking allows travelers to find and document interesting locations using their GPS receivers but without the need to locate an actual cache. It’s a great way to get to know an area better and history and geography buffs will love it.
One of the reasons that pastimes such as letterboxing and geo-caching are so much fun because of the opportunities they give to see new places. Many people also share photos and videos of what they have found through travel sites and forums and connect with other travelers doing the same thing.
Resources
If you are interested in undertaking a treasure hunt of this type then here are some resources to get you started:
- The AtlasQuest Letterboxing page
- Geocaching.com
- Waymarking.com
Happy hunting!
(Photo: bogenfreund)
Tags: geocaching, travel, Travel Tips
