Treasure Hunt!

Letterboxing is a hard day's work for babies!


Even favorite stuffed bunnies can go letterboxing!

While sitting in a doctor's office about a month ago, I ran across an article in a magazine about something called letterboxing. It started in 1854 in Dartmoor National Park in England, and after Smithsonian ran an article about it in 1998, it began to take off in North America. It sounded like modern-day treasure hunting, and like so much fun that I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it before! I would enjoy this with or without children along, but what a great way to get the family out and exploring new places!

When we realized that our non-refundable San Antonio trip wasn't going to have anything to do with the Riverwalk as we had planned, I decided that it would be the perfect time to start our letterboxing adventures. I looked at the available letterbox clues for San Antonio and selected two locations, one we had been to before and enjoyed, and one we had never been to. I printed out the clues before we left home. We stopped at Michael's Arts and Crafts on the way out of town to pick up some pre-made rubber stamps (letterboxers prefer homemade ones, but we just didn't have time - I plan to try my hand at making one soon!) and log books.

Our first letterbox hunt was in a park we'd never been to. By the way, never have I loved and appreciated our GPS navigation system more than when we were exploring new places in an unfamiliar city! We parked where the clues instructed us (or so we thought,) which happened to be right next to a playground, so we let the children play while I changed the baby's diaper and loaded up the stroller. We were instructed to park in a particular spot, face south away from the parking space and walk approximately 100 paces to a certain tree, where we would find the letterbox. This is about as easy as the clues get. Many require compasses, and some are written like a mystery novel, where you have to solve difficult clues even to find the starting place for your hunt. As easy as our first hunt was, we misinterpreted the instructions for finding the right parking space (twice!) and did a lot of traipsing through sticky mud and poking around in various trees before we finally found the right parking spot. What a sense of accomplishment we felt when we finally found it, though! We huddled around the letterbox, trying to shield our activity from passersby (letterboxing is like a big secret that outsiders aren't supposed to stumble across by accident, but at the same time new letterboxers are welcomed, because it just means there may eventually be more letterboxes to find) and re-hid it when we were finished. There were two more boxes to be found in this park, but we used up all our remaining daylight trying to find the second one (which required a compass) without a compass. It didn't work.

The next day we went to Brackenridge Park, a park we had enjoyed on our last visit with the children that has a miniature train, ducks, and a playground. We purchased our popcorn and cotton candy, rode the train, and set off on our hunt. Along the way, we stopped to feed the ducks. Layth said "ducks are nice," to which his father replied, "mmm, yes, with Chinese pancakes and hoisin sauce!" The clues here had us cross the bridges that look like castles, find a monument, cross at a boulder, turn at a "concrete tree," count steps, and identify certain trees by their shapes or nearby fallen logs. This was even more fun than the hunt the day before!

If this sounds like something you and/or your family would enjoy, be sure to visit http://www.letterboxing.org/ for details on letterboxing, what it is, and where to find clues. You might be surprised how many are hidden near you!