Letterboxing

I have never heard of this before, but in reading up on it I realized that something of this nature had to exist before geocaching. The history of letterboxing begins in Dartmoor National Park, Devon, England approx 150 years ago, and it's only been since 1998 that America has been involved. The main supplies you need is a compass, logbook, pencil, and your own personal stamp and inkpad.

Letterboxing appeals to me because instead of writing your name/date in the caches' logbook, you use the letterbox stamp in your own logbook, as well as stamping the one within the cache. If you've never really read up on geocaching, there is a logbook and pencil, and you take with you the knowledge of a newfound cache but no souvenirs. What also appeals to me about letterboxing is the history, which begins with a gentleman leaving his card within a bottle on the shores of a pond in Dartmoor. This seems so much like something I would have done just for the sake of curiosity.

My fear was that since letterboxing had such a late start, that there would not be much available, at least in our state, but I should have known better. At the rate that fads travel in this great country I was pleased to find a plethora of drops in Wisconsin. 'Tis not a huge plethora, but enough to get a person started.