Chincoteague

 Yes, we saw a clump of wild ponies, but the real highlights were flying a kite on the beach,  learning how to hunt for mussels on the side of the road with some friendly strangers, finding two letterboxes, and stopping for ice cream at Mr. Whippy. The poison ivy souvenir that Adam brought home (via letterboxing) was not a highlight. 

March 2013

Letterboxing in Paris

Our European letterboxing experiences have been pretty limited. Over the past three years in Europe, we have only been able to hunt for letterboxes on three of our trips: Dartmoor was the highlight, Venice was fun, and Munich turned out to be very expensive. Letterboxing just isn't as big here as it is in the States, but that doesn't stop us from hoping that we'll find more. Whenever we are planning a trip, we always do a quick search on Atlas Quest. Those searches are usually very short and/or the boxes are no longer active. 

But that wasn't the case with our recent trip to Paris! Not only was the list of Parisian letterboxes impressively long for a European destination, a majority of the boxes seemed to be quite active, and many of them are located in interesting spots(like the stamp in the first pic which is near the Louvre Pyramid).  Letterboxing in Paris also gave us the opportunity to use the Box Finder app (which I am pretty sure I learned about from Emily last year). What a handy little tool. If you are headed to Paris, be sure to add a few letterboxes to your to-do list. It is a fun way to explore a new place, plus it gives you the chance to bring home some very unique souvenirs and travel stories. I love that our letterbox book has stamps from different parts of the world.

Letterboxing in Dartmoor with Kids

Dartmoor National Park came to my attention several years ago with this article.At the time, I remember thinking it would be so cool to do some letterboxing in the area where it originated, but I didn't really think it would happen. And then when we started planning our trip to England, I dug out the article and started trying to figure out if it was possible. Turns out it is a little more challenging to get on-line information about letterboxes at Dartmoor than I had anticipated. Actually, searching for letterboxes in the rest of England was also challenging. I just assumed that the birth country of letterboxing would be easy and similar to the on-line searching that we do when we are in the States. I eventually became so frustrated that I returned to that original article and decided to contact the author, Carol Rifka, directly. Thanks to the power of google searching I was able to track her down and here's the advice she gave me. Since it was so helpful, I thought I would just go ahead and share it word for word:

Hi Lucia,
Nice to hear from you and glad you found the article a good reference! Yes, Dartmoor letterboxing is quite different than American letterboxing. Both easier and more difficult and, well, kind of strange. There are a lot of unofficial letterboxes on Dartmoor. Usually these are placed by kids or families. You can basically just let your kids look for these at the more popular places on Dartmoor--Hound Tor (highly recommended for kids, rock scrambling etc.), Haytor, Bonehill Rocks etc. These are all on the east side of the moor. There are lots of boulders and big rock piles with nooks and crannies where people hide boxes. You'll see what I mean when you get there. You don't need clues and it's ideal for younger kids because in the course of normal exploring and peeking around they're bound to find a box or two or more. The downside is that as those boxes are unofficial and not particularly well hidden they can often be wet or missing the stamp. It's luck of the draw, but ideal for younger kids.

If you want to get more serious and get out the compass and maps (you'll want/need the Ordnance Survey map OL 28) you'll have to contact the Letterboxing 100 club in writing and buy a copy of their Catalogue of Dartmoor Letterboxes. It's all a bit weird and very "secret society", and I have to say, we've only really done a few of those official boxes. They're nicer boxes than the ones you just stumble across and there is an actual feeling of accomplishment when you find them, so worth doing I'd say. The clues aren't as "fun" as I think the American clues are. They're just compass and map directions with maybe reference to a land feature. The Ordnance Survey maps are very very detailed, so you can find even the smallest landmark on there.

Here's a couple links that you mind find useful...
***Dartmoor National Park letterboxing info: http://www.dartmoor-npa.gov.uk/index/visiting/vi-enjoyingdartmoor/vi-letterboxing.htm
***Letterbox 100 club: http://www.userfriendly-devon.co.uk/100club/

Keep your fingers crossed for good weather. The last couple summers here have been abysmal. Oddly enough we're going to be in Italy for most of August. Tuscany, just outside Florence. I know Sicily is quite a ways from Tuscany, but any general Italy tips would be much appreciated!
All the best,
Carol

And Carol's advice was "spot-on" (Thank you, Carol and hope you are having fun in Tuscany!). We went the kid friendly route of just showing up and searching. Our first stop was the Haytor visitor center where the park ranger recommended some hiking areas surrounding Haytor and Bonehill Rocks. We didn't find any boxes on Haytor, but our first letterbox was actually at the ice cream truck at the base of Haytor Rock. While waiting for our Devon cream cones, we just happened to mention to the driver that we were hoping to find some letterboxes. He got a big grin on his face and pulled out a box from under the counter. After that fun and suprising discovery, we headed to Bonehill Rocks where we hit the jackpot. Box after box crammed into nooks and crannies. We were giddy with excitement. As Carol mentioned some were in better shape than others and sadly most of them were store bought and not hand carved, but we have never experienced anything quite like this. We found over twenty boxes in less than half an hour!
It would be fun to return in the future when the kids are a bit older to try searching for the boxes via the more official clues (it sounds like you have to write ahead for coordinates). Very glad we made the effort to experience letterboxing in Dartmoor. It was a fun afternoon for all of us.

Munich: Expensive Letterbox, Big Museum

We spent our last day in Germany exploring Munich. Since we had a late start from Garmisch we didn't get to see nearly as many things as we had hoped to...actually we only made it to two spots, but both were memorable in their own ways. Our first destination was a tiny alley where we parked illegally, dashed out into the cold, and followed clues to discover our first urban letterbox and also our first European letterbox! We have missed letterboxing since moving to Sicily so it was pretty exciting to find the box and to see some of the cool European stamps in the book. However, our excitement was dampened quite a bit when we accidentally scraped a rock while exiting that little alley. A few days later we were informed by our rental car company that the scratch (max 4 inches long and labeled on our exit sheet as "do not repair") will cost us $1200!Conveniently, the letterbox location was just a block or two away from our next destination: the world's largest science museum, The Deutsches Museum. It lived up to it's reputation with us and we literally had to drag the kids away at closing time. It is miles and miles of cool exhibits and interactive displays. Highlights from the small chunk of what we saw: the big display of ships (may not sound interesting, but really it was with boats from all over the world and different time periods), the kid's kingdom (pure hands-on fun for little guys with elaborate water area, huge legos, interesting musical instruments, not as big as some children's museums in the States, but still worthwhile), the amazing miniature train display (it runs at specific times during the day and we caught the tail end of it), and the robots. Similar to the Smithsonian experience, you could probably visit this museum every day for a week and still not see it all. Most things are in English and if not, just about everyone we encountered spoke English and was very helpful.I think we will always remember Munich as the place with the world's most expensive letterbox and the world's largest science museum. Highly recommend a visit, just be careful when backing your rental car out of a small alley or perhaps just stick with local transportation! Also, FYI there is a children's playroom and an outdoor playground at the Munich airport that sound great, but we didn't have time to check them out. Want to see more cool travel posts from around the world? visit Delicious Baby.

Manatees

Last weekend on our way to Orlando we made a stop at Blue Springs State Park. It was truly one of the most magical moments of the whole trip for me ....wild manatees swimming in crystal clear spring-fed water along with gar, alligator, turtles, anhinga, cormorant, and one pretty kingfisher. The manatees come to Blue Springs each winter and I can see why. It is a beautiful spot and the water is 75 degrees all year round. After wandering along the water, we did a little letterboxing along a hiking trail in the same park. Had lunch with friends and then got back on the road headed towards Disney. And did I mention it was a surprise for the kids? We didn't tell them until after we were in the car and after our manatee morning. It was pretty exciting to see their reactions. More about our Disney experiences in coming posts. Here is some info on Blue Springs State Park. Disney was fun, but for me it's hard to compete with the magic of mother nature. It was truly a memorable adventure.

Letterboxing Party

Yesterday we had a letterboxing party to celebrate Noah's 6th Birthday (we waited a week so Adam could join in the fun!). We chose a park with several different trails and hid two boxes on opposites sides of the park. Inside each letterbox (plastic ziplock storage box): a stamp made by Noah, inkpads (washable ink for kids), and a small notebook. We also placed a note on top identifying it as a letterbox and asking that it remain hidden along with the link to this letterboxing site. We typed up easy to follow clues including points of interest along the trails.At the start of the party we gave each child a bag containing a small letterboxing book (blank spiral notebook) and a small stamp (found in the dollar bin at the local craft store). We divided the kids into two teams and handed out the clues. The kids (8 kindergarten classmates) did a great job of following the clues. It was fun to see how excited they were to find the boxes. After finding the boxes, stamping their books, and re-hiding the boxes; the teams switched and hunted for the box on the opposite side of the park. Playing in the woods, letterboxing, eating cake, playing some more, enjoying the sunshine....Noah woke up this morning and announced "that was the best birthday party ever!" And here are two more letterboxing links of interest: a great article about letterboxing and another source for finding local letterboxes.