A great letterboxing really boils down to three things: A great location, a great clue, and a great stamp. There's a couple of miscellaneous things I'll cover as well, but if you've got a great location, clue, and stamp, rest assure that your box is going to be a hit. Before I get into that, though, you've got to decide exactly who you're hiding your box for.
But wait a minute, you might say, you're hiding letterboxes for everyone to find and enjoy. Fair enough, but everyone has different tastes and interests, so such a box is doomed to fail. You'll never be able to place a letterbox that everyone will love, and you shouldn't waste your time trying. Strange as it may sound, the narrower your designated audience is, the more you can custom tailor it to maximize their enjoyment.
It's like marketing. Figure out who your core audience is going to be, and build the letterbox with them in mind. Anyone else that goes out to look for your box is just a bonus. The best run companies in the world use this method: Costco guns for the small businesses and large families. Wal-Mart guns for underserved suburbias of the world. 7-11 guns for those that want to get in and out--FAST. Arco guns for those that will do anything to save two cents--even if it means waiting in line for 10 minutes before there's an available pump. Figure out your audience, and then figure out how to make them happy with your letterbox.
Take Star Wars, for instance. There are some people that love Star Wars. They live, breath, and talk Star Wars. They're the kind of people you see on the street and wonder how they ever got girlfriends. They would actually fly to Nebraska of all places for a Star Wars convention. Now imagine they are your audience. What kind of letterbox would they die to look for? Stamps with the Star Wars characters, of course. You hide a series like that, and Star Wars fans from across the country will flock to be one of the selected few to nab your letterbox series. They'll talk about it at Star Wars conventions and on Internet discussion groups. You’ll become a legend!
Creating a great Star Wars series is more than just hiding Star Wars themed stamps, though. Most of these people probably aren't outdoorsy kind of people, so you have to choose a place that doesn't require a lot of hiking to get to. If you can find a location that has some element of Star Wars in the name, that would really be icing on the cake. Have the contents of the letterbox in a Star Wars lunch box. Your series will become a point of pride for these people. They won't be able to sleep well at night knowing those boxes are out there and not having got them!
Just because someone isn't in your designated audience doesn't mean they won't have fun looking for the box. They can still enjoy the hike. Or the skill of your hand-carved stamps. Or the creative clues you wrote. Or even use it as an excuse to get out of the house. While these folks may not revere your series like it was holy, they'll still enjoy it and appreciate your efforts for hiding it.
Typically, your audience will be a little more diverse than something like Star Wars fanatics. I enjoy hiding boxes for long-distance hikers. I like a good, tough hike in excess of ten miles, and I felt there was a severe lack of such boxes in the Portland area where I was living, so I took it upon myself to start creating them myself. I'll admit, the boxes aren't well-visited with perhaps one or two visitors per year. Most people do not fall into my intended audience of long-distance hikers, and that’s okay by me. The boxes weren’t meant for them. But those people who DO enjoy long-distance hikes love those boxes because it's exact what they want.
After hiding several letterboxes for long-distance hikers, I started to get complaints from short-distance hikers that wanted some of my stamps in their collection! They saw images of my stamps that others had gotten, and they wanted similar images but without the long-distance hikes. So I hid a few letterboxes on shorter hikes where my audience was specifically those people that wanted some of my stamps, but weren't willing to hike long distances to get them.
What other sort of audiences can you choose for your letterbox? How about for those people that like incredibly-detailed, hand-carved stamps? Or maybe you have the beginner letterboxer in mind. Or a "kids friendly" series. Or a handicap friendly series. Design letterboxes with your other, varied interests in mind. Hide a Nancy Drew series for those people. Hide a Lewis and Clark series for fans of Undaunted Courage. Hide an African Safari Series for those people desiring to visit Africa. Hide a chess series for those serious chess players. Create impossible-to-solve clues for the puzzle solver. Your audience can be as narrow or as wide as you want, but the wider your audience is, the harder it will be to create a box that truly stands out from everyone else’s letterboxes.
Sometimes, your designated audience will dictate your theme. An audience for Star Wars fanatics better have a bunch of Star Wars stamps with a Star Wars-ish clue or the series is going to be a dud. But a series for long-distance hikers can be themed around just about anything. A series of birds. A series of flowers. Even hiking gear. Imagine, getting to the end of a long, strenuous hike after picking up letterboxes along the way with stamps like a water bottle, a sandwich, a backpack, and the last stamp is.... a Dairy Queen ice cream with the message "I bet you're wishing for one of these right now!" A cruel joke, perhaps, but I'd love to find a series like that. =)
Everything that follows on this webpage you should try to wrap around the designated audience and theme. What if you don't? It's not a big deal if you don't--people will still love hunting down your boxes, but it's not going to become a legend that every letterboxer worth his salt is going to go after.
I will say one other thing about chosing an audience and theme: Choose something that interests YOU. If you could care less about Star Wars, you'll have a much more difficult time creating an incredible box or series that Star Wars fanatics will drool over, and even if they do, you'll probably find yourself not really caring anyhow. So look to your own interests to decide such weighty matters as audience or theme. The important thing is to make a little treasure hunt that you would enjoy finding yourself. If you enjoy the subject and have fun finding the spot and writing the clues, it will follow that others will enjoy it too.
Outside of that, there are certain places that rarely (if ever) make good hiding places. Below an overpass littered with broken bottles and garbage doesn't get most people too excited. An airport--inside or out--probably isn't a good idea due to security concerns. If a guard finds it, they may try blowing up your box! Under a boulder completely surrounded by poison oak may have people cursing your name for years to come.
This is mostly common sense kind of stuff, but I have found boxes in butt-ugly parts of towns before where I wondered if my safety was at stake. I've even been guilty of inadvertently hiding boxes during the winter, which--come spring--I discovered was smack in the middle of an army of poison oak. It seemed like a perfect location at the time I hid it, but now the clues have huge warnings to let people know of the potential risk in acquiring the boxes!
Keep in mind seasonal changes while placing your box. I had the example of poison oak surrounding a couple of my boxes in the spring that I wasn’t able to see when I placed it in the winter. Other boxes that are well-hidden in the summer foliage may suddenly stand out like naked ducks without their feathers in the winter. A nice, calm babbling creek in the fall may become a raging river in the spring washing your letterbox away. A hiding place is only good if it works well all year!
Selecting an unusual or interesting hiding place can be all it takes to make a letterbox 'famous'. The Spirit of Dartmoor letterbox is famous not only for its cryptic clue and beautiful stamp, but also the hiding place. Another box famous for its unusual location is the Mount Tabor letterbox. There's another box I'm dieing to look for because I've heard so much about its unusual location, the Davis Letterbox. I don't even know what precisely makes this hiding place so unusual or interesting, but I've heard from several sources that it's not to be missed if I'm ever in the area.
Sometimes, you'll find a park or trail with a name that's begging for a letterbox. The Paisley Orca found the Dogwood Trail, and hid that clever series named Who Let the Dog's Out? with stamps of Skip, Rover, Fido, and Spot hidden along the trail. My own Temple of Terror mystery box was inspired by the name of the place it is located. Being a mystery box, though, you'll have to figure out the clue to find out what it inspired it. =)
Matt the Rat e-mailed me this particular suggestion regarding how to choose a great location which I agree with whole-heartedly!
For finding a location, one way to think about letterboxing is to think of yourself as a tour guide entertaining friends from out of town. What fun and interesting out of the way places do only the locals know about and want to share with other enthusiasts? I think some people have the idea that letterboxes should be hidden near the major attractions and "official" landmarks (hence the disappointment over being shut out of national parks), but usually these areas are high-traffic, over-used areas anyway. What smaller, less-trafficked, parks are there nearby? These places make for better hiding spots and often introduce visiting letterboxers to some of the really unique hidden places that show the true character of your area.
The location can make a letterbox famous or infamous, and you want to make sure it matches up with your intended audience. For safety's sake, I always like to include information about how long and difficult a trail is so people know what to expect, and so they can decide if that's the right box for them. Not just subjective measure like "easy" or "hard", but objective measure such as "the trail is 1.2 miles with 530 feet elevation gain." In most cases, your audience will appreciate the extra information.
There's nothing wrong with such a clue per se, but it won't generate much interest or talk. What are examples of some more interesting and creative clues? There's the Shakespeare Letterbox which I had a blast hunting down due to its well-crafted clues. Der Mad Stamper is famous for his puzzling clues such as the PCC Rock Creek and Bronson Creek letterboxes.
The Anniversary Box has a wonderfully cute clue, while the Wildwood Box has a clue where you feel like you’re playing a role in a movie. I prefer creating entertaining and amusing clues such as the Chipmunk of Terror and The Eagle Has Landed. My Run For the Border and Murder At Gabriel Park! series are very popular due to no other reason than the unique clues I created for them.
Such clues have taken me hours to create. They're a lot of work, but in the end they pay off with people enjoying themselves more. It's a nice change from the usual style of clues that move you directly to the letterbox, and people will appreciate the efforts.
Take a kid-friendly series, for instance. You don't want clues that read "turn left at the maple tree." Include a picture in your clue of a maple leaf so the kids will be able to identify it! Use simple words. Print at the top of your clue: "For kids ages 7-10". Let them know the box is meant specifically for THEM. They'll love you for it!
If there's one thing you don't want to do in a clue, it's to make a mistake. People will curse your name for decades to come if you inadvertently send someone into a bush full of poison oak or over a hundred foot cliff because you got your compass direction wrong. There are few things more frustrating than not being able to find a letterbox just to find out later it was because the author got the clue wrong in the first place.
Nobody I've ever talked to has admitted to preferring a store-bought stamp to hand-carved ones. There's something more personal and unique in a hand-carved stamp that everyone loves. In addition, carving is a great hobby in its own right flourishing long before letterboxing came along. And saying you can't carve very well is no excuse--most people still prefer those ugly little hand-carved stamps to a store-bought one any day.
However, if you don't like your carving abilities, and are embarrassed to unleash your creations among the public, that's understandable. Everyone probably has a certain amount of fear of what others will think of their creations, and that's perfectly normal. I have two comments about those fears, though: First, it's probably justified. People will judge your carving abilities whether you like it or not. Second, even if they don't really like your carving abilities, they'll still appreciate the effort you made and the chance to hunt down your box. A letterbox doesn't have to contain a great stamp to be a genuine success. A great stamp is just icing on the cake for an otherwise well-designed letterbox.
Series can be spread across the globe such the 45th Parallel project where all the stamps of the series are placed along the 45th Parallel. Amanda from Seattle's Lewis and Clark Series traces the Lewis and Clark expedition all over the United States.
Series can make great educational letterboxes where each letterbox in the series teaches how to identify a particular plant, bird, or whatever the case may be. Imagine those self-guiding trails with all those numbers on the side of the trail planted in letterboxes instead. Bingo, you've got yourself a great idea for a series!
Some consideration needs to be made about how many boxes you should place in a series. A kid-friendly series probably should have easy-to-find letterboxes every five minutes or so, but a series designed for someone who wants to enjoy the scenery probably would appreciate a series where the boxes are a half-hour or more apart.
If you truly want a spectacular box, you'll have to make sure your entire box looks professional. Something a little sturdier than Ziplock containers. The logbook shouldn't have lines on the pages, because a bunch of lines running through everyone’s stamps is very unprofessional looking. A hand-made logbook always looks good if you want to make the time for that! For a kid-friendly box, you might consider decorating the logbook with stickers. A great box will probably include a pen and/or pencil. Maybe even an inkpad for the stamp--particularly if the stamp should be done in a certain color. The Loma Prieta Letterbox contained a wonderful report explaining everything there was to know about the Loma Prieta earthquake including pictures of the damage, statistics about the earthquake, and even transcripts from 911 calls made during and shortly after the earthquake.
Print out slips for what letterboxing is about for those that discover the box by accident. Include a little prize for the first person to find the box. There's an infinite number of things you can do to make a box more interesting and give it that professional touch to make it really stand out.
In this day and age of 9/11 paranoia, consider the ramifications of someone accidentally finding your letterbox and mistaking it for a bomb. While I don't know of any cases of such a thing happening with a letterbox, it has happened with at least one geocache! So consider containers that one can see through or writing on the outside that the letterbox is a letterbox, or both. You might want your box to get publicity, but probably not like that!
This page just has guidelines--rules of thumbs, if you will--for how to create a great letterbox. Every guideline has exceptions, and sometimes the best gimmick can be breaking a a guidelines. Not a little bit, but breaking the bounds of decency. Usually a box should be hidden in a discreet location where nobody will see someone trying to find it. But it can sometimes be FUN to figure out how to nab the box hidden behind the ceiling tile of a busy library. Or being so audacious as to hide a letterbox in plain view. One of the best hidden boxes I've found was in a hollowed-out book in a library in plain view right there on the shelf for everyone to see.
And even if your box doesn't excel at anything, even if it's average in every respect, people will still enjoy just going out for no other reason to hunt it down. There's a poster I saw once. It pictured a sinking ship with a caption that read: "Sometimes your only purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others." It was on http://www.despair.com somewhere. (The website is hilarious, if you've never heard of them before.) There's another great example of that at WebPagesThatSuck.com, a wonderful website about learning how to do something right by looking at what others have done wrong. Granted, we shouldn't be striving for such lowly highs, but no effort at hiding letterboxes will be completely wasted! =)