Introduction to our Travelin' Lights:
As many people know, having found over 40,000 North American letterboxes over the past dozen or so years, we have become quite concerned with the proliferation of plastic boxes in various places around our planet. Granted, so many boxes "go missing" on a regular basis (most likely picked up and thrown away as litter) that the number of boxes out there at any given time does not as yet seem to have become a real problem for our environment. Sometimes we've even been glad to hear that some of the over 500 boxes we've planted over the years have "gone missing", as it means we won't have to worry about tracking them down later or leaving them behind as trash when we're gone. However, we still love the idea of collecting stamp images in "wild and wooly places", so from now on we personally have decided to mostly go with a compromise solution we call the "travelin' lights" - stamps stuck on the back of stones that can be discreetly hidden almost anywhere and that "travel lightly" on the environment as well as on trips!

The idea for "stamp rocks" actually came to us over a dozen years ago, while planning a hike in the Adirondacks of upstate NY. We had stuck a piece of foam onto the bottom of a rock and poked the letters "Vanderwhacker" into it, as a sort of prize/memento for those who reached the top of that mountain. Somehow we decided not to leave it up there, but often wished we had, as that could have been our first "official letterbox"! Years later, on a trip to Nevada, where only one other letterbox had been planted at that time (over 300 miles away!) we also brought with us some stamps stuck on stones and considered leaving them hidden just like that, but the convention to try to protect logbooks in boxes was so strong and the stamp material so weak that we naturally just put the "stamp rocks" in the boxes, too. (This was long before online public logging of finds even existed, when the only way to find out who had been to a particular box was to go there yourself, so traditional logbooks were much more valued back then.) Later on, we planted another series in RI with "stamp rocks" and mini-scrolls in film containers, but the "big leap" came after someone we called "the box thief" started confiscating boxes in certain CT state parks. Sort of as a joke, we stuck a stamp under a rock and called it "Calling Your Bluff". Some people complained that they "couldn't find the box", but that was the whole point - there was no box for the "box thief" to steal!

Anyway, even if "stamp rocks" don't take hold as a concept others might care to follow, they do seem to work for us. We like planting them, and have been pleasantly surprised with their longevity so far even in some pretty precariously planted places! Since we ourselves still don't go in for public logging of finds (we love that old-timey touch of "mystique" in not knowing when or by whom a box might or might not have been found!;-), we do hope that most letterbox plants will still include traditional logbooks. However, between those like us, who simply love "the hunt" without the need for publicly logging finds, and those who love to log their finds online anyway, we don't expect that a few logbookless rocks should upset anyone, especially with the precedent already well set for logbookless magnetic boxes and such. The only question remains to see how the carving material under the rocks will hold up to being exposed to the elements. Yet consider, even if a stamp disintegrates outdoors after a short while, it could still have a survival rate as long as many boxes, and it would certainly seem likely to have a much more "natural demise" than a plastic box! At any rate, we feel that even if one person might have fun looking for any of these little "stamp rocks", whether they log them or not, then they will have served their purpose!