Here is mine:

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NOT trash - Please do not throw this away!!
NOT a Geocache - Please do not remove items or leave trinkets!
You have found an official LETTERBOX. Please rehide where found!

ESTE ES UN “LETTERBOX” (CAJE DE CORREO).
NO DESTRUYA NI QUITE, POR FAVOR.
Vuelve todo a donde lo encontro', escondiendolo de la vista de otros.

If you found this letterbox by accident, you are welcome to sign in.
Please do NOT take the stamp or anything in this box. Make sure it is well sealed and hidden when you are finished. To learn more about letterboxing, visit www.letterboxing.org and/or www.atlasquest.com.

If contents are damaged or missing, please email dobarton@pol.net.

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As for containers, this is the info I have collected:


Medium
• Lock & Locks (#1 preferred)
• Rubbermaid Sealin Saver 3.4 cups
• old Thermos
• plastic peanut jug
• Rubbermaid .5 gal plastic jar
• screw-on containers from softee protein stlying gel (black jar)
• Institutional size steak sauce (black) or other condiments

Small
• Aveeno daily cleansing pads jar
• Plastic food containers from deli/produce section
• Crystal Lite tube
• the cylindrical pots that chemists (Pharmacists) get their bulk pills in. There are several sizes and often a smaller one is pleced in a larger for improved waterproofing.
• little jar of jewelry cleaner
• swim goggle containers
• see www.sciplus.com
• screw-on containers from soy protein
• screw-on containers from Citrucel
• tub from Crayola air-dry clay

Very Small
• Film canister
• Pill bottles
• Sucrets can
• Altoids cans
• Canning Jar (Michael’s has small ones)
• the tubes from the "Airborne" tablets?


To get the food smell out: Place clean cat litter in a large container that has a lid and place your container in it and seal the larger container. Take them out, and a week later, or so, no smell. Then run it through the dishwasher.

Avoid the margerine tub. They don't hold up in the wild, I've found them crumbled to pieces.

I've found a lot of Folger's containers, those cylindrical plastic containers with the snap-on top, used as both letterboxes and geocaches. They were ALL wet inside.

In general, I find food containers with screw-on lids to be the most reliable at keeping things dry, as good or better than the Lock-N-Lock. The only problem with the screw-on top is that some boxers don't screw it on tightly enough (some have arthritis), and sometimes a baggie gets caught in the cap when closing.

Don't use genuine Tupperware. It's no good.

With *any* plastic, keeping the sun off of it is essential for longevity. A coat of paint helps.

I personally like to wrap mine in camouflage duct tape (from Walmart).

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Also, I just figured out that if you enter a valid address for your location (or close to your location), finders can map them. I had only entered the cities, so the map was usually way off for my boxes.

I think it is a load of BS. I really grow weary of this whole sesitive area nonsense. How about you just put big "keep Off The Grass" signs in the forest, because that is what this amounts to.

Not so. And this philosophy is precisely why the National Parks and many State and Regional parks do not allow geocaching and letterboxing.

Part of being responsible (and the key to overcoming this restriction) is to know what a sensitive environment is. If you're not sure, spend a weekend in a free or low-cost plant ID or ecology class at a local nature center or a state park.

There are two extremes here:

If you choose to plant in an area where tall trees are the main flora and ground cover is limited to shrubs and bushes, then feel free to walk until you drop off the end of the earth.

But if you choose to plant in an area where the shade of those tall trees and the water table supports a tremendous variety of flora (ferns, mosses, lichen, grasses, fungus, algae, etc) and in turn a tremendous variety of fauna (many of them smaller than your fingertips, but ecologically important nonetheless) then please, please, please watch your step.

Case in point: while planting the first three 99 Bottles boxes I deliberately avoided numerous (too many to count, really) hiding spots because the narrow trail led through a wonderfully rich ecosystem and I was not going to be the cause of any part of its demise for the sake of a rubber stamp.


You ever actually walk into a forest. There is nobody there. There are not enough people traipsing around the woods to do any kind of irreparable harm.

All it takes is one letterbox or geocache in a locale where letterboxers and geocachers outnumber the police and fire personnel and you've got social trails... sometimes where it doesn't matter... and sometimes where it does.


I say, the further off trail you can plant a box, the better. People are not going to stumble upon it by accident that way.

While I agree philosophically, the reality is: the better you can hide a box, there's less likelihood that people will find it accidentally.

StarSAELS

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I prefer Lock n Locks as they keep water and anything out the best. They can often times be hard to find though.

We found some generic lock n lock type boxes at a local dollar store. I got so excited I bought 6! They seem to be just as watertight as the regular ones. We have not found them at the national chains like Dollar Tree. If there is a mom and pop type dollar store in your area, check it out.
K

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I planted one box before I really 'got it' and made some simple, avoidable mistakes.

I had the same experience with my first plant. I planted it in what I thought was a pretty clever location but didn't really think about what would happen in a windstorm (it being a nice sunny day when we planted it.) It disappeared quickly and I was pretty disgusted until I went to check "just one more time" and realized that it had just blown off of it's hiding spot in a storm. It is now at home waiting to be planted in a new, more weather resistant, location.

So stand there and think, hmmm, would this be a good spot in ____________ weather?

Good luck!
K