Hello,

Taking a trip later this year. Hoping to letterbox but can't seem to locate any recent finds in these locations. Suggestions?

Jeanne

skootch and I are planning to plant about 5 in Scotland, this year, before September. While I wouldn't make it your purpose in life, there are very few accurate finds and statuses of boxes over there. Any updates are welcome!

For some reason, boxing hasn't caught on in Scotland, like it should. Maybe it's up to us yanks to fix that?

I travel a lot on business and don't worry about "recently found" on the internationals.....we've found plenty is Southern Ireland, haven't hit the north yet though.

Scotland? Is LITTERED with letterboxes.....not all of them are on AQ, I recommend you do some online searches

Depends on what your idea of recent is and where you are going in these countries.

The first one I see listed in a search of Ireland was found in 2016. The next one hasn't been found at all, which would be great find. The third one was found 9/17. I see a few that haven't been found in quite a while, which considering that there isn't a lot of boxing there doesn't mean much in terms of it's chances of being there if hidden well. As someone said, some may be sitting there and waiting to be found. After that I see some more found in 2015, 16, 17.

I see one found in January of this year, some more found in 2015, 16, 17.

How recently would you liked them to have been found?

Scotland has less recent finds but once again, not a lot of boxing so a box if hidden well could sit there for years. If I was near any of these place I would certainly look.

And I only looked at AQ. According to a previous post you should look further. I also didn't look on LBNA.

I found this...it has clues. I just looked briefly though....

http://letterboxing-scotland.co.uk

I've been trying to use their site, and I get like, 17 clues on the clue page, with no option to see more. The locations page has a bunch of broken links, if I click on any of them. Always seems like a big tease.

You can also look here on AQ:

https://www.atlasquest.com/results.html?typeId=1;sort=1;coord=GB,SCT;location=Scotland%2C+United+Kingdom;title=Boxes+in+Scotland%2C+United+Kingdom
Then look under Scotland

I was in Ireland in August and found one box in Ireland and one in Northern Ireland. I agree with the sentiment that it's great to find boxes that haven't been listed as found in a long time, but it depends what your constraints and priorities are. My number one goal was to find a box in both of those places. Since no one in my family is as enamored with letterboxing as much as I am, and since sometimes we were on bus tours with limited time, my plan was to look for boxes I had the best chances of finding.

The first box I looked for is listed on LbNA and planted in the Guinness Storehouse, but it appeared the exhibits had changed and I couldn't find it. But I'd definitely recommend the Guinness Storehouse!

My next attempt was on the Newgrange bus tour, at the visitor center. We didn't have much time at the visitor center and it was raining. First I tried this one--no luck, and it's had an attempt since then. So then I tried this one--success! By then it was really raining hard, and I had to run to make sure I made it back to the bus. I was soaked, I'd completely missed my one chance to see the Newgrange visitor center, but I had a smile on my face because I had found an Ireland box!

Then I found this one on a Northern Ireland bus tour. This was also in an amazing place, and I had enough time to properly see the sights.

Right after I came back to the US, Mamabear Ohio planted a box in Dublin and another in Cork, so those are likely in good shape.

Have a wonderful time on your trip and good luck with the boxing.

Those 17 boxes all link to clues, most of which *are* old and people may not be as diligent about posting finds as we are here in America. So who knows when they were actually found last, if at all. I only noticed one that actually said it had been removed but that was right at the top in red and I didn't read the others, just clicked and saw that there are clues.

If I was on a trip and had limited time and a itinerary in mind I wouldn't go out of my way to look for them but like I said, if I was nearby I would. You never know.

I'd be happy to find one somewhere over there.

It looks like that map isn't maintained at all.

Amazing what you find when you start googling this stuff...

http://www.gamblenet.me.uk/overseas.asp

Who even knows if this stuff is up to date but it's fun to look at. If I was near any of these spots I'd be looking. lol You just never know how long some lost little lonely box is sitting and waiting. heh

Thank you all for the assistance. I did some looking but will work on what you have posted.

For the record, letterboxing is an aside on this trip. so i'm interested in the ones that are near where i am going anyway. Edinburg, Stirling, Glasgow, Isle of Skye and Dublin are the known destinations at this time.

One of my favorites in Dublin by Front Range Hiker and it was just found in 2017: https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?boxId=253947

One of my favorites in Dublin by Front Range Hiker and it was just found in 2017: https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?boxId=253947

Aaargh! I was at this very location in August, but I didn't know about this box!

I had done Dublin searches of course, but even though this box is listed as Dublin, Ireland, it comes up as 32 miles away from Dublin on a search. My Dublin searches had a smaller radius. Does anyone know why the search feature for this box is working like that?

I sympathize.....it didn't come up on my search either originally but I had seen it go up when she posted it so I had to dig extra deep to get the clue when we were ready to go.

Does anyone know why the search feature for this box is working like that?

AQ had Dublin listed as 32 miles in radius in the database so it as far as AQ knew, the box was located "somewhere" within 32 miles of downtown Dublin. I had added code to AQ to make sure locations for a city weren't never more than 15 miles in radius (even if they really are!) so it would still show up in default searches, but somehow that one slipped through the cracks.

If you were wondering why the other boxes in Dublin weren't showing up as 32 miles away, that's because that was a "different" Dublin. The one with a 32 mile radius was "Dublin, no county, County Dublin, Ireland" while the other Dublin was "Dublin, Dublin County, no state, Ireland". They're obviously the same place, but AQ isn't smart enough to figure that out.

But I changed the radius to 15 miles so it'll show up as 15 miles away from the center of town now.

-- Ryan

Thanks for the explanation, Ryan. I just tried the search again, and things are much better. But the box still doesn’t show up with the default 15-mile radius because that box as well as Irish Lager are showing up as being 15.5 miles from Dublin, so you have to boost the radius to 16. (I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m whining, just thought I’d mention it.)

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m whining, just thought I’d mention it.

No, it doesn't sound like whining--it's a legitimate problem. Usually changing the radius works but for tricky technical reasons I don't really want to elaborate on (not really worth the trouble!), the center of the search was actually about half a mile from the center of Dublin which is why is was adding that extra half mile. Mostly because the geocoder was returning the "state" named Dublin and the boxes were in the "city" of Dublin.

Anyhow, I deleted the "state" of Dublin so now it works as expected! There were actually two separate issues with the Dublin listings!

-- Ryan

Anyhow, I deleted the "state" of Dublin so now it works as expected!

Excellent! Now all I have to do is get back to Dublin.

There were some boxes on the west coast of Ireland, but also, about half were missing. No one gets to do maintenence on the boxes, because they are placed during vacations.