ToyVoyagers are travelling toys which get around by being passed from person to person. Their travels and adventures are tracked on a website. Each ToyVoyager carries a unique identification number on a tag. A

message A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. A ...

on the tag encourages anyone who comes into contact with it to go to the website and update its Travelog, including

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

of where it has been. To continue its journey, the ToyVoyager is then either passed on to somebody else directly or released into the wild for somebody to find – this is known as a Wild Release.

History

Taking inspiration from the

travelling gnome The travelling gnome or roaming gnome is a garden gnome lawn ornament brought on a trip and photographed in front of famous landmarks. The practice is called gnoming. Some instances have become national and international news stories, where peopl ...

in the film ''

Amélie ''Amélie'' (also known as ''Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain''; ; en, The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, italic=yes) is a 2001 French-language romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Written by Jeunet with Guillaume La ...

'', the project was created to see if it would be possible for toys to travel 'by themselves'. The aim was for the toys to become travel companions – able to go places, do things, meet people and have their adventures captured in photographs. With more than five thousand people from all over the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

, have joined the project and it has become an international

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

in its own right. More than three thousand ToyVoyagers have been created and sent on their travels since the website began. Along with this, this hobby was created to replicate toys having their own mind and being able to move by themselves. The toys used have been rescued, new, or forgotten.

Hosts

Many members of the website make themselves available as hosts, offering ToyVoyagers a place to stay. The ToyVoyagers travel by post from host to host and at each stop they are shown around and updates are made to their travelogs with stories and photographs about their adventures. Sending a ToyVoyager to an established Host is generally seen as a safer way to travel than the wild release. The toy owners can also put requests for places on their toy profile. This means that the host that gets the toy is requested to go to these places and take pictures of it there. Hosts can also send your toy to another host or back to you after their time with it is over. Overall, the price of this hobby is fairly cheap since the only cost is shipping.

Statistics

There are 6,716 members that take part in this activity across the world. Those people live in 148 different countries. Overall, the geographic distribution is fairly even. Along with this, ToyVoyagers have traveled to 115 countries. Some examples of the countries that participate in this hobby are Australia, Switzerland, China, Germany, and the United States.{{cite web , title=Website Statistics , url=http://www.toyvoyagers.com/index.php?a=stats , website=ToyVoyagers , publisher=ToyVoyagers

References

External links

Official siteFlickr ToyVoyagers Group
Internet object tracking

History

Hosts

Statistics

See also

References

External links