I think sometimes if you have to work for it, you have to walk down there or get down there, you appreciate it more.

It's magical. It's always magical. If you walk south along the coast of North Carolina, past the vacation rentals of Sunset Beach, past the last of the sunbaters and ice cream carts, the world starts to feel empty.

You'll have crossed an invisible line into Bird Island, a coastal reserve set aside

for the wilds, and there, standing against the dunes, you see it. A single black mailbox on a wooden

post. No house, no street address, no mailman. But there are letters.

Dear Kindred Spirit, I am here with my Kindred Spirits from high school. We are all 60 now, but the bond and the friendship continues.

Sally.

Dear Kindred Spirit, praying for my friend Melvin and Janice, they have a long road ahead and I pray for them to find strength.

J.R. and Z.

This is the Kindred Spirit mailbox. For nearly 50 years, it has sat on the edge of the world, gathering the prayers, confessions, and heartbreaks of a

revolving door of strangers.

Wish you so much, grandma, grandpa and uncle.

Wish you were here to see the new house and watch Chance grow up.

Love you, Sashir and Chance.

Dear kindred spirit, I can't be unhurt by disappointment in the boy who was once so sweet

just for a little while, but it was nice, though, while it lasted.

I'm Jerome Campbell, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we visit the Kintra Spirit mailbox,

a lonely post on the North Carolina coast

holding the secrets of thousands of strangers.

And our guide is one of its keepers,

Jack de Groot.

...