I don’t know about you, but I love opening my mailbox and finding mail for me. You know – letter and/or postcard mail. Anything with handwriting on it.
Luckily, my mom had this adorable addiction to greeting cards. As in, I’m pretty sure that Hallmark is still in business because of her.
For instance, since I was a little girl going away to camp – my mom has sent me letters and mail. 4 years in college – I’d get letters at least every 2 weeks.
And then last year in Greece, I got all kinds of mail from mom, friends, etc.
So now, I’m home. Living with mom. So mom doesn’t send me mail (understandabe).
Any chance I get for mail, be it a facebook event of “Who Wants a Postcard From ”, to offers of random Christmas cards from bloggers (Thank you to the wonderful Madams Jen and Raurasaur for their amazing Christmas cards!) I take it!
So naturally when I heard about a way to guarantee mail to myself, I jumped on that bandwagon!
Or rather, mail wagon I guess I should say.
Postcrossing
It’s a pretty simple system. You sign up with your address. You request addresses for people around the world. You send them a postcard. Once they’ve received your postcard, your address is released to someone else in the world.
And voila! You’ve just gotten a beautiful postcard from some nice person somewhere in the world!
I’ve gotten cards from Russia, Germany, Taiwan, China, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland, etc etc! You can watch your stats, see how far your postcards have traveled, how many you’ve sent, how many people like them (I know how much us WordPressers like stats!).
It’s fun, it’s fast, and it’s a way to give and get a bit of cheer through the mailbox!
Whoa, that’s so cool!!
Seriously – do it. It’s so fun!
That’s a great idea!
Neat. So do you become pen pals with these people, or are you all just shooting postcards around the world?
Usually you just shoot postcards all over the world. But you can request direct swaps with people (you send to them, they send to you) and I’m sure that could become pen pals! Everyone obviously like writing and sending letters, so I’m sure they’d be up for it.
Dang, girl! That’s a great idea. Thanks for sharing. HF
I’ve mentioned it to people a couple times in comments so I thought, “I should write an actual entry about it!” It’s so cool because people can do it as groups too – so like a class can do it, or a brownie troop, or whatever.
Isn’t Postcrossing wonderful! I have received over 450 postcards from all over the world and sent about the same. I have participated in direct swaps with some people and that was fun. The most fun was sending a pop-up book to a mother in Poland for her little boy. She had never seen a pop-up book before. I have answered messages from people who want to know why I converted to Islam and what Islam is all about and struck up friendships with people in other countries in this way. Postcrossing brings people together from all over the world. At Christmas time, I get Christmas cards from all over. It’s so cool. I’m glad you found Postcrossing. With Postcrossing, you mailbox is rarely empty.
450?! WOW! That’s super impressive! I’m only at around 30 or so, so I definitely have a ways to go! And that’s so cool that you sent a pop-up book! What a neat idea, I’ll bet she totally loved it!
What an interesting concept.
What a great idea
What kind of postcards have you sent out?
I sent out a bunch when I was in Athens (the Parthenon at sunset, overhead views of the city). Sadly my actual hometown doesn’t have any, so I generally send San Diego ones (the harbor, Oceanside pier at sunset – I’m a big sunset person, so whenever I see those cards, I send them out). People will request certain kinds of cards, but I’m rarely able to fulfill requests because there’s a very limited selection available to me.
I love this!
And I’m glad you liked your card! 
Mail is a blast!
I knew you would love it – and I feel like you would be really good at it. Sending awesome cards and messages
AH! So glad you liked the Christmas card
I also really love postcrossing. We should totally exchange random things in the mail! I love opening it up and seeing something besides home loan offers and bills.
Done.
I, too, LOVE letters and email – my friend and I send crazy long letters to each other when we can! Good to know others love mail — cool regarding the post cards.
One of my friends sent me handwritten letters when I was abroad – and sealed them with a wax monogram! Coolest letters ever ^.^
That would be!
I love it! If you like, email me your address at thewaitingblog at gmail dot com and I will send you a letter!