Hello everyone!
Today I'm writing a bit about Postcrossing! In a nutshell, you receive a random address, send a postcard, and you'll receive a postcard in return from someone who got your address.
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| My first batch of outgoing postcards! |
Postcrossing has been around for over 10 years, but I only found out about last July. During my teens and early twenties I had several pen pals and always loved to receive mail and share stories from around the world. But people grow up, things happen, things change, and it's easy to lose contact when life gets busy or turbulent. However I'm still in touch with one of them, she became an amazing friend over the last 18 years!
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| Postcrossing pages in my bullet journal. |
So what's the appeal of Postcrossing? For me there are a couple of things:
- Surprise! You don't know when you'll receive a postcard and where it is from. Neither can you select where the postcards you are sending will be headed.
- Connect with the world. It's great to receive a snippet of someone's life from a different place. And you feel like a globetrotter just looking at all these amazing cards from all over the planet :-)
- It's affordable. When you start out, you can have up to 5 travelling postcards at a time. This number increases as you send more. However, it's totally up to you how many cards you send out each month.
- No commitment. When cards are received, you write a thank you note when registering the card. The deal is closed and everyone moves on. For those wanting a more personal experience, there are meetings and forums for pen pals and personal swaps.
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Outgoing batch in August.
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In August I sent out 5 cards of places in the Netherlands. Eindhoven, s-Hertogenbosch and Maastricht are large cities. Maastricht is close to where I live, a lovely place with a lot of historic buildings. It is a popular tourist destination.
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| Incoming postcards in August! |
And here are the cards I received last month! You might see some themes going on here ;-) In your profile you can list some of your preferences. A couple of mine are cats, retro, and maps. People are not obligated to follow your list, but it is nice to see the extra little effort they put in into picking something you'll like! The cards in this picture came from Indonesia, Germany [3], Switzerland, USA and Czech Republic. I can't wait to see what'll arrive in my mailbox this month!
Happy postcrossing!
