Postcrossing Blog

We found Màiri (aka mairigold) through a charming owl-themed postcard exhibition she prepared for a museum in Scotland — and couldn’t wait to learn more! A lifelong postcard enthusiast, she finds joy in sharing postcards, decorating them… and even building tiny snowpeople on her red postbox! 😍

How did you get started sending postcards? What is your earliest memory of them?

This postcard was one of my most precious treasures as a child. I still like it now! Those 3D fairytale postcards seemed magical to me and I think that must have been what got me interested in postcards.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I heard about Postcrossing quite by chance in 2011 when it was mentioned in passing in an online interview. I signed up immediately! Until then I had never met anyone else that liked postcards as much as I did… suddenly a whole world of fellow postcard afficionados opened up to me!

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

Impossible to choose!

However, 18 August 2012 was a good Postcrossing day for me! These two beautiful postcards arrived together from China – one was drawn by Scarelt as a thank you for GB-339961 and the other (CN-627070) was sent by DogDadRory.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I am lucky to have this red postbox just outside my door. This is where I post my postcards. When it snows I build a wee snowperson on the top!

I keep some of my postcards in these mango boxes!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

What I love is choosing the postcards to send. It is great when I have one that appears in someone’s favourites wishlist! I like choosing the stamps to use and writing and decorating the postcard too. I have a LOT of stickers and washi tapes as well as postcards.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I received a postcard from Fiji which has only 17 postcrossers – quite an unusual postcard entitled “evoking spirits with a shaman’s drum”. And I sent a postcard – a map of Scotland – to a “country” I had never heard of: Saint Pierre & Miquelon, which is a French archipelago located near Canada.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies or collections?

I have a small collection of knitted or crocheted toys, which includes a wee crochet tea set and a vase of flowers, a wee knitted doll, two owls and a stripy cat.

I also have growing collection of fancy matchboxes too.

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

I work in an art gallery and recently had a wee exhibition of (some of) my owl postcard collection in its sister museum: The Auld Kirk Museum in Kirkintilloch, Scotland.

Several of my colleagues share an enthusiasm for postcards and have now become Postcrossers too!

We have some amazing news to share: 2024’s Cards for Literacy campaign broke all records!!! 🎉 It’s an impressive result and one we couldn’t be more proud of. Here are the details:

That’s a lot of postcards and a lot support for literacy — thanks to all of you!

Every single postcard sent during the campaign didn’t just spread joy to its recipients, but also helped make reading more accessible to kids, teens, and even adults learning German. Stiftung Lesen does amazing work, and we’re so happy that this donation will help them continue their mission. Here’s a short statement they sent us:

"Greater focus must be placed on early childhood education and reading promotion to enhance educational equity and equal opportunities in Germany in the long run. Reading is not just a hobby – it is the foundation for academic achievement and a thriving professional career. To achieve this, daycare centers must also be strengthened as key educational institutions. Daycares are far more than just childcare facilities; they lay the foundation for children´s educational journeys.

Moreover, we need more volunteers to support reading promotion efforts. We need dedicated individuals willing to volunteer in daycares, schools, and local initiatives to introduce children to reading at an early age and ignite their enthusiasm for it. With increased financial resources for reading promotion, strong projects can be implemented long-term and thus have a lasting impact. This applies not only to daycares and schools but also to the work of Stiftung Lesen.

The Postcrossing charity campaign #CardsforLiteracy raised an impressive €14,221.30 to support reading promotion and, ultimately, the future of our children. This campaign is a powerful example of how small gestures can have a big impact. Every postcard counts – not only as a personal message but also as a valuable contribution to fostering literacy skills. We sincerely thank everyone who takes part in this initiative and helps make a difference!"

A huge shoutout to Deutsche Post as well, for making this possible year after year! And as an extra thank you, they’ve randomly selected some lucky participants to receive vouchers for their online shop — so if you joined in, keep an eye on your inbox!

To everyone in Germany who sent postcards this past December and also those worldwide who registered them in the past three months: thank you! This campaign wouldn’t be the same without you. Keep spreading the postcard love and helping make the world a more literate place!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

This is the writing prompt for March, so it seems only appropriate to pick a prompt suggested by Dax (alter3ch0) in the forum, suggesting members could talk about their country’s flag. I’ve been under no pains to hide where I come from in these posts, so if you’ve read a few you probably know that I’m Welsh… and 1st March is St David’s Day, usually observed in Wales by a celebration of all things Welsh: wearing daffodils and leeks, eating traditional Welsh food like cawl and bara brith, and donning traditional Welsh dress. I must confess that the most I usually do is wear a daffodil!

In any case, it seems like an excellent time to tell you about the Welsh flag—and talking about flags is our writing prompt for this month for everyone.

The Welsh flag is, of course, “Y Ddraig Goch” (the Red Dragon). In the terms of heraldry, it’s a red dragon passant on a green and white field. The green and white are technically the colours of the Tudor family, who were descended from a Welshman, Owen Tudor. The dragon is a symbol of Wales because of a story that’s linked to Arthurian legends (which are also Welsh in origin), in which a king called Vortigern (Gwrtheyrn, in Welsh) is trying to build a fort in a place called Dinas Emrys, but every night, every stone is shaken down and every day the building has to begin again. He’s told by a boy called Emrys (who would grow up to be Myrddin/Merlin) that the building is being toppled by two dragons trapped beneath the ground, who fight during the night and rest during the day. One is white and the other red—and the red one symbolises Wales.

The dragons come from an older story again, recorded now in a collection of old Welsh stories called The Mabinogion, in which the dragons are one of three “plagues” disrupting Britain. They get trapped and then buried in a stone chest by a king called Lludd… in Dinas Emrys! So that’s how they got there…

I always think the Welsh flag is one of the coolest, since we literally have a dragon, but I’m ready to be wrong! Do you have good stories about your own regional or country flag to share? You can post them in the comments here, or write about them if you’re not sure what to write on your postcards in March!

Last year, we ran our biennial census, and an incredible 21,186* of you took some time to answer the many questions. Thank you! 🙏 The census is an important event for Postcrossing, because it offers lots of valuable insights into the project. Although most of the data does not change very much from year to year, there are always interesting shifts and trends to uncover. Ready to look at some charts? Let’s go!

First off, here’s a chart of how happy people are with their postal service. We asked the same question some years ago… so what has changed in the last few years?

While overall happiness levels remain similar, there’s been a dip in the strongest positive ratings. In other words, fewer people think their postal service is “fantastic”, and more believe there’s room for improvement. This isn’t exactly surprising, given the financial and logistical challenges postal services have faced in recent years… but still, it’s a bit disheartening to see. 😕

Of course, this sentiment varies wildly from country to country. If you’d like to see a breakdown by country from some years ago, check out this blog post.

One of the interesting trends from the census is a shift in where people buy their postcards. Take a look:

Back in 2020, local postcard shops were still a popular source, slightly ahead of online shops. But in just a few years, that’s changed dramatically. Online shops have now taken the lead by a significant margin, while local postcard shops have dropped in popularity, currently being overtaken by online shops, museums, and other local stores.

Is this shift due to the convenience of online shopping? A decline in physical postcard shops? Rising postage costs influencing bulk online purchases? Probably a mix of all these factors… but whatever the case, it’s clear that postcrossers are adapting to new ways of stocking up on postcards!

In 2024's census, we introduced a couple of new questions, one of which asked: are you sending more postcards now than two years ago?

At first glance, the results were a pleasant surprise—most people reported sending more postcards than before! 🎉 But then, we took a closer look…

A large portion of respondents (around 20%) joined Postcrossing within the past year. That means their “increase” in sending might simply be because they weren’t sending many postcards before discovering Postcrossing. So, we decided to refine the data and look only at members who had been with Postcrossing for over two years:

And… there it is. When excluding newer members, the trend flips: most long-time members are actually sending fewer postcards. There are probably multiple reasons for this — rising postage costs, shifting personal priorities, or maybe just life getting in the way. It’s a sad trend, but also an expected one.

What about meetups? Have postcrossers been to meetings before?

Looks like only a small percentage has ever been to a meetup, which is a bit of a pity, really! Meetups are a great way to connect with fellow postcrossers, exchange postcards, and share stories. If you haven’t attended one yet, we really encourage you to give it a try — whether by finding a local meetup or even organizing your own. Who knows? You might make some new friends along the way!

One of the parts of the census that we pay especially attention to is the disabilities question, where we ask members how impairments affect their Postcrossing experience. Unlike other questions, this one isn’t easily represented visually, as replies come in the form of text. But after reading through the responses, we noticed that most of them fall into these main categories:

• Mental health conditions (like ADHD, anxiety, depression, etc.)
• Mobility and chronic pain issues (mostly arthritis, chronic back pain, wheelchair use, fatigue)
• Vision impairments
• Other physical or neurological conditions (including Parkinson’s, post-stroke effects, hand tremors, cancer treatments and dyslexia or dysgraphia)

For many of these issues, there is little that Postcrossing can do… but still, this kind of feedback is super valuable to us. By understanding these challenges, we can work towards making Postcrossing more accessible — sometimes in surprisingly simple ways, like adjusting font choices or rewording certain instructions. But since we don’t experience these challenges ourselves, we rely on feedback from the community to help guide us.

One thing we found surprising is that a lot of people reported that Postcrossing actually helps them cope with their disabilities — for instance, by giving people a small, finite task to focus on (e.g.: writing a postcard or taking a walk to the nearest postbox). Many state that it improves their mental health, and that Postcrossing’s “send at your own pace” model allows people to participate only when they have enough energy or resources, reducing guilt and pressure. These are factors we don’t usually consider, so it’s amazing to learn about them!

Finally, another new question we asked last year was: have used or printed the official World Postcard Day design provided by Postcrossing?

14%! At first glance, that might not seem like much… but actually, we think it’s not a bad number! If the percentage were too high, everyone would be receiving the same postcard design, which might get a bit repetitive. But if it were too low, it would mean our work was going unnoticed… So 14% feels like a good balance, and we’re curious to see how this number shifts in future years.

And that’s it for 2024’s census highlights! We’re big data nerds, so looking at numbers and statistics is always fascinating — we hope you found these insights as interesting as we did.

What do you think? Are you perhaps surprised by some of these, or is everything more or less what you expected?

A huge thank you again to everyone who took the time to participate! ❤️

(*) While 21,186 responses is a substantial sample, naturally we can’t assume it represents all postcrossers. Some people might be less at ease answering surveys (perhaps due to language barriers) which could influence the results. So, let’s keep that in mind and try to interpret the findings with caution!

A while ago, the Little Mail Carriers visited Bali to meet Vonny (aka postcrossingbali). They’ve been excited to write about the experience, so let’s turn it straight over to them!

Om Swastiastu! That is Balinese greeting meaning “May peace be with you”.

I Gusti Ngurah Rai is one of Indonesia’s National Heroes and the International Airport in Bali is named after him. The red writing above shows how it is written in the Balinese script, natively known as Aksara Bali and Hanacaraka. It is an abugida used in the island of Bali, commonly for writing the Austronesian Balinese language, Old Javanese, and the liturgical language Sanskrit.

In Bali we encountered many entrance gates like this, it is called Gapura Candi Bentar. It is decorated with Balinese style carving depicting the life of traditional Balinese people containing the symbol Rwa Bhineda, two things that always coexist such as yin & yang or good & bad sides of life to maintain the balance of nature, along with the Ang and Ah script inserted that means sky/father and earth/mother, so when these two put together it will form a life. It is formed by strong pillars that serve as a guardian and protector of its inhabitants. All together, it is hoped that anyone who passes through the Candi Bentar can have good thoughts, words and deeds when in the area of the house or building. Indirectly, this is also believed to be able to protect the occupants of the house from all kinds of evil intentions.

Balinese are very religious. There are also many small temples in Bali where the Hindu can come, pray and give offerings. This one is located in the International Airport Garden Area.

This huge, beautiful sculpture, called Satria Gatot Kaca (Gatot Kaca Knight), is located just in front of Bali’s Airport. It is made by famous sculture artist from Ubud – Bali, namely Wayan Winten in October 1993. The statue portrays a scene from the Mahabharata story, where the knight Gatot Kaca, the son of Bima, one of the five Pandavas (who is famous for his courage and bravery), is standing on top of Karna (Kaurava)'s famous many horse chariot, holding his famous Ganda Angkasa (sky club). This statue symbolises the courage and chivalry that will bring glory, and is believed to provide security and spiritual protection for travelers visiting Bali.

Bali is one of the 17,508 islands in Indonesia and the only Hindu-majority province in Muslim-majority Indonesia. Bali has a unique culture and customs, one you cannot find anywhere else in the world. Diversity is very much well accepted in Bali. You can sometimes see a church, mosque and pura (Balinese Temple) located harmoniously side by side.

It is very common in Bali that culture and religion infused together. One of the example is this magnificent architecture of Catholic Cathedral richly decorated in Balinese style. It can easily be mistaken as a Pura (Balinese Temple).

The weather when we were in Bali was just perfect, and we enjoyed taking a stroll through the rice paddies. While we were there, the rice was just ripening, so the farmers hung colourful cloths to scare away the wild birds to stop them from eating the rice.

Look at these beautiful sculptures of Balinese Man and Woman we encountered in front of a local’s house entrance, and the pretty front of this house. This complex style decoration can be found almost everywhere in Bali!

This is Sesajen, an offering given to the Gods as a way to say thank you for the blessing given. It is done daily by setting aside a small portion of food that they have on that day.

Bali is surrounded with many beautiful beaches, and the sunset is so beautiful that photo doesn’t do it justice…

During our trip to Bali, we arrived just in time to experience Nyepi. Nyepi is once in a year Day of Silence to commemorate every Saka New Year (Balinese Calendar). During Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu will be fasting, doing self reflection and meditating from 6 am in the morning until the 6 am the following morning. In these 24 hours, there are restrictions such as no lighting fires or lights, no working, no entertainment or pleasure, no travelling and for some no talking or eating at all.

3 or 4 days before Nyepi, the Balinese do “Melasti”. It is a ritual performed to cleanse the world from all the filth of sin and bad karma. It’s held on the edge of the beach with the aim to purify oneself of all the bad things in the past and throw it to the ocean. We were told that this ritual is done all over Bali beaches.

Months before Nyepi, the Balinese make Ogoh-ogoh. These are demonic statues made from bamboo, cloth or styrofoam, symbolizing negative elements or malevolent spirits or even characters from Hindu mytology. The night before Nyepi, the Ogoh-ogoh will be paraded around, then burned to vanquish the negative elements and create a balance with God, Mankind and Nature. Because of the pandemic, for a while the parades were not allowed, and they were simply displayed in front of community halls.

Especially the day before Nyepi, there are so many people stopping to take picture of the Ogoh-ogoh and creating slow traffic. We, of course, joined them for Ogoh-ogoh hunting. Above are some of the Ogoh-ogoh we managed to take picture of.

Balinese set up offerings in front of their houses, and decorate the Pura and streets with Penjor to celebrate Nyepi. We saw some Pura with many Balinese bustling in and out bringing offering and praying preparing for Nyepi!

Near one of the Pura, we smelled something really amazing to eat, so good it made our stomachs rumble! Just next to the temple, there was a lady selling Sate Babi (grilled Pork Satay marinated richly in spices). The lady was very kind and friendly to us and proudly showed us the Tipat, steamed rice cake packed inside a diamond-shaped container of woven palm leaf pouch that are eaten along with the Sate Babi and Balinese Sambal (chilli sauce). Our host assured us we could find this yummy Sate Babi almost everywhere in Bali and not only during special events, although there are many more sellers when there is a ceremony. It tastes very yummy and a bit spicy, but we really enjoyed it.

On Nyepi Day, we woke up to a very peaceful quiet morning. It’s very quiet: we were having a hard time to find words on how to explain the sound of “total silence”. We could only hear the sound of the birds chirping and even the breeze through the leaves. There were no other noises, especially from vehicles or machinary, even human voices were kept to the minimum. We took a peek outside our host’s residence — the main road that was usually bustling with traffic was totally empty! And we noticed the air feels different, it was very fresh and cool. We guess it is very clean because there is zero pollution during that time. There were only few pecalang (local security) patrolling making sure all is well and to provide assistance if needed in case of emergency. We were told that today everything is closed, even the airport and harbor. Only the hospital is open, but you will need a special permit to go there since no one is allowed to go out.

At night, we ate a simple easy meal — our host prepared us the famous Indonesian instant noodles, Indomie Goreng, yummy! It is listed as the best-tasting instant ramen 2019 by the Los Angeles Times, and it justified its title! Since we are not allowed to turn on the light, we ate under a small torch. It’s a unique fun experience.

After dinner, we went to the rooftop to see the sky. The view was breathtaking, the sky was a sea of bright stars since there was no light all around us. Despite it being cloudy at that time, we could still see many stars shining clearly, it’s like bilions of diamonds scattered throughout the sky. Our host told us had it not been cloudy, it would have been much more beautiful. Many tourists and famous photographers come to Bali just to experience and taking picture of the night sky during Nyepi.

Before we left, of course we had to send some postcards. We visited the main Post Office in Denpasar and its Philately Counter.

On the way to the airport we stop by the Badjra Sandhi Monument which was located nearby the Post Office. This enormous monument was originally built in 1987. It is a symbol to preserve the spirit of the struggle of the Balinese people throughout the generation as well to maintain the integrity of the unitary state of the republic of Indonesia. It has 17 steps at the main door, 8 large pillars inside the monument building and the 45 meter height of the monument symbolizes the Independence Day of the Republic of Indonesia which is 17 August 1945.

It contains 33 dioramas, which cover various incidents in the history of the Balinese, including the Balinese kingdom, the introduction of Hinduism, the Majapahit era, Dutch colonialism, and the struggle for independence.

Well, that sums up our short experience in Bali! We hope to visit again some other time to explore the many parts of Bali we didn’t get to see. Goodbye Bali, hope to see you again!

A big thank you to Vonny for being such a wonderful host and sharing with the community the magic of Bali! We’ll be dreaming of fragrant offerings, dazzling Ogoh-ogoh, and that breathtaking starlit sky for a long time to come.

With their passports in hand and postcards sent, the Little Mail Carriers are off to their next adventure — who knows where we’ll turn up next? See you soon! ✈️