For many postcrossers, the travel mode is a welcome change and a great way to pursue our hobby on vacation or while on business trips. Sending postcards from a new country with that country’s postcard ID is always exciting!
But there are some places in the world where you can send your cards in travel mode from two different countries at the same time! Frank (aka xmyrxn) visited a very special place and shares his experience:
"I spent my summer holidays in the Netherlands and made a day trip to the town of Baarle. Indeed Baarle is not just one town but literally two towns in one. So when you enter the city there are two signs displaying Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands) and Baarle-Hertog (Belgium).
If you take a look at the map you find out that there are some Belgian areas within the Dutch territory. But it’s not just a Belgian exclave within the Netherlands, it’s a patchwork of different sized exclaves and enclaves! There are even spots of the Netherlands within a Belgian area which is surrounded by the Netherlands again! To make it just a bit more complicated, the border lines don’t stop at the front doors but cut houses so that your kitchen may be in Belgium and your living room in the Netherlands! Crazy, isn’t it?
When walking through the town you will cross the border several times and it may happen that you wonder in which municipality you actually are. For a better overview all house numbers show the flag of the actual country. And usually the house belongs to the country in which the entrance lies. You also can see the border demarcation on the ground.
But how has this strange situation arisen? Well, long story short: It all began in the dark Middle Ages. The border’s complexity results from numerous medieval treaties, agreements, land swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant. Later on Breda became a possession of the House of Nassau, then Nassau-Oranje and finally the Netherlands while the parcels owned by the Dukes (in Flemish, the word Duke translates to “Hertog”) of Brabant went to the Duchy of Burgundy and finally became part of Belgium.
So how is the situation today? In Baarle-Nassau/Hertog you can find the best things from both countries: Cheese, stroopwafels and liquorice from the Netherlands as well as Belgian chocolates, frites and monastery beers.
And more: There’s a Dutch garbage truck in the streets and a Belgian as well, there are Dutch and Belgian schools (and some Dutch children go to the Belgian school and vice versa since the languages Dutch and Flemish are very similar). And there are Dutch and Belgian policemen, sharing a joint police office!And yes, there are two postal systems!
A Belgian post office bpost can be found in Baarle-Hertog and a Dutch PostNL service desk in a stationery shop in Baarle-Nassau.
So I thought I could go into travel mode and send two postcards from the Netherlands. And then two from Belgium. And again two postcards from the Netherlands and finally two more from Belgium.
The only challenge was finding WIFI from both countries to proove Postcrossing that I am sending from these countries. I found free Dutch wifi in a really nice café in Baarle-Nassau and Belgian wifi only a few meters up the street in a pub in Baarle-Hertog. Koffie met Gebak in the Netherlands and a cool drink in Belgium. Could be worse!
After drawing the addresses I decided to try something crazy: Putting stamps of both countries on some of the postcards and collecting the postmarks of both post offices!
Thanks to the kind and helpful staff in both post offices I was able to receive the local handstamp postmarks! Usually nearly all mail of both countries is cancelled in big sorting centres and not postmarked locally anymore. So I think these postcards are very special and I’m a little bit proud to bring some nice mail items into Postcrossing. Four cards went to the USA, three to Russia, two to China and two to Ukraine.
And of course I sent one to myself ;-)"
69 comments so far
Very cool!
What a fantastic and unique experience. I have read about these towns before and I remember to have been impressed by the story behind them.
I have visited Baarle a few years ago and it is simply surreal. I spend a full day there to absorb the atmosphere. I bought a bottle of wine made from grapes grown there, even the field where the grapes grow is spread in 2 countries.
Wild history! Thanks for sharing it.
This is a great and fantastic story!
Amazing story , thanks for making your cards special for whomever gets the treat
Wonderful story. I hope I can go there once.
I love it, what fun! Thank you.
so cool! Thank you for sharing this
That is so cool - learn something new each day. Glad they hand cancelled these for you. that is getting harder and harder to get.
So cool to know such a bizarre history.
thank you for sharing this lovely story with us!
@xmyrxn Frank, I'm obsessed with it now. I want one too. Haha.
So, so, so cool!
This experience could be on my BucketList!
Happy Postcrossing & Happy Holiday, everyone!
xoxo
To be precise. Baarle has in total 30(!) enclaves. Baarle-Hertog (the Belgium part) has 30 of them and Baarle-Nassau 8.
7 of them are situated in one big Belgium enclave.
I am living there! I can tell you, to get a postcard stamped in two countries isn't easy, because there is no real Dutch postoffice still.
Very nice to see this today!
great story and tip.
A unique situation in our country, and Belgium. Only the borders between India and Bangla Desh are weirder. And these countries were in a state of war. And there were people living in Bangla Desh, surrounded by India, surrounded by BD, .... And they needed visa for crossing the borders. And for visa you needed to go to an official. But there was a war going on.
* yep, I have lived there nearby and at sunday it is always very crowded - in belgium it is much cheaper to buy benzine and lpg for our car ... and yes, the chocolat in belgium is delicious !!
* it is álso very interesting when being in a "corner" of the boarders from several european countries like: belgium - luxemburg - germany - france ...
once I made many cards out of the wood of boxes for oranges and made drawings on them with inc - like the smiling girl in my avatar (or NL-5708316 and NL - 5786938)
those countries where the boarders in that corner meat eachother, made it possible to make a quick visit in only a few hours through four countries to buy stamps and post those selfmade wooden cards ... it was great to do :-)
in small villages I found very very beautiful stamps and óne was even bigger than my card haha ... it was with the virgin maria on it ...
from the nearly 20 wooden cards that I posted only thát card was broken and the post had put it into a plastic bag with an aplogize ... but ALL those cards arrived safely back in my little "studio" ( = mothers kitchen) ... btw: that is véry different nowadays: too many cards do not survive the voyage from sender to receiver -
* I wish all of you a promising year 2026 without worries;
when you are not celebrating "christmas", I wish you a nice xin nian hao + big hug = granny gonny and family :-)
How interesting, funny and complex can it be?!?! Fantastic story. Thank you for shearing it.
What a fun, fun idea, Frank! I love this!
Cool. I live in the Netherlands, but I've never been there.
What a fascinating read! The whole Baarle experience sounds absolutely thrilling – this little town shared peacefully between two countries, with borders weaving through streets and even houses, everyone just going about their lives with their own traditions. It's so cool how they coexist like that.
It reminds me a bit of where I live, in Rome. We've got this super unique "enclave" right in the heart of the city: Vatican City, the smallest country in the world (just 0.44 km²!). There are no real physical borders like in Baarle – you can literally wander from Italy into the Vatican without noticing sometimes. The Vatican post office is right there on St. Peter's Square, with its own stamps and coins. Fun fact: it's the last absolute monarchy left, where the Pope has full lifelong power over the citizens.
Reading this really makes me want to hop over and visit that incredible border town suspended between the Netherlands and Belgium – postcards from both sides in one go? Genius!
There's something quietly magical about these places where borders blur and worlds overlap without fanfare, like the map forgot to draw a hard line and life just flows on anyway.
This is actually possible specially in Europe. When I was in Bulgaria, I didn't get the correct location until I reached the City Centre,so the whole time during the trip to Bulgaria from Romania, it shows that my access were from France, so I change the city to Paris, and I was able to request an address with FR id, then I switched it back to Bulgaria after arriving at a city centre, finally got the BG id.
And another thing I learned about sending mail to Europe to anywhere in the world is, I can actually used any European stamps to any European countries and my postcards still made it to its destination. I love it!!!!
What a great story! I love that you made all that effort to send out so many of those special editions you put together for a few fortunate recipients. Kind and generous of you!
One of my favorite parts of this article is that Frank sent a postcard to himself! :) I always do that when I go on trips. :)
Fun!
Have been there in February 2025 and liked it very much! What a pity I didn't think about sending cards ...
My favorite part of this story is all the pictures included: each one really is worth a thousand words :)
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story and brave experiment. I hope the recipients will appreciate it!
Very nice story. Very fun and exciting!
so interesting 🤩
wish i get a card from both part of the city 😊
Thanks for sharing this amazing story ! Stamps and postmarks from different countries will definitely surprise the receivers and leave them wondering which post office actually handled the postcards !
A very well narrated experience, thank you for sharing 😃👍
What a delightful Travel Mode experiment!
I've walked across from Niagara Falls Canada to USA and sent from both countries on the same day!
Cool idea to get stamps and postcarms from the countries, and so nice for the lucky postcrossers! Travel mode is definitely a nice action to be taken when travelling.
Great story, thanks for sharing!
Oho, kokia gera istorija! Norėčiau ten apsilankyti!
Thank you for all the amazing comments!
I am overwhelmed! 😘
Happy postcrossing !!!
Cool experience!
Two stamps from two different countries and both postmarked! What an interesting story! Thanks for sharing.
For us, surrounded by the sea on all sides, this is very interesting!
There is a portion of the Brazilian-Uruguayan land border that divides two cities in half, but not through houses, instead in the median stripe of an avenue. It reminds the topic above. Amazing!
What a great experience!
What an awesome idea and a great writeup, Frank! Love that you did this, and really enjoyed learning about this town and the "split personality" lol. So cool!
This is so interesting! I will add Baarle to my list of places to visit in the future 😊
So cool and special!
I loved reading this article. This is so cool and interesting. Thank you for sharing😍
This is a funny story about someone suddenly living in Baarle-Nassau instead of Baarle-Hertog after a land survey. They found a great solution to move back to Belgium! 🤣
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/voordeurwissel
What a great experience! I am sure you inspired many of us to think outside the box when in travel mode.
Thanks for the cool story and experiment. I love it!
Estonia and Latvia share the city of Valga/Valka. Otherwise it doesn't matter, but when the borders were closed during corona, there were some hilarious stories where the kitchen was in one country and the living room in another, but without a passport and border control you were theoretically not allowed to move around the house.
What an interesting story! That must be the coolest place to send postcards from in Europe.
Wow! I hope the recipients of your cards will realize and appreciate what a treasure they are getting!
International postage in Belgium: € 3,00 ; in Netherlands: € 2,00 ^_^
What a fun vacation project and memory you made! I’m sure the postcrossers who receive them will think it’s very special.
How fantastic! Thank you for sharing this interesting experience with us. And so clever of you to figure out how to send a double cancellation. 👏
very interesting!
That’s an amazing story! How wonderful that two countries can cooperate with each other so peacefully! I’m glad you were able to use travel mode twice at the same place! I love travel mode!
What a great adventure! Thanks for sharing your experience!
I hope the homeowner doesn't have to pay 2 sets of taxes!
Wow, so interesting! Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you again for all your lovely comments :-)
I love learning with postcrossing. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that with us. I don't think I would have learned about this quirk without your post. We will be traveling to both those countries in a few months, although I doubt Baarle will be on our itinerary (guided tour). I always try to write postcards back home when we travel. I am happy to see you thought to send yourself one of these special postcards!
Super cool! Even as a Dutchie I did not realise this! I love that both of the postoffices were so helpfull!
WOW! What an interesting idea, one I never would have thought of. Thank you for sharing this with all of us.
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