The ravioli have been eaten, the stamp-shaped cookies are long gone, and the surfaces of our desks and dining tables are finally visible again, now that all the postcards have been mailed… So it’s time for a little World Postcard Day recap!
As usual, October 1st started somewhere on the other side of the world, while many of us were still very much on September 30th, and then slooooowly rolled across the timezones. The forum topic was such fun to follow throughout the day — lots of postcard piles, messy desks, trips to mailboxes and post offices, meetup photos, special stamps and, naturally, a suspicious amount of food shaped like postage stamps!
People wrote postcards pretty much everywhere. On trains, during lunch breaks, while traveling, at work… and even on top of a mountain! Julia1506 wrote her five cards from Mount Pilatus in Switzerland while watching alpine ibexes outside the window. And there was even a mailbox up there to send them from, whoa!
There were also lots of small stories that made us happy! Postcrosser reiselustig was walking to the mailbox with a pile of postcards when she passed a garbage truck. One of the workers jokingly asked whether all that mail was for him… so, on the way back, she got his address and decided to send him one too. So cool!
The Postcard Lounge was back as well, open for 16 hours so that people all around the world could drop in and write postcards together. It’s strangely comforting to sit quietly with a bunch of strangers on the internet while everybody scribbles away at their own desks!
There were some familiar faces there, some new ones and even a few younger postcard writers, which made us extra happy. And some people took the postcard writing very seriously, like tornadogrrl, who wrote 72 postcards and her pen ran out of ink while she was signing the very last one, about a minute before the Lounge closed. 😱
One thing we were especially happy about this year was seeing so many events outside the usual Postcrossing meetups! Back in August, I asked everyone to poke their local library and suggest celebrating World Postcard Day — and some of you really did it! By September 28th, we already had around 25 library events listed on the World Postcard Day calendar, and a few more appeared after that.
Libraries organized postcard-writing tables, coloring activities and little workshops, and there were also activities in schools, museums and other community spaces. This year’s coloring version of the official postcard turned out to be especially handy for some of these events.
And the celebrations didn’t all happen exactly on October 1st either. At a school in Feuchtwangen, Germany, a class of 12 and 13-year-olds celebrated by drawing each other’s names and writing surprise postcards to their classmates. The idea was simply to make a connection and give someone a little bit of joy, which feels like a beautiful interpretation of this year’s “Paper Bridges” theme.
There was plenty happening on the philatelic side too! Several postal operators prepared special World Postcard Day postmarks, and this year we got something particularly exciting from Serbia: a Postcrossing / World Postcard Day postage stamp! 🎉 Pošta Srbije issued the stamp on October 1st, together with a first-day cover and special cancellation. This is the first World Postcard Day-themed stamp out there, which is wild, when you think the event only started 7 years ago!
Meanwhile, Postcrossing itself was having a rather busy day! This year we lowered the World Postcard Day limit to five addresses per person, which thankfully made things much calmer behind the scenes while still leaving plenty of postcards flying around.
A total of 99,803 postcards were requested on October 1st (in all timezones + UTC), and of course that doesn’t include all the extra postcards people sent to friends, family, penpals, coworkers, neighbors, postal workers… or random garbage collectors. By the way, thank you for being understanding about the new limit. From our side, things went much more smoothly this year, and we hope that meant everyone could spend a little less time fighting with the website and a little more time actually writing postcards. 😊
And last but not least, it’s World Post Day today! October 9th celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the Universal Postal Union in 1874, which is basically the enormous international postal network that makes all these little paper journeys possible in the first place.
This year’s World Post Day theme is “One postal network, infinite possibilities”, which feels rather appropriate after a week spent talking about Paper Bridges. Every postcard we sent on October 1st depends on postal workers, post offices, sorting centers, planes, trains, vans, bikes and mailboxes somewhere along the way.
So today, a big thank you to all the postal workers who keep our postcards moving — and to all of you who gave them so much extra mail to carry last week. 😅❤️ Happy World Post Day!
19 comments so far
I worried a bit if five cards is enough for them to actually arrive, but the country (or long-haul vs. short-haul flight) distribution between all five was pretty good and they start to arrive now.
Time to get fresh stamp-shaped cookies. 😀.
I took an unexpected break from writing for 6 months, but I came back on WPD. I'm hoping my 5 make it 🤞
Happy Post Day! 📬
🙂 WPD is one of the most enjoyable days for getting together and writing cards. I always find myself hoping that they will all arrive.
Happy Post Day! Thank you! Postal workers!
Two of my five cards have already arrived! This was my first WPD and it was so much fun thinking of everyone writing their postcards on the same day 💌
Happy World Post Day
Big thanks to all the people involved in Postal services across the world
My 5 OFFICIAL cards are still traveling. Not sure which one will fetch me my WPD Badge this year.
A big thank you to the Postcrossing guys for writing the blogs, organising the lounge and all you do behind the scenes and the guy who created and gifted the lovely World Postcard postcard which I printed out for my first WPD!! Very enjoyable!! Thanks for a great day ✨😊
I was so proud to be part of the wonderful global family of postcard writers celebrating World Postcard Day 2026!
After a long break due to work and professional commitments, I am truly happy to be sending postcards again in this amazing community. It feels so good to be back!
I managed to request and send my 5 postcards, and I gave them a very special start to their journey: living in Rome, I took a quick trip over to Vatican City—the smallest state in the world—and dropped them directly into a Vatican mailbox! Anyone receiving my cards will get a stamp featuring the first American Pope in history (and funnily enough, two of my recipients happen to be from the US!).
Now my postcards are traveling across the world to their destinations, carrying a smile from Rome with every single one of them.
My only small regret was missing the Postcard Lounge this year—I bet broadcasting live from St. Peter’s Square would have been such a fun and unique experience!
A warm hello to all fellow Postcrossers from Rome, Italy, and a big thank you to the Postcrossing team for making all of this possible! Happy postcrossing to everyone!
I sent all 5 I'm glad 😌 happy post day
I was very pleased to be able to participate in World Postcard Day this year! One of my postcards has already arrived - yay! :)
The postcrossing community is so incredibly special. It’s much more than just exchanging postcards, it’s a global network of kindness, creativity, and human connection.
From writing postcards on top of a Swiss mountain and surprising garbage truck workers, to libraries hosting community events and virtual lounges bringing strangers together, this year's World Postcard Day proved how a simple piece of paper can bridge distances across the world. The dedication of the participants, writing dozens of cards, hunting down special stamps, and supporting local post offices, is truly inspiring.
Although circumstances-the postcrossing community is so incredibly special. It’s much more than just exchanging postcards, it’s a global network of kindness, creativity, and human connection.
From writing postcards on top of a Swiss mountain and surprising garbage truck workers, to libraries hosting community events and virtual lounges bringing strangers together, this year's World Postcard Day proved how a simple piece of paper can bridge distances across the world. The dedication of the participants, writing dozens of cards, hunting down special stamps, and supporting local post offices, is truly inspiring.
Although circumstances, specifically the kidney disease I have been suffering from for some time and the volatile political situation in the Middle East, prevented me from visiting this event, which is beloved by all, all I can do is……..... a massive thank you to the organizers, the passionate post crossers, and every single postal worker who keeps this magical network alive. Here are too many more miles of paper bridges and mailbox smiles
specifically the kidney disease I have been suffering from for some time and the volatile political situation in the Middle East, prevented me from visiting this event, which is beloved by all, all I can do is……. a massive thank you to the organizers, the passionate post crossers, and every single postal worker who keeps this magical network alive. Here are too many more miles of paper bridges and mailbox smiles.
It was my first WPD and 2 of mine have already arrived at destination 😊
This was so much fun! Can't wait till next year
It's so fun to read about what happened on that day! WPD warms my heart!
Well, well, well...there's an old lady at the top of my street who's suddenly becoming quite the social butterfly!
Meet Miss Scatter, my weather-worn mailbox. She's spent decades at the TOP of a VERY steep street, sharing space with a dozen or so other mailboxes beside a busy road. A bit tattered, plenty of bumps and bruises, and not exactly a place I've enjoyed stopping!
But NOW?! Along comes Postcrossing, and suddenly Miss Scatter has a whole new life! Friends from near and far, and perhaps a few jealous mailbox neighbors!
I'm VERY new here and already having so much fun! What a wonderfully curious, enthusiastic group of people! I was especially happy to send a postcard on World Postcard Day. YAY!
A BIG thank-you to the wonderful folks behind Postcrossing for bringing so many strangers together and giving ordinary mailboxes like Miss Scatter a whole new reason to feel special!
A happy HELLO from Washington State, USA!
Now I'm curious...if YOUR mailbox could talk, what would it tell Miss Scatter?
Yours in Scattering Joyfulness,
Joy & Miss Scatter
(She's the mailbox and it seems I'm now her enthusiastic social secretary!)
It was a privilege to send postcards on WPD. Thank you Postcrossing.
Happy post day!