Postcrossing Blog

Never thought about visiting the island nation of Vanuatu? Then here’s a good reason for you to consider: they have the first (and only?) underwater post office in the world! We bet you never thought it was possible to post mail underwater, have you?

The Vanuatu Post came up with this idea to increase awareness of the richness and diversity of Vanuatu’s underwater world. And if you never had the chance of finding nemo in real life, then that’s yet another reason to think about Vanuatu for holidays, where you can do snorkeling and see the great aquatic life there is there.

But, don’t think it’s easy to get there! This special post office is 50 meters offshore and is 3 meters deep underwater – you’ll need to scuba dive to actually get there. And make sure to check their schedule, as their are “open” only one hour per day! :)

Since its start in 2003, they have received over 100.000 visitors so it surely seems to be working well. Waterproof postcards are available and they use a special embossed cancellation stamp that can be used underwater. Postcards can be sent anywhere in the world, so it’s perfect!

And now, for something a bit different: Lenka Clayton and Michael Crowe are two creative artists with a very special goal – to send a personal handwritten letter to everyone in the world! Impossible? Most likely. Crazy? Perhaps. But it’s surely different, and they are doing their best to do it in a creative and mysterious way – they call it Mysterious Letters.

In April last year, they have sent handwritten letters to all 467 households in the Irish village of Cushendall – not bad for a start. And in November, they wrote 620 letters – all different and personal – to each home in Polish Hill (Pittsburgh, USA). Here’s what BBC had to say about it:

But they are not stopping here. Now they want to go even bigger and write to even more people!

This time, they are allowing anyone to get involved in their enthusiastic plan – they have setup their project at kickstarter.com so that people can donate towards it (if there aren’t enough supporters, the donation is returned).

In exchange for the donations, they are offering peculiar things – from allowing the supporters to choose a theme for the letters they will send, to actually receive handwritten letters from Michael and Lenka themselves. For the largest supporter level, they are even offering to hand deliver a letter to the supporter in person!

Even though it sounds a bit crazy, we love the creative way they are doing it all. You can find more information about the project at their Mysterious Letters blog and for details of how help them, check here.

So, we’ve just spent a few hours putting all of your submitted photos for the birthday contest together in a little video and we have to confess that we are currently feeling a bit teary-eyed… The two-hundred and seventy smiles that we have received from all over the world that have swept us off our feet.

Just look for yourself:

Thank you all, you’re the best! Paulo and I are currently wishing we could make a biiiiiig roadtrip around the world to hug each and every one of you! :)

Paulo’s little random number generator selected the following winners for this contest: Miza, arlene037, Mayalost, Patflash and Angerona. Congratulations, we’ll be in touch to deliver the code for your new pack of 60 MOO postcards!

No luck this time? Don’t worry – we have a new contest coming soon!

PS – Do you subscribe MOO's newsletter? They featured Postcrossing on their newest issue, and offered everybody 15% discount on postcards using the coupon 9MW4J4, until August 15th. Now’s your chance to make some neat postcards :)

Ingrid from Iran makes pottery but this hobby has been superseded by Postcrossing and new collecting activities introduced to her by Postcrossing.

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

One day when I was searching the Internet and I found Bookcrossing. I wasn’t that hopeful to find any book in my second home town, Tabriz, so that I could take part in Bookcrossing. I was a bit sad but then I saw the Postcrossing label there and I was curious to see what it meant and if it would be something suitable for me!?!?

It was definitely created for me! This was the beginning of my very beloved new hobby in September 2005. I had already been collecting postcards since my childhood. From that time until my late twenties I was only collecting real vintage cards from around the year 1900 as well as cards from France (my favorite country) and later from Hannover, Hamburg, and Iran! I’ve still in my collection the very first card I ever bought – bought when I was only 10 years old. That first card is from Hameln. Perhaps you know the fairy tale of the famous rattenfaenger?!

Later I moved to Iran and every 3–4 years when I came back with my children for holidays to Germany, I started to buy cards from everywhere we were going for sightseeing. I did the same in Iran! And I even collected all the cards during 34 years which I got from abroad from my friends and relatives. So I already had a good collection when I started with Postcrossing!!!

Since this time I have found so many very nice friends all around the world! I have even taken part in several meetups in Germany, Austria and Finland! And, yes, we are a Postcrossing family: ipuenktchen, I_am_from_hanover, yashila_81, ANITA_2004. And, recently – BREAKING NEWS – yashila_81 got married and his wife for sure is a Postcrosser… hehehe… lili_6789!!! But this is not that Postcrossing marriage as they have known each other for a long time before Paulo had this great idea of Postcrossing. In the end, both are interested in postcards!!!

I have also gotten some of my students involved and addicted…

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I always have my camera with me and adore taking photos. I have been doing so since my last year of high school when I won my first camera in a lottery of a youth magazine. A quite new hobby is that I started a blog for traveling toys called POSSY and CROSSY, a playmo couple: ipuenktchenworld.blogger.de. The blog has nice pictures of Iran as these traveling toys are going with me everywhere! Their god aunt Egni from Switzerland came up with these great nicknames for them.

Also, since 1998 I got involved again with pottery (which I started when I still lived in Germany) but shame on me … Postcrossing is taking up all of my time and I find less time for pottery. But I’m still trying to take part in Iranian pottery biennials and other exhibitions. Here you can have a look at a small homepage: home.feierabend.com/sofalin. I’m also a member of East-Azerbaijan’s Pottery Friends Association.

And please not to be forgotten – traveling is one of my main hobbies!!!

There are other collections I’ve started via Postcrossing: The Little Prince books in different languages – just now I got my 37th version.

Lastly, I also I started a collection of fridge magnets!!!

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

A pic of the Iranian mailboxes which you can find everywhere; but using these is not as common as in other countries. People mostly prefer to mail their stuff at the main post office. It takes me 45 minutes to reach it!!! Here you may have a look at our new mailbox. We changed it recently.

And I finally got a pic of our mailman…

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

Oh, what a difficult question!!! Please let me think about it …

No, it’s impossible to decide as I have thousands and thousands of BEAUTIFUL and INTERESTING postcards!!! The card that touched me most was perhaps the first folded panorama card I had ever seen. It is from New Zealand and was a thank you card from nzmum2000! It was sooo impressive with a beautiful nature view in a large size!!!

Otherwise I have cork postcards, a wooden postcard, even a card with a real leaf from a tree in China! Recently I received from dear isagv the most funny card I ever had: there is a Santa Claus grabbing an Easter Bunny out of his sack and the Easter Bunny has a birthday cake in his paws and there is written “Merry Christmas, Happy Easter and Happy Birthday”! *LOL* But it’s really impossible for me to decide which one is my most favorite card!

By the way, the reason I’m really happy for this hobby: it is for people of any age – I just got an official card from a 71 year old Postcrosser and her husband who is 84. I hope to be able to do the same in future as well!

Last July 14th, was not just the Postcrossing 5th birthday. On the same day, a village in the U.K. was trying to break a Guinness world record: the most postcards sent from one location.

The previous record belonged to the Indian city of Tamilnadu with the already impressive number of 5,216 postcards sent. Not bad at all! But the residents of Keyworth decided they could be better and they aimed for even higher: they are claiming to have sent a total of 8033 postcards in one single day! Quite something, isn’t it?

The event was organized by Brian Lund with the help of the local postoffice staff that started preparing the event 6 months ago, spreading the word and gathering sponsors. Some custom postcard designs were provided and there was even a postmark specific to that event. Postcards were sent all over the world, but some people mail themselves a postcard to keep a memory of participating in the event.

The exact value of the record is currently being submitted for ratification but with 8033 postcards, thinks are looking good – congratulations Keyworth!

PS: Speaking of records, to date the record of postcards sent in a Postcrossing meetup seems to belong to last year International Meetup in Helsinki with 545 postcards, signed (by all participants!) and sent on a single meetup. Do you know of another meetup with a higher number? Let us know!