Postcrossing Blog

Ever found yourself looking at a postcard and thinking how life must be in that place? Or ever got curious about a country or a city and went online to find more about it? We know we do. Postcards allows us to travel to different places even without leaving our home.

Sandy (Shaneez) lives in South Africa and she decided to take traveling through postcards to a new level: go around the world in 80 days, through her postcards. The result of it is interesting blog very appropriately called Sandy, the Armchair Traveller.

In it, Sandy takes us through an imaginary trip around the world visiting the places where she has postcards from! All the stops include tons of details about them: photos, videos, links, curiosities, even local cuisine. But most importantly, plenty of imagination. And there’s even a map of the trip!

If you enjoy traveling through postcards, then make sure to stop by at Sandy, the Armchair Traveller.

Bon voyage!

From joyful Brazil, meet Karina, a journalist from São Paulo who started collecting postcards after joining Postcrossing. Sounds familiar?

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

In 2005 I read in “O Estado de S. Paulo” newspaper about Postcrossing and I decided to try this new experience. I always liked to swap letters with my friends before the 'e-mails age’ and I missed to receive mail with lots of things… So the Postcrossing project was great for me! I didn’t collect postcards before Postcrossing but I already liked to buy them in my trips.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My main hobby now is Postcrossing, but I’m also addicted to books. And I love french movies.

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

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

This is one of my favourite and special postcards. I’ll explain: I got married last year and I put this information in my official profile and in the forum too. So, many people sent me postcards with nice wishes and greetings. It’s great and I was very very very happy :) People in Postcrossing have big hearts!

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Do you know how to say Hello in Finnish? Maybe you already know that one, but how about Thank you for your card! in Norwegian or Goodbye in Dutch? If you wonder how to write these and other sentences, then you don’t need to search any more.

Sebastian (insel) from Germany has put together an excellent resource for us: Dictionaries for Postcrossers. He compiled together the translation of several common Postcrossers sentences in 22 languages – and it keeps growing!

And if by chance your language is not there yet, he accepts new contributions so don’t be shy!

Tot ziens!

Postcards tell us stories. About their journey, their sender, their origin. Their photo can tell a lot about the place where they came from and the stamps can share some history about the country too. But they still hold potential to tell much more. Thinking of this, Anna and Tess Knoebel have started Abe’s Penny – a micro-magazine in postcard format.

Each monthly issue of Abe’s Penny has 4 postcards that together form an artistic narrative prepared by a photographer and writer. The themes are random and unexpected and each issue has new artists that prepare the photo for the postcard and the accompanying text.

All postcards are mailed to its subscribers at the rate of one per week and they accept subscribers from anywhere in the world.

If you would like to subscribe to Abe’s Penny micro-magazine or if you are just curious about it, be sure to check their website and their archive for the previous issues. Let us know what you think!

On the remote country of Tonga in the South Pacific, there’s a very special island. It’s name is Niuafo’ou, but it’s most commonly known as Tin Can Island for the way mail was delivered and sent for many years.

The concept of Tin Can Mail started in 1882 in this island when William Travers, a plantation manager, found himself without a way to receive mail from the rest of the world. The island had no harbour and was very steep so ships wouldn’t go there. So he came up with the idea that mail could be delivered inside of the ships biscuit tin cans that would be thrown overboard when they were passing by! He proposed this to the Tongan postal authorities and soon mail started to be delivered this way. But, don’t think this was an easy feat! With strong sea currents and distances of over a mile, this meant that to retrieve mail they could have to swim up to 6 hours!

Eventually the Tin Can Mail became extremely popular and also a tradition and soon ships started to come with passengers just to watch this incredible way of mail delivery. In 1928, Walter George Quensell produced rubber stamps saying “TIN CAN MAIL” that started being applied to all outgoing letters – over one million and a half, Quensell claimed.

This method of mail delivered continued for over 100 years and it only ended in 1983 when a small airport was built in the island. Nonetheless, the Tin Can Mail history will live forever with special Niuafo’ou stamps – created by the Tonga postal services -, and on the hands of many collectors who are lucky enough to have a letter with the “TIN CAN MAIL” stamp.

Oh, and if you want to learn more about Tin Can Mail, be sure to check this page where you can find a lot more details about it.