Postcrossing Blog

It’s been a while since we last had a giveaway on the blog, and this is an exciting one!

But first, a question: how do you carry your postcards around? Over the years, we’ve seen people make do with imperfect solutions to transport their postcards, sticking them along with stamps inside a book, re-using flimsy envelopes or paper bags or just haphazardly throwing them in their purses and praying for the best. We always cringe thinking of those fragile corners…

Maike and Wiebke (aka, the Papersisters) experienced these annoyances too, and decided to take action by creating their own Papertraveler in order to solve the recurring problem of how to safely transport postcards. The Papertraveler is a sturdy and smooth folder, made of two pockets with space for 50 postcards, plus 2 inserts for stamps, stickers or other small paper items. They’re crafted from a tear-proof and vegan material, sewn together, and wrapped in place by an elastic band.

Don’t they look neat? I’ve been using mine for a few months now, and can attest to its sturdiness. It’s just big enough for most normal sized postcards, but also compact, so it doesn’t take a lot of space in a bag. I keep mine stocked with plenty of stamps and some favorite postcards, just in case. 😊

And now, the part you’ve all been waiting for: Papersisters is offering two lucky postcrossers a Papertraveler, along with their handy Pentraveler companion plus a bunch of postcards!

For a chance to be one of these lucky winners, visit their website and then leave a comment below, telling us which postcard (or series of postcards) is your favorite. This won’t be an easy task, as there are many nice postcards there, with popular series featuring the Life of a Postcrosser, German themes, Personalities, Mail topics, or the Happy Postcrossing series…

So have a look through their website and let us know which ones are your favorites in the comments below — if you win, some of these will be included in your new Papertraveler! Don’t forget to check back here next Saturday for the winners (randomly picked by Paulo’s script, as always).

The day has come at last! The German postcrossers have been enthusiastically keeping track of their December postcards, and it is now time to reveal to the whole community how many postcards for a good cause were sent from Germany last year.

Ready to find out? Let’s do this!

Woohoo! This has been the best result yet in all the years we’ve been running the Cards for Literacy campaign with Deutsche Post! Our fleißig German postcrossers absolutely smashed last year’s record! 🎉 We’re proud beyond words, and thankful for each and every one of these postcards, whose corresponding donations are soon going to be put to a good use.

And naturally, if you’ve registered a postcard from Germany sent in December, you’ve also been a part of this campaign! Thank you for registering your postcards promptly, and contributing for this amazing result.

Last but not least, a huge thank you to Deutsche Post, for collaborating with Postcrossing and standing by their commitment to improve literacy in Germany, year after year. Bravo! 🎉

All that is left to do is for Paulo to run his magic script to choose the winners of this year’s prizes. If you’re in Germany and participated in this campaign, keep an eye on your email — you should receive a message soon, if you’ve won a prize. 😊

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!

Whether you live in a small town or a big city, festivals are usually one of the highlights of the year! Sometimes people gather to celebrate traditional crafts, special seasons, historical events or even religious festivities that are important to the community. What do the people in your region commemorate?

One festival that always makes our town buzz with excitement is the Mediterranean Diet Fair, in mid-September. Tavira is a representative community of this UNESCO recognized form of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and as such, every year a big party is thrown to showcase and celebrate it.

There are a lot of shows and workshops around the theme of the Mediterranean diet, which is not just about the food itself, but also encompasses all cultural aspects that go with. From music to performative arts, markets and seed banks, visits to cultural heritage sites, workshops, or activities for the little ones… there’s always something going on during the days over which the event takes place, so it’s definitely worth a visit!

What about your region? Which festivals are you looking forward to this year? Let’s write about these special events on the postcards we send out in March!

2020 is a Leap Year, so how about a look at some old postcards illustrating one of the best-known Leap Day traditions? If you’ve never heard of this, the tradition is that on Leap Day (and only on Leap Day!) women can propose to men.

In 2012, Huffington Post rounded up this and other marriage superstitions related to Leap Day around the world: in some countries, it’s bad luck, while in Finland if the man refuses he has to pay a fine and give the poor lady enough material to make a skirt. (In times past that was a pretty significant fine, and a useful gift!)

Take a look at some of these postcards we found!

The Scottish tradition is that proposing women had to wear a red petticoat as a sort of warning to let men know they were going to propose… but I’m not sure how anyone could check on the petticoats of some of these ladies! We don’t think they’d let you try… (quite right, too!)

We had no idea that Leap Day postcards were a genre of their own, but we found a whole collection of them curated by Alan Mays on Flickr, as well as the others we gathered above! Do you know any other traditions or stories related to Leap Day in your country?

I’m sure you’ve all heard about the 2019-nCoV (aka Coronavirus) outbreak in China, since it has been all over the news for the past month. A lot of you have been contacting us with questions about this situation, so we thought a quick post was in order to clarify a couple of points.

First of all, there is no risk of contagion via postcards or mail. Here’s an official response to the question from the World Health Organization:

Q: Is it safe to receive a letter or a package from China?

A: Yes, it is safe. People receiving packages from China are not at risk of contracting 2019-nCoV. From previous analysis, we know coronaviruses do not survive long on objects, such as letters or packages.

This situation has had a heavy impact in the postal world though, with many postal operators having stopped accepting mail to China due to cancelled flights and widespread delays. For this reason, Postcrossing has temporarily stopped giving out Chinese addresses. We will continue monitoring the situation, and when things return to normal, the algorithm will resume giving out Chinese addresses for everyone to send postcards to.

Doing this really saddens us, as we realize this is a difficult period in which Chinese postcrossers most need support. So we hope everyone will join us in the comments below, sending the Chinese Postcrossing community and their families some encouraging thoughts and good wishes. 中国加油!