Postcrossing Blog

The writing prompts are an ongoing experiment that invites 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!

December is here, the winter theme is up and we’re in a festive mood… hence this month’s prompt:

Sounds easy enough, right? And as luck would have it, yesterday was actually a national holiday in Portugal: we celebrated the 378th anniversary of the Restoration of Independence. Back in the 16th century, Portuguese King Sebastian mysteriously disappeared in a battle in Morocco. He was young and didn’t have any children, so a succession crisis ensued and in the aftermath of it, the Spanish crown ruled Portugal for 60 years. They were overthrown by a revolution that took place on December 1st 1640, in which the Portuguese independence was restored.

How do we celebrate this day? Naturally, there are some official commemorations taking place in the capital… but in my household, December 1st was celebrated as “the earliest day in which it is acceptable to make the Christmas tree”, according to my parents. So we were always busy doing that!

So now you know a bit more about the history of Portugal (and my home)! What holidays are special to your country that you could write about in your postcards this month?

December is just around the corner, and if you’ve been around for the past few years, you probably know what that means… but just in case you don’t: dear postcrossers, it’s our honor to announce together with Deutsche Post the 6th edition of the Cards for Literacy campaign! 🎉

Without further ado:

If you’re in Germany, all you have to do is send postcards like always, as many as you can! If your December postcards are registered before the end of February 2019, you will be contributing to this cause and entering a draw to win some cool postal prizes.

And although only postcards sent from Germany count, don’t forget that there’s always a receiver in every postcard exchange — so each time a card from Germany is registered, the recipient will be indirectly contributing to this donation too.

Oh! Did we mention there are prizes? 😍 Yup, we have a bounty of custom-made stamps and cool messenger bags to give away to seven randomly selected postcrossers (residents in Germany only). So by sending postcards in December, you’re helping a good cause, and could win one of these:

• One voucher for the Marke Individuell Online Shop worth €100.
• Three vouchers for the Marke Individuell Online Shop worth €40 each.
• Three post-themed messenger bags from Deutsche Post.

Brilliant! As usual, Paulo will run his random number generator next March and we’ll reveal the total count of postcards sent (and money raised to Stiftung Lesen) here in the blog. Last year, a grand total of €8,685.80 was raised for this good cause!

Stiftung Lesen is a German non-profit organization, working to increase literacy in the population, especially among children and adolescents. Their activities include reading clubs, media literacy projects and initiatives to promote the learning of German language by refugee families in the country.

So… what are you waiting for? If you’re in Germany, get your postcards and stamps ready for December! The more cards you send, the more you’ll be helping this good cause!

P.S. – As always, we respect your personal information and will not share it with any company without your explicit permission. The full details of this campaign can be read here (German only).

We’ve written about postcards and weddings on the blog before (here or here), but these sweet stories keep showing up on our inbox, so we thought it was time for a new roundup of these happy moments.

The first story comes from Portugal! When Teresa (aka Tenar) learned that her close friends were going to get married, she invited the Postcrossing community to surprise them with messages from around the world. She enlisted the help of her friend Sofia (aka suphiia), and together they collected over 100 postcards and even little gifts and drawings which were offered to the bride and groom on their wedding day. Everyone was moved by the kind wishes and the thoughtfulness was put into this wonderful gift.

Zijie (aka zijie) from China and Karsten (aka dagonno) from Germany) met through Postcrossing back March 2014, exchanged some postcards back and forth… and the rest is history, as they say! They got married in July this year in Denmark, and sent a few postcards from there to mark their special day. Karsten’s sister even designed a big round postcard for the occasion too, which was signed by all the guests — a very nice souvenir!

And the last story comes from Albert and Cassey (aka albertcass) in Malaysia, who also got married in July this year! In the months prior to their wedding, they collected 160 postcards with messages of all kinds, from lyrics of romantic songs, to Bible verses, to practical marriage advice. The love shown by fellow Postcrossers was just immense so the couple, as promised, displayed the cards during their wedding which also featured postcards as the main theme. Here’s how it looked:

Awww… so many sweet displays of love and generosity. Congratulations to all the newlyweds, and thank you for sharing your special days with us! We love to hear all the creative ways in which postcrossers use their postcards, and how they’re included in your special days, so please keep sending them our way. And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have something in my eye… 😭

You know how sometimes you’re in a town where it seems like there’s a pillar box in every corner, and in other places they’re simply nowhere to be found? Different postal operators have different policies about their post boxes coverage, and so we thought it would be interesting to find out how far the average postcrosser has to walk (or drive!) to mail their cards.

A total of 9928 postcrossers answered our poll last week, and here are the combined results of that informal survey:

Overall, looks like most of us don’t have to go that far to mail our postcards, which is great news! Just over 50% of postcrossers walk just 500 meters (or 547 yards) or less to post something, and the farthest category (5 km-3.1 miles or more) is the one with the least amount of postcrossers (7.8%).

Naturally, the really interesting data is at the country level. Let’s have a closer look:

So, looking at the graph, a few countries seem to do things a little differently. For instance, Malaysia and Indonesia definitely stand out, with about a quarter of postcrossers having to go 5km (3.1 miles) or more until they find a mailbox, followed by Brazil with 19.12% of postcrossers in that category. Indonesia and Brazil are both huge countries, so we understand that it might be hard to cover that much area with mailboxes or post offices… but Malaysia is harder to explain. 🤔 Any thoughts?

On the other end of the spectrum, postcrossers in Hong Kong and Canada walk the least to get to their mail collection points: between 38–39% of them only has to go a few steps from their home to get it done. That’s brilliant! Japan and Switzerland are also doing very well in this regard, with over 75% having to walk just under 500m (547 yards) to get their mail going.

Knowing that in the US mail carriers pick up the outgoing mail from mailboxes when delivering mail, we were a bit surprised to find out that these statistics don’t seem to reflect this ultra-convenient service. Is this not a generalized service, perhaps?

So, what do you think? Do you get enough exercise out of mailing your postcards, or do you wish it was slightly farther away so that you could hatch some Pokémon eggs with those extra steps? 😅 Feel free to chime in on the comments below!

PS – As usual, only countries with more than 50 votes are included, so that the results can be more meaningful.

Hej! Hei!

Good news, everyone! We’re happy to announce that the Åland Islands will be launching a Postcrossing-themed stamp next year! I know your eyes are already drifting to the photo below, so go ahead and have a look:

There are so many cool things about this stamp! First of all, images don’t do justice to its shiny metallic surface, whose colors shift from pink to purple. But there’s also the fact that this is a not a normal stamp… it’s heart-shaped! You can carefully detach the inner perforations and transform the stamp into a heart — how cool is that?!

This special stamp was designed by Åland Post’s own Cecilia Mattsson, and will be issued in June 7th, 2019. To celebrate the occasion, the Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association is timing their annual trip to Åland to coincide with the stamp launch. Keep an eye on their website for more information soon, but you can already expect many interesting activities as per their usual adventures.

We know it’s still a long time for this stamp to be issued, but we’re super excited about it and looking forward to seeing it on many postcards next year! 💜