Postcrossing Blog

Can you believe it? Postcrossing is turning 20 years old in just under two months, on July 14! We’re not quite sure how that happened either… Time flies when you’re sending postcards! Over the years, we’ve heard from postcrossers who joined back in high school, took a break during university and early adulthood, and then found their way back to the project years later to introduce it to their own children. It’s been quite the journey, and we’re happy every single one of you is here to share it with us.

But we’ll save the emotional stuff for later — right now, it’s time to get ready to celebrate! 🎉 And what’s a celebration without friends? So your first mission is to join or organize a Postcrossing meetup around July 14 to mark this big milestone. Whether you’ve been around since the early days or just joined recently, this is a good opportunity to meet fellow postcrossers, share stories, and enjoy some quality postcard-writing time together.

Since the anniversary falls on a Monday, we know it might not be the easiest day for everyone to meet. So feel free to plan your meetup for the weekend before or after! A casual get-together at a coffee shop, a sunny picnic in the park, or even a group trip to a local museum — anything goes, as long as it brings people together in the spirit of Postcrossing. There are a few planned already, but we hope to see lots more pop up in the coming weeks!

To help make these meetups feel extra special (and a bit more connected), we’ve created a special postcard template just for the occasion. You can download it from the 20 Years page and customize it with a photo — for bonus points, we suggest using a picture of a local postbox, if possible! Then just update the details with your meetup location, date, and image credit information, and you’re ready to go. With many meetups around the world using the same design template, we’ll have a shared visual celebration: one postcard, many places!

We hope you’ll join in the fun, wherever you are. Let’s make this a anniversary to remember, filled with laughter, postcards, and lots of new connections! And stay tuned for more anniversary activities coming soon… 😊

Hurray! It’s our birthday! 🥳 Postcrossing celebrates 19 years of joy and connections today, and we’re marking the date with chocolate cookies… and a surprise!

But before that, a big thank you to all postcrossers for being part of this community and for helping make Postcrossing what it is today. It’s been 19 years of stories from around the world, 19 years of learning and sharing… and about one postcard received every 6 seconds — it feels unbelievable, doesn’t it?

Our gratitude goes also to the team and all the volunteers that make Postcrossing run smoothly — and to all of you who have supported the project financially over the years. We wouldn’t have made it this far without your help.

So we hope you can take a moment today to celebrate this anniversary with a little dance, and maybe a cookie or three! And, of course, with postcards too!

Now, about that surprise…

If you were in Postcrossing over a decade ago, you might remember we used to have a small shop… which didn’t see much action, and ended up closing. In recent years though, more and more people have been asking us where they could get Postcrossing merchandising, and we ourselves have long felt that it would be nice to have a platform for the fun stuff we’ve always wanted to make.

Setting up the logistics of a global shop is not an easy feat, but after we found a partner with sustainable production practices and warehouses on a few different continents, the challenge became much simpler. Once we designed the products for our first collection, it still took us quite a while to work through all the (seemingly endless) bureaucracy, but today we’re finally ready to re-launch it.

So, welcome to the new Postcrossing shop!

We’re super excited about the shop relaunch, and we hope you are too — we can’t wait to see all the Postcrossing merch being worn by real postcrossers!! 😍

Now that the shop is in place, every purchase will help support the project and make room for even more postal awesomeness in the future. We have lots of ideas for cool products we want to make and look forward to working with designers to bring them to life. If you have suggestions of things you’d like to see in the shop (other than postcards), let us know in the comments below!

PS: This is a new adventure for us, as we are new to the whole e-commerce thing. Please be patient with us while we iron out all the kinks. 🙏

It’s our birthday today! Hurraaaaaaaay!! 🎉🎉🎉

Eighteen years… can you believe it? If Postcrossing were a baby, today would be the day in which it became an adult in most countries. As parents say, “the days are long, but the years are short” — it really feels like it!

For nearly two decades, we’ve been on an incredible journey of connection through postcards. Each postcard carries a story, a glimpse into someone’s world, and a reminder of the diversity that unites us. Together, we’ve ignited wanderlust, sparked curiosity, and learned more about the world and the unique people in it. And in doing so, we’ve built an extraordinary community, spreading joy, forging friendships, and celebrating the beauty of handwritten messages.

It makes me a little teary eyed to think of the over 72 million postcards we’ve exchanged in all these years, each a little piece of art with an heartfelt message. So many surprises and so much kindness! 💙

So thank you, to each and every one of you, for being part of this journey. Let’s grab a slice of cake and raise our pens to toast to 18 years of postcard magic!

Oh, happy day! 🎉 Unbelievable as it sounds, Postcrossing turns 17 today!

Thank you for coming along on this journey with us, lovingly “spamming” the world with brilliant postcards and friendly words, making sure everyone has something to look forward to when they open their mailboxes. That feeling of finding something there never gets old, does it?

We’re especially thankful for the kindness being shared beyond borders, for all the funny images and fun facts that make us laugh, for all the thought and care that is put onto these little pieces of mail… We believe this community truly makes the world a better place, postcard by postcard.

By the way, did you know that haikus have 17 syllables (arranged on a 5–7–5 pattern)? Seems like a good occasion to try one out, so here it goes:

Postcards in the mail
Seventeen years of magic
Friends around the world

Ahah… at least we tried! 😅

Please do join us in celebrating this special day, and grab a piece of cake while you write some postcards (or haikus)! We’ll be doing the same from our little office here in Portugal, thinking of you all over the world. 🥰

PS – We’re using this opportunity to tweak the blog, increase the font size and make things more readable overall. Let us know what you think!

Hurray, it’s Postcrossing’s birthday today!! 🎉 Sixteen years of postcards and friendly connections all over the world feels like a long, joyful adventure… one that we cherish immensely.

All these global ties have felt extra meaningful in the past year, and we’ve heard from so many of you, letting us know how much you appreciated having a happy hobby during these rough times. So our big thank you to all of you out there, feeding mailboxes with nice mail and spreading some joy in times of social distancing — you are what keeps Postcrossing going. We hope you’ll have a brilliant day, and treat yourself to an extra nice postcard, or a slice of cake! 🍰

The other good news of the day is that a new Postcrossing-themed stamp from Austria is being issued today! Designed by Theresa Radlingmaier, 165,000 of these have been printed (in sheets of 50) and they should be available in Austrian post offices and their online shop today.

If you’re in Austria and manage to find some of these shiny new stamps on your local post office, do share some photos of them with the rest of us on social media! We’d love to see how they look on your own postcards.