Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

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Some time ago, the Little Mail Carriers got wind that Andry (aka Andry1961) and Maret (aka Cerres) were preparing for a very exciting trip to the Pacific. As dedicated travel mode enthusiasts, they jumped at the opportunity to join them on their journey!

Hi everyone! The goal of the trip was to visit Pacific islands belonging to various countries where Postcrossing was not yet well-known. The journey took off from Tallinn Airport, and of course, there are no direct flights to these desired islands, so our route also included other major country post offices along the way.

Two Playmobil postal worker figurines wave in front of Tallinn Airport in Estonia.

The first stop was Istanbul, Turkey. The Turkish Post (or PTT) has a presence at Istanbul Airport. Most postcards sent from the country are shipped to other nations via their national airline, Turkish Airlines. We also took the longer flights on the same airline during this trip.

Two Playmobil postal worker figurines visit Turkey — one scene shows them at a PTT post office counter, and the other on the wing of a model Turkish Airlines plane.

The plane landed in Singapore, but it’s easy to travel from the airport to the neighboring country of Malaysia via public transportation… so that’s exactly what we did on our layover! Across the border in Johor Bahru, a friendly postal worker lady Farah helped us stamp our postcards at the local post office. While the stamping was done at the post office, the postcards themselves had to be deposited in an external mailbox, from where they were sent to the sorting center.

Two Playmobil postal worker figurines in Malaysia — one photo shows them with a cart atop bright red postboxes, and the other with a postal worker stamping their travel notebook inside a post office.

Back in Singapore, there are post offices with varying opening hours all over the city, but to ensure we made it to the next flight on time, we decided to mail the postcards from the airport post office. By the time we arrived, it was already closed, so we dropped the cards in the mailbox before jumping on our next flight.

Two Playmobil postal worker figurines in Singapore — one posed in front of an in-flight map showing their route, and another beside a stack of postcards at a post office counter with mail slots in the background.

After 10.5 hours in the air, we were approaching our main destination. What motivated people to sail on their small vessels to unknown waters thousands of years ago is still a topic of debate among scientists. We support the idea that curiosity and the desire to explore foreign lands drove us, just as it did for those early explorers.

Our first stop in the South Pacific was Grande Terre, the largest island of New Caledonia. New Caledonia is a French overseas territory (technically, a sui generis collectivity) situated in the Pacific Ocean. It encompasses over 300 islands and islets and is located between Australia and Fiji. The native population is the Kanak people, but there are also many inhabitants of French origin and their descendants living on the island.

British explorer James Cook became the first European to visit New Caledonia on September 4, 1774. In the mid-19th century, it transformed into a French colony, and by 1946, it became a French overseas territory.

The toy postal carriers sit on top of a yellow mail trolley in front of an in-flight screen showing the plane’s location near Nouméa.

Nouméa welcomed us on the morning of September 26 with cheerful and windy 20-degree Celsius weather. However, since it was a Saturday, we had to rush to the post office. Only some post offices are open for half a day on Saturdays, and they are all closed on Sundays.

Apart from us, there were many other visitors at the post office. The official name of the postal operator in New Caledonia is the Office des Postes et Télécommunications, which manages mail, phone, and internet services, as well as banking services. We were the only ones on that morning sending postcards.

A postal clerk in New Caledonia stamps postcards while the toy postal carriers watch from the counter.

We were graciously assisted by the lovely lady Melatia. Postcards sent from here are routed to Europe through France, while direct connections are available to the USA and Australia. To our delight, we discovered that New Caledonia, despite being a French overseas territory, has its own unique postage stamps… so it was a nice opportunity to see these distinctive stamps!

Nevertheless, the visit to the post office was not the sole item on our agenda. We also joined in to support our travel companion Cerres, who participated in the 7th Marathon International Mobil of New Caledonia 10 km run, where she achieved a personal record. YAY! 🎉

Two Playmobil postal worker figurines in New Caledonia — watching a large group of runners posing for a photo before a race, and later cheering on participants as they run past on the road.

To close the trip, we checked out the Great South Lagoon of New Caledonia, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2008. We also had the opportunity to explore one of the many exquisite national parks on this remarkable island — Blue River Park! It was amazing to see the river meander through the backdrop of red earth and the ancient kaori trees, some of which are more than 1,000 years old!

Two Playmobil postal carriers overlook a scenic red-earth landscape and winding river in New Caledonia.

This was just the first leg of our Pacific adventure though, and our hosts Andry and Maret tell us there’s still a lot more to come… so if you’re curious about small islands and their post offices, stay tuned to see where we’ll land next! 😊

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We’ve mentioned #xtremephilately and #xtremedeltiology on the blog before — they’re those pictures you take when you put a stamp or postcard in front of the place featured on them. Like these:

A person holds up matching postcards and stamps in front of the real buildings they depict — a red modernist museum in the left photo, and a red brick church in the right.

But here’s something extra cool: piXPost is a new app that allows you to put those stamp and postcard pictures (as well as pictures of postboxes, post offices and events) on the map, to share with others! Graham Beck (from Youtube channel Exploring Stamps) shows you what it’s all about:

Screenshot of the piXPost app showing a Tamsui Church maxicard from Taiwan held in front of the actual church, with a short description about its history.

I’ve been taking pictures of postboxes and postcards for a loooong time now, mostly for fun, and I know lots of you do this as well. But now we can share them among us and with other postal lovers around the world, to let everyone know where these special places are! Ever since signing up, I find myself going out of my way to photograph even more postboxes, post offices, stamps and postcards everywhere. I can’t help it — I want them aaaaall on the map! And I can definitely see myself checking the app before traveling, to plan my trip around the local postal highlights. 😍

There are a few gamification aspects of the app that work really well too. First of all, you can “claim” a postbox by being the first person to pin it on the global map with a photo. That will make you “XP1” — explorer number 1! But there are also tons of fun badges to collect, for pinning a certain number of items in each category or country. It’s really fun to collect these… and a little addictive too, I must say.

piXPost is free and available on the App Store for iOS devices or on Google Play for Android ones. We hope lots of you will give it a go, so that the map gets full to the brim with fun spots for future postal adventures!

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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!

August has snuck up on me this year, but it’s actually my birthday month! Which means I’m hoping to get good and spoilt, of course, and that will hopefully include some chocolate and sweets. Which inspired me to pick this month’s prompt: maybe you can all give me some ideas about what to try!

In August, write about your favourite candy/treat!
A pile of aniseed sweets wrapped in black-and-white wrapping, with logos saying Black Jacks

I thought this would be an easy way to answer, but hmmm, what’s my favourite?! I guess at the moment it’s a ridiculously sweet little bar my dad started buying for me: the McVitie’s Gold Bar. They have a biscuit centre, covered in a caramel-flavour coating. They really are very sweet, but I like that, and I especially enjoy how crunchy the biscuit part is.

For a slightly more traditional British sweet, well, I’d have to go with the aniseed flavour chewy sweets called Black Jacks, and the related fruit-flavoured Fruit Salads. I don’t get them a lot, because it’s not very professional to go around with my tongue stained black… but sometimes, as a little pick-me-up!

What about you? What’s your favourite treat? Is it something global, or a local secret? We’d love to hear from you in the comments here, and if you’re stumped for something to write a postcard, you can use this as a prompt!

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It’s tiiiiiiiiime! We know everyone is eager to know what the theme and postcard will be for this year’s World Postcard Day, so let’s go! This is 2025's World Postcard Day postcard, created by Uran Duo:

Illustration for World Postcard Day 2025: a woman leans out of a window, watching postcards drift across a sunlit, green countryside.

The theme of the postcard is the most classical of postcard sentences, “Wish you were here”. With just four words, it captures everything a postcard is about: the moment you pause, look around, and think of someone far away with whom you would love to share the view and the adventure you’re having. With this postcard, we aim to celebrate that instant of connection that postcards bring about.

Cartoon portrait of a smiling man in glasses and a woman with a bun, framed inside a yellow circle. Uran Duo is the artistic name of two married freelance illustrators based in Fujian, China. The husband and wife partners both studied graphic design at the China Academy of Art, and after graduation decided to focus on illustration. We were drawn to the grain‑rich texture and the whimsical nature of their work, whose rounded shapes, gentle curves and friendly characters give each scene an almost story‑book vibe.

The design is, as usual, free to download, so you can have it printed locally or through any online service. Remember that every postcard posted on October 1st counts as a World Postcard Day card, so you can use this design or any other postcards you have on hand — they’re all brilliant!

This will be the sixth World Postcard Day we celebrate together! For those of you who are new to it, October 1st is the anniversary of the first postcard ever sent, and has thus been chosen as the day to celebrate postcards. It’s a day that goes beyond Postcrossing — a day when everyone is invited to send a postcard to friends, family, people they admire, those that need a bit of support or cheering up, children… 😊 Whether it’s your first or sixth time celebrating this special day, we hope you’re as excited as we are and that this will be the best one yet!

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To mark Postcrossing’s 20th birthday, PostNL commissioned Gouda‑based designer Sandra Smulders (whose portfolio already includes quite a few Dutch stamps) to create a celebratory stamp. On July 14, the new stamps went on sale — a lively sheet of red‑white‑blue zigzags that hints at both the Dutch flag and the criss-crossing of postcards. We especially like the unique dented pattern on the bottom of the stamp!

We spoke with Sandra about the ideas behind the design, the little details hidden in each stamp, and how it feels to watch her work fly through the mail in all the postcards. :)

What was your initial reaction when you were asked to design a stamp for Postcrossing’s 20th anniversary?

I am always happy when asked to design a stamp sheet. Usually, the ideas only come to me once I have delved into the subject, but with Postcrossing, I immediately saw the arrows in my mind’s eye. This ultimately became the basis for the design. So this subject suited me very well in terms of design. I therefore set to work on this assignment with great enthusiasm.

Can you walk us through your creative process for this stamp sheet — where did you start, and how did the concept evolve?

I began with two things in mind: a bold zig‑zag arrow pattern and a horizontal sheet with the stamps centered. From there everything clicked into place.

Sandra Smulders’ notebook sketches and notes: initial grid, arrow ideas, Dutch‑flag colour codes, and Postcrossing keywords.

The red‑white‑blue bars stretch across the sheet to form a subtle Dutch flag; rotating the bottom row of stamps 180° let the blue bar span two stamps and stay the same width as the red and white. To add depth I overlaid each bar with grey tints and simple monochrome icons that sum up Postcrossing: paper‑chain people for the project’s friendship, a world map on the blue “water” strip for global reach, and postcards, naturally. Hand‑written‑style lettering fills the remaining triangles, while the “sorting hook” and the value “1” sit opposite each other for balance. A few diagonal guide lines finish the sheet, tying the layers together and giving the design its sense of movement.

Close‑up photos of the new Dutch “20 Years of Postcrossing” stamp sheet showing the red‑white‑blue zig‑zag design and Priority labels.
Have you sent or received postcards yourself through Postcrossing, or do you perhaps have a special memory in connection to snail mail that you can share?

I don’t send or receive cards myself and I don’t (yet) participate in Postcrossing. But I do like to send and receive cards or mail. Receiving mail is so much fun. As a teenager, I had several pen pals and sent letters all over the world. I really enjoyed it when I received a reply. Who knows, maybe I’ll take this up again in the future.

As a stamp designer, what’s it like to see your work travel the world on thousands of postcards? :)

It’s certainly very nice that many people around the world will see my work. Even if they don’t know it’s mine. Who knows where my work will end up? And maybe this is a step closer to my international design career.