Postcrossing Blog

Today’s spotlight comes from Evanscrew, a family of four from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They like hiking and have an unusual hobby called Letterboxing. Intrigued? Find out all about it on this week’s spotlight!

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

We are a family of four and I love finding activities that are fun for us all, but also activities that we can both learn from and give back to. We participate in a hobby called Letterboxing (see next question) and there is a discussion board on one of the websites for that hobby that is all about Postcrossing. That is how I learned of Postcrossing.
What got me hooked was how educational it is—not only do we receive interesting postcards, but we also enjoy the great notes that most postcrossers include on the cards. I share the cards with my children, we put a pin in our world map if the card comes from a new place, and we learn about the place on the card.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

We love to read, go hiking and biking, and explore new places. One of the best hobbies we have found that combines many of our loves is called Letterboxing. Clues may be found on the internet that lead you to plastic boxes containing a rubber stamp (often hand-carved) and a logbook. As letterboxers, we carry a logbook and family stamp representing our trail name. When we find a box, we stamp our stamp into the box’s logbook and the box’s stamp into our logbook then carefully close and rehide the box for its next finders. We love to find and also plant these boxes. It is very important to be careful when letterboxing—both to maintain the natural elements around the boxes as well as to keep the letterboxes themselves safe. People intending to try this hobby should read up on the generally accepted etiquette for finding boxes and teach their children (if there are any) as well!

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

This is the Main Post Office in Falmouth. There are several smaller post offices in Falmouth that we sometimes use as well. Several postal employees automatically take out the stamp for hand-cancelling the cards when they see me coming!

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

We love all of our cards!! We are active in the forum as well, and love seeing what people choose for us!
This is of the World Map we have hanging in our home where the children put pins to mark where our postcards come from.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Honestly, it gives me a thrill to choose cards and stamps that I think a person will enjoy based on their profiles. And what fun—that is all we know about that person—what is in the profile—yet for a moment in time we are connected to someone in another part of the world as we prepare the card, knowing it will travel a great distance and hopefully bring a smile! Receiving cards that have obviously been chosen based on our interests is a thrill as well—that someone we don’t know in a place we may never visit has taken time to think of us—how cool is that!

Kristin (aka Volvomom) is a schoolteacher in Massachussetts, USA who shares Postcrossing with her sixth graders. Here is what she had to say to our spotlight questions:

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

I found out about Postcrossing in the US magazine ReadyMade. I was hooked from the start! As a child I started off with pen pals, which evolved into hosting foreign exchange students. My family has hosted from France, Bulgaria, Russia, and Norway, to name a few. Postcrossing seemed like yet another way to make the world smaller.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My main hobby is my eleven year old twin sons. They are the light of my life! Each card I send has two smiles, which represent my sons.
Of course, my username indicated my other hobby – Volvo cars. I’m passionate about Volvos. I currently am on Volvo #5. It’s at 131,000 miles, but I swear it will hit one million miles someday!

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

I have to give a big shout out to the staff at the Chelmsford Post Office. They’re great with the volume of mail I receive! I also have to thank my dad and mom, who pick up my mail when I’m not home!

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

I have two postcards that are my favorites, out of so many, it was hard to choose.

The first is from user Thaddee_Calisson. It’s a vintage Volvo ad. I have this card framed and hanging in my home. It’s classic – in French and a Volvo. What more could I ask for?

The second card is an official from Anna in Sweden. What’s unique about this card is it was part of three cards. The other two cards went as officials to other users – one in China and one in Finland. I loved that I was part of a world puzzle!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I love meeting people from all parts of the globe and hearing their unique stories. Each time I receive a postcard I am reminded of the human experience.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about education. I am a Spanish teacher to middle school students. Next year I will be teaching a World Cultures class once a week, so if there are any other teachers in the Postcrossing world who would be interested in working with me on this project, please let me know! I strive to teach my students tolerance and understanding, as it is a necessity in today’s world. Postcrossing is helping me do that with them. Thank you for that opportunity!

This week on the spotlight, we feature Jamie1972 (or Alex), from Switzerland. As a mother of 2 small (and really cute!) children, Alex is understandably passionate about children’s rights. Here is what she had to say:

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

My dear penfriend from Poland told me about Postcrossing and curious as I am I had to check out the page. I started slowly with just sending out few cards and had a longer break then because of a difficult pregnancy.

When I got back to Postcrossing I also discovered the Forum more and more and then it started to be real fun. Suddenly you know a bit about the person you write too – which is fun.

These days it is funny – there are weeks I only write “officials” – then are weeks I feel only writing to forum members – both are a lot of fun.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am a mother of two little children, Billy who is 5 and Sarah who is 2 years old. So I am a bit busy.

We also have two dogs and I love to go out with them for walks. I usually take my camera with me then – wich leads to my other great passion – photography. I love to take pictures of everything and I have now two external harddiscs just to save them!

I write a lot – not only letters and postcards but sometimes also short stories or I wrote a children’s book for my children about a little pirate. During my studies I did a children’s book with illustrations together with three collegues – and we printed it too – it was such a great experience.

I love to read a lot – but usually I can only do it in bed before going to sleep – and I start to buy only paperbacks because I wake up regularly because my book has fallen on my head because I fell asleep during reading.

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

My son Billy at my favourite mailbox where I usually mail my postcards, and little Sarah signing cards at the Bielefeld meeting:

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

To choose special cards is so difficult – there are just too many! I have to say that a lot of postcrossers really try to send you something special, which is so great!

One of my favourite subjects: Jip en Janneke

here is a bunch of cards that just came in my hands flipping though my postcards and I love every single one of them!

This one is a very special card – it’s a wooden one from Poland!

This card says: “After the last night with you I am only a shadow of myself”… This card prooved me that my mailwoman is looking at my postcards – I met her before I saw what was in my mailbox – and believe me her look at me was very strange and shocked!

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

I know that some of my penfriends are postcrossers as well – I usually tell people about it when they see me writing bunches of postcards!

My son Billy started now in the kid’s round robin and he loves it. I guess in about a year or so when he is really able to write on his own he will want to have an account too.

And my little one, Sarah – she is mad about postcards and she loves to look at them. Usually she is really upset when I take them away to register them! It happens a lot that my children sign my postcards too – so if you get a postcard with strange signs of it – this is Sarah’s greetings :-)

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I love to draw addresses and read the profiles. Often I know then wich card is best to send – and usually really hit the taste of the reciever. I love to choose the “perfect” card for everyone. Something I love too is sending and getting RAS cards. Those are really big surprises!

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes I did. When the first Swiss meeting was taking place in February 2010 I had some of the foreign postcrossers thew day befire in Lucerne and showed them around. In the evening we were at my place having Fondue and a lot of fun! The meeting itself was fun too – all the three Swiss meetings.

And I went to the big Bielefeld meeting last December – three days in a house with all those crazy postcrossers and it was a very special experience! I am always surprised how open all these people are and usually easy going. There is a great respect for everyone in the group and no one feels left out – at least this is my impression.

Christa is a member from Flensburg, a German town very near Denmark. Christina is a schoolteacher in Denmark, so she crosses the border everyday on her way to work! :) Here is what she had to say:

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

I came across Postcrossing when I was on a summertrip around South/East Europe. Together with my travel-friend Silvia I met with my good old penfriend Sibylle in Vienna after our tour. Sibylle was showing us around in Vienna and told me about Postcrossing. So when I came home again I looked at the Postcrossing page and started taking part.

I love receiving mail from all over the world. I have had penfriends since I learnt English in school, but the last years I have less time for long letters, so postcard writing is a great addition… I still can send mail out in the world and receive from close and far away.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love bike trips, most music, theatre/musicals/opera, scrapbooking, meeting friends, skiing, good movies (love pirate movies!), reading (esp. about history and other cultures), collecting stamps and souvenir magnets (besides postcards of course), writing letters, etc…

My biggest interest is traveling, I love the “adventure” of visiting other places in the world and I’m very thankful that I’m able to travel some. When friends ask me if I collect something… I usually answer: postcards, stamps, magnets… and countries :)

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

I mail my mail from both Denmark and Germany. I live in the very North of Germany and I work in Denmark as a schoolteacher. I have sent a lot of mail from Denmark so far but since April postage is “horribly ” expensive… so I have started mailing from Germany again.

And this is where we have our postshop and I get my stamps:

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

Favorite postcard I received… I could show MANY as I have so many favorites. Here are some of the cards I received lately which I like a lot:

As you can see I love landscapes. Some of my favorites are mountains… maybe because I grew up with Alpin skiing (in Austria!) and here where I live we have no mountains :( So every time I receive a mountain card. I remember the great times I had in the mountains.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Receiving cards almost every day and meeting people from all over the world. Sending out cards from my “little world ” here where I live or places I have visited.

Have you met any other members in real life?

So far I have meet Robin67 from Austria, Gforp, Gogge1 and Dorthe from Denmark. Looking forward to meet Dorthe and Gogge1 soon again in Ålborg.

BraveJ is our spotlight feature today! Ana, from Serbia, is fond of geography, Native Americans and tango! Here’s what she had to say:

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

Some years ago I was into penpalling and one of my penfriends told me about Postcrossing. I liked the idea and I was hooked immediately!

I’ve loved postcards since I was a child. Even before I could read and write properly, I enjoyed looking at the cards that my family received from their friends and relatives. For years I loved to send cards from my holidays to my friends, and to receive them, too! But, that was until modern technology took over and most people just stopped sending real postcards. I missed that and Postcrossing seemed to be the perfect place to quench my thirst for real mail!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Just like many other postcrossers, I also collect stamps. I guess it somehow “goes with the territory” when you’re into postcards or letters. I enjoy beautiful stamps as much as postcards.

I love reading (I’ve always been a bit of a bookworm) and I enjoy wandering around bookstores. Many of them also sell postcards, so it’s a perfect combination! I often use my received postcards as bookmarks and I have this silly habit of trying to match the card to the story of the book I read.

I’ve been doing different kinds of fitness for a very long time and I love it. After many years it’s not so much about keeping fit anymore, but about the positive energy I get from exercising, from interesting choreographs and great music, and the people I meet there.

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

This is the post office closest to my home and I send most of my cards from there:

I also often use this mailbox in the city centre. This photo was taken by another Postcrossing member after our mini-meeting, look how many cards we signed!

I keep most of my cards in boxes and I love going through them from time to time. Here are two of my “treasure chests”:

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

I won’t say anything new if I say that most cards I received are special to me in some way and it would be impossible to show you all my favourites! So, for this occasion, I chose three cards. I’ve been interested in Native Americans since childhood and this card is one of the loveliest I’ve ever received:

Wolves are my favourite wild animals and wolf cards are an important part of my collection. These two wolves are among the most beloved members of my “pack”:

I love cards with tango, there is something indescribably beautiful about this dance. This is one of the very few tango cards I received, so it’s even more precious:

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I can’t say that I have a favourite part, because I enjoy everything – the anticipation of requesting a new address, picking the right card, writing a message, finding wonderful surprises in my mailbox almost every day… Postcrossing opened a whole new world to me. I like to think about it as a way of opening doors or windows to the world. I can’t afford to travel much, so I “travel” through postcards. They introduced me to many amazing places that I may never be able to visit in real life.

But for me, one of the best things about Postcrossing (beside postcards, of course) are the people behind the cards. Since I joined this project and especially since I joined the Postcrossing forum, I met so many nice and friendly people who brought a huge smile on my face with their cards and messages many times. Because of those people, I’m incredibly happy to be a part of the big Postcrossing family.