Postcrossing Blog

Anita, a world traveler, joined Postcrossing at the recommendation of a pen pal. She has over thirteen thousand postcards in her collection.

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

Because she knew how much I love postcards, my dear pen friend Aase from Denmark told me about Postcrossing in the summer of 2006. So I thought to myself “why not, let’s try it” – and after I found my first postcards in my mailbox it happened to me: I got addicted to Postcrossing.

I have met so many nice people via Postcrossing but also via private swaps and some of them in real life – robin67 and oldieoma from Vienna, Mozartkugel from Salzburg, ipuenktchen from Iran, Karmi from Slovenia, MARCILIA from Madeira/Portugal, Ziah from Mauritius etc.

Honeybee and ipuenktchen


Graz meetup: ipuenktchen, oldieoma and honeybee


Graz meetup: robin67 and honeybee


Salzburg meetup: mozartkugel, ipuenktchen, oldieoma and honeybee


Vienna meetup: oldieoma, honeybee and robin67


honeybee and robin67

Each time I see a postcard stand I have to stop and to look; so my family and friends have to have good nerves and have to be very patient with me.

I think Postcrossing is such a wonderful and peaceful hobby. A Postcrossing friend from Portugal told me once that he want to suggest me for the Nobel Prize for Peace ;) because I helped people from Israel and Iran to exchange postcards (they both sent them to me and I passed them on). There is no postal exchange between them and some other countries of our earth. So I try to help my Postcrossing friends from time to time to realize their postcard-dreams into countries they never would be able to send a card.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love reading and writing so I am very happy to work for a book publishing house here in Graz.

I also enjoy traveling very much and I have visited many countries: Norway & Svalbard, Finland, UK, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Hungary, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, Canada (Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), USA (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Washington State, Oregon, California), Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe). My next journeys will lead me to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and in summer to Iceland (if the volcano let us go…), Faeroe Islands and Greenland.

Other hobbies: I am fond of playing the keyboard, singing, taking pictures and hiking.

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

Honeybee postman

Honeybee postoffice

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

In my collection I have 13,626 postcards and I love each one of them. I received my first card when I was three years old. I got it from my uncle, who died very young, so it is a wonderful reminder of him. My parents kept this card and all the others which arrived for me until I was ten. Then they asked me if I wanted to collect them and from then my postcard collection grew each year.

Of course there are some favourites – as I love map-cards very much and city views for example. You can visit my map-card collections – Europe, the Americas, Pacific Rim and Asia.

Vicki (aka Mundoo), a very valued member of the Postcrossing team, has been involved in Postcrossing for over four and half years. She is a self-professed computer geek and enjoys Geocaching and Pathtags.

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

I saw Paulo promote it on bookcrossing.com and wondered what it was about. I was the third Australian to join and loved the international aspect of it. I got hooked when I received my first postcard. It was such a good thing to find in my letterbox instead of a bill. So bright and colourful, so full of good wishes and friendship.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am a computer geek. Before Internet, (yes there was a time before Internet) I used to operate a BBS (Bulletin Board Service) from my kitchen. In 1988 I was the second female in Australia to be a sysop of a BBS. It was called Computer Connection.

I enjoy geocaching from geocaching.com as it challenges me to find hidden treasure in my surroundings with my GPS and takes me to places of interest and out of my computer chair. I have a collection of pathtags that I collect via pathtags.com, they appeal to me because they are similar to postcards in that they tell a story with just a picture.

I love to do cross-stitch and since getting a digital camera also take heaps of photos of the everyday world around me. I take a lot of sunrise photos which show where I live which is about 20 feet from the water’s edge in the estuary of the longest river in Australia – the Murray River. My house is surrounded by a national park – Coorong National Park – which is a RAMSAR world environment site and I am very interested in the environment and my surroundings. I am an active board member of a govt. environment group and a member of my local Hindmarsh Island Landcare group. I like planting trees. I am also the Postcrossing Forum Administrator and part of the Postcrossing Team.

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

Hindmarsh Island has no mail delivery so I rent a post office box in the nearest town of Goolwa (15km away). The Goolwa post office was the longest active post office in Australia still in its original premises since 1857 but has recently moved to new premises. My PO box is very nondescript and surrounded by equally nondescript boxes.

The new premises are in the local shopping mall.

There is a small staff who are always cheerful and used to me always buying postcards and international stamps. The lone male postie was camera shy but the ladies insisted and as you can see he ducked behind them at the last second.

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

So hard to choose my favourite. I actually have 2 that I always smile about a bit more often.

Beautiful handmade postcard that I have framed and put on my bedside table. I love waking up in the morning and seeing the friendship in this postcard sent by flyers.

The other is a delightful postcard. It comprised of the shaggy dog who was holding the tiny envelope in its mouth. The envelope contained the little card.

As you can see I appreciate the work that goes into handmade postcards.

Jeffrey loves to create wacky mail-art and send it all over the world through Postcrossing. He lives in Canada.

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

I was looking for folks to send my handmade mail-art postcards to. The huge membership of Postcrossing is perfect for getting my wacky art all over the globe. Not everyone likes self-made cards, so I send those people “real” postcards from my extensive collection.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I’ve collected 600 different Polyester Disco shirts from the 1970s. They feature some of the most amazing graphics ever printed on fabric.

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

Here is a photo of my mailbox with an ironic magnet I designed. My mailman says I’m his best customer.

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

Many Postcrossers have sent me special cards. Over 200 of my favorite unusual designs are uploaded on my postcards wall. I couldn’t pick just one :)

Luxembourg native, Luxi, loves the joy of giving – be it sending postcards, adopting children, or volunteering for charity.

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

Some years ago I heard about Postcrossing in a German forum. I was curious and found it interesting and so I opened an account. Up to that day I loved postcards but I was not a real collector. I was mainly attracted by the possibility of receiving postcards from all over the world to get an idea about the beauty and culture of other countries and to share the same about my country, Luxemburg. As soon as I received my first card I got hooked. I found it so amazing that a complete stranger sent a greeting to me from far away and so it became a real passion!

Through all those years I shared precious moments with so many people, I got an amazing collection of wonderful cards, and connected to quite a few people on a further level throuth private swaps and tags in the forum! Some became the sort of friends that exchange surprise cards from our vacations or on holidays. The best part of it is putting a smile on someone’s face! There are so many ways to do this and the feedback I receive is very rewarding for me. It’s kind of “sharing a moment of our life” with the people we exchange a card with.

Soon it became a real addiction and so now I can not even pass by a shop that sells postcards without having a look at them and buying some. I return from all vacations with a stack of special postcards. I also blog almost daily about Postcrossing. My family thinks I am crazy and often make fun of me when they hear me scream out in my office when I receive that special ID or a new country and of course when I am the one to send to a special unusual ID from little Luxemburg. But I guess that is the price to pay right?

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love to read, lazy weekends on the couch, cooking, traveling, my dog and I love to shop (yes that can be a real hobby too!). But basically my life revolves around children. We are an adoptive family and our children have their roots in Peru, Vietnam, and Madagascar. I also work in the adoption field and so naturally I became invested in a charity organisation that got created out of my adoption work. Much of my time is spent on projects for children and women in need in South Africa. Of course this is much more than just a hobby – it is about giving and receiving. By writing these lines here, I also realize that this is probably why Postcrossing is so precious to me, it is also about giving and receiving ;-).

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

My mailbox in front of our house.


The way I collect my cards. Got many of these albums full so far!


My officedesk from where I write my cards.

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

It is hard to point out one single card and say that this is my favorite! Every single card is so special to me! Every scratch, every dent, every beautiful stamp. I love them all because they are all part of the project and make it so unique! It is like a puzzle, you cannot take out one piece because then it is incomplete. But one card that has recently touched my heart is a card from The Netherlands sent from the user Lubbers. (Thank you again Carolien) So I would love to share this one with you:

Meet zasa from Bern, Switzerland. She is 26 years old and a lover of all things postal. Like many of us, she combines her other hobbies with Postcrossing.

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

I came across Postcrossing in the Autumn of 2006. I had moved back in with my parents for a short time and it was so boring in the evenings that I took to surfing the Internet. Don’t ask me how I found postcrossing.com, but I did. It is my little addiction (little? would my boyfriend consider it such?). Since I was a little girl, I always wake up when I hear the postman’s motorcycle – I love snailmail – I love stamps – I love to write and widen my horizons via Postcrossing.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Besides Postcrossing? Is there any time left besides this hobby? Yes I do have one! Lomography. That’s a community who shoots from the hip! Feel free to visit us at lomography.com or my personal photoblog streulicht.com. The best thing of both hobbies is that sometimes I have the chance to combine them! So I make my own postcards from lomos I’ve taken. I’m also very active in travelling notebooks where I can use my lomos.

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

My postman/woman says every day: “Oh my gosh! My work wasn’t so interesting till you moved in my quarter!” My post office team wasn’t excited about becoming Internet stars so instead I took photos of my actual room where I have hung the most beautiful black & white cards I have received.

This photo shows you little zasa in Prague, sure for exploring the post world there!


And this is the mailbox where I drop most of the stuff for Postcrossing in it!

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

I have a received a lot of cards that I would call favorites. It all depends on the when the card was received and there is always a chance to top my favorite one. I am happy if I get cards every day – they brighten my horizon. So, all cards are, in their own way, favorites!