Postcrossing Blog

The ravioli have been eaten, the stamp-shaped cookies are long gone, and the surfaces of our desks and dining tables are finally visible again, now that all the postcards have been mailed… So it’s time for a little World Postcard Day recap!

As usual, October 1st started somewhere on the other side of the world, while many of us were still very much on September 30th, and then slooooowly rolled across the timezones. The forum topic was such fun to follow throughout the day — lots of postcard piles, messy desks, trips to mailboxes and post offices, meetup photos, special stamps and, naturally, a suspicious amount of food shaped like postage stamps!

People wrote postcards pretty much everywhere. On trains, during lunch breaks, while traveling, at work… and even on top of a mountain! Julia1506 wrote her five cards from Mount Pilatus in Switzerland while watching alpine ibexes outside the window. And there was even a mailbox up there to send them from, whoa!

There were also lots of small stories that made us happy! Postcrosser reiselustig was walking to the mailbox with a pile of postcards when she passed a garbage truck. One of the workers jokingly asked whether all that mail was for him… so, on the way back, she got his address and decided to send him one too. So cool!

The Postcard Lounge was back as well, open for 16 hours so that people all around the world could drop in and write postcards together. It’s strangely comforting to sit quietly with a bunch of strangers on the internet while everybody scribbles away at their own desks!

There were some familiar faces there, some new ones and even a few younger postcard writers, which made us extra happy. And some people took the postcard writing very seriously, like tornadogrrl, who wrote 72 postcards and her pen ran out of ink while she was signing the very last one, about a minute before the Lounge closed. 😱

One thing we were especially happy about this year was seeing so many events outside the usual Postcrossing meetups! Back in August, I asked everyone to poke their local library and suggest celebrating World Postcard Day — and some of you really did it! By September 28th, we already had around 25 library events listed on the World Postcard Day calendar, and a few more appeared after that.

Libraries organized postcard-writing tables, coloring activities and little workshops, and there were also activities in schools, museums and other community spaces. This year’s coloring version of the official postcard turned out to be especially handy for some of these events.

And the celebrations didn’t all happen exactly on October 1st either. At a school in Feuchtwangen, Germany, a class of 12 and 13-year-olds celebrated by drawing each other’s names and writing surprise postcards to their classmates. The idea was simply to make a connection and give someone a little bit of joy, which feels like a beautiful interpretation of this year’s “Paper Bridges” theme.

There was plenty happening on the philatelic side too! Several postal operators prepared special World Postcard Day postmarks, and this year we got something particularly exciting from Serbia: a Postcrossing / World Postcard Day postage stamp! 🎉 Pošta Srbije issued the stamp on October 1st, together with a first-day cover and special cancellation. This is the first World Postcard Day-themed stamp out there, which is wild, when you think the event only started 7 years ago!

Meanwhile, Postcrossing itself was having a rather busy day! This year we lowered the World Postcard Day limit to five addresses per person, which thankfully made things much calmer behind the scenes while still leaving plenty of postcards flying around.

A total of 99,803 postcards were requested on October 1st (in all timezones + UTC), and of course that doesn’t include all the extra postcards people sent to friends, family, penpals, coworkers, neighbors, postal workers… or random garbage collectors. By the way, thank you for being understanding about the new limit. From our side, things went much more smoothly this year, and we hope that meant everyone could spend a little less time fighting with the website and a little more time actually writing postcards. 😊

And last but not least, it’s World Post Day today! October 9th celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the Universal Postal Union in 1874, which is basically the enormous international postal network that makes all these little paper journeys possible in the first place.

This year’s World Post Day theme is “One postal network, infinite possibilities”, which feels rather appropriate after a week spent talking about Paper Bridges. Every postcard we sent on October 1st depends on postal workers, post offices, sorting centers, planes, trains, vans, bikes and mailboxes somewhere along the way.

So today, a big thank you to all the postal workers who keep our postcards moving — and to all of you who gave them so much extra mail to carry last week. 😅❤️ Happy World Post Day!

The balloons are slowly deflating now, and we’ve swept the confetti off the floor… but what a party World Postcard Day was! 🥰 Every year, we think things can’t possibly go any better, and every year the community proves us wrong. Now that the postcards sent on October 1st are starting to make their way around the globe, it’s time for a little recap of all the fun and magic.

The forum topic was buzzing with excitement from the very first time zone to the last. As midnight rolled across the world, celebrations began popping up like a beautiful stadium wave — from Asia to the Americas, one after another! Postcrossers shared photos, stories, and stacks of postcards ready to fly off to new destinations. The energy was infectious, and it even spilled over onto social media, where #WorldPostcardDay was full of smiling faces, mailboxes, and beautiful cards.

Over in the Postcard Lounge, things were just as lively: 410 of you joined us throughout the day to write postcards with some company! At one point, over 40 people were online simultaneously, quietly writing postcards together. We saw participants from Chile to New Zealand, and a few even recognized familiar names of people they’d once exchanged postcards with. It turned into a wonderfully long, cozy session of shared scribbling and postcard showing. A big thank you to everyone who volunteered to help host it — we’ll definitely have to do it again!

Meanwhile, 163 meetups took place all over the world, bringing postcard friends together in real life. Many meetups also happened via Geocaching, and a handful of libraries joined as well!

The official World Postcard Day design was everywhere, printed by postcrossers individually or in huge group orders. What a joy to see it travel! And we also saw many other postcards celebrating the day, including these beautiful handmade postcards that kara_ann's mom, Kris, sewed just for the occasion!

Also 2025 was the year in which we broke all records: over 117,000 postcards were sent on October 1st across all time zones! 😱 It’s a bit mind-boggling and, for us who have to manage the system — and a bit worrying too, as Postcrossing wasn’t built for such huge peaks of activity as there’s a limited amount of addresses that can be select at any given time. We’ll need to brainstorm some solutions for next year, which will (sadly) likely include lowering the limits on the day… but for now, we’re just amazed and grateful for everyone’s enthusiasm.

And speaking of gratitude, today is World Post Day — which marks the anniversary of the founding of the Universal Postal Union back in 1874. This year’s theme, “#PostForPeople: Local Service. Global Reach.”, celebrates postal services as a vital public service rooted in communities and driven by people. From rural villages to bustling cities, the postal infrastructure everywhere keeps us connected — often serving as a bridge to the wider world, and sometimes even to the digital one. We’re proud that postcards are a small but meaningful part of that mission, helping build connections that go beyond borders and bring a bit of happiness into the world. So here’s to postal workers everywhere (and to all of you!) for keeping this beautiful network alive, one postcard at a time!

Ah, what a party! 🥳 We don’t even know where to start recapping how wonderful October 1st was… The sheer number of postcards, gatherings, forum posts, and social media shout-outs was overwhelming in the nicest way possible — like being swept up by a wave of enthusiasm, shared by people across the globe!

Some weeks ago, we encouraged you to contact your library and organize a little “basket of postcards” for visitors to enjoy on World Postcard Day, and many of you did just that. From the US to the Philippines, Singapore to Portugal, we loved seeing pictures of your library displays. One thing I did not anticipate was that some Free Little Libraries would also join the event, with their owners putting a box of postcards for the library visitors to pick up. Whoa!

Also, lots of schools took part in the festivities as well, which feels extra special. For instance, Kosovo Post visited the children at an SOS Kindergarten in Pristina to teach them about mail and postcards, and invite them to send some to their friends in other classrooms. Imagine their classmates’ delight when a real postman interrupted their class to deliver those cards — so sweet!

Speaking of sweets, so many stamp-shaped chocolate cookies were consumed around here that we were permanently giddy the whole day. In our sugar rush haze, we hypothesized how cool it would be if one of the big companies that makes these stamped shaped cookies (or the ravioli we also consumed!) would sponsor World Postcard Day… what do you think? Should we give them a call? 😋

Sooooo many meetups took place (both organized by postcrossers and geocachers), and we loved spotting your group pictures on Instagram and other social media. Some museums also took part in the day’s events, with guided tours, workshops or postcard coloring activities for children. We saw a few commemorative postmarks as well!

On Postcrossing servers’ side, things went remarkably smoothly, without any major hiccups. Pfeww! October 1st always puts a lot of pressure on the algorithm, which has to frantically scramble to select addresses to send postcards to. So you might receive a few more postcards than you were expecting in the coming weeks, but things will slowly go back to a more balanced state. Over 96,000 postcards were sent on World Postcard Day through Postcrossing on October 1st UTC (and almost 105,000 across all timezones), which was the day with the largest number of postcards sent on Postcrossing yet! It’s not the first time we break a record on World Postcard Day, but it still feels unreal to see those big numbers… Thank you everyone, for making this day so special!

And speaking of big parties — today, October 9, is World Post Day, and also UPU’s 150th anniversary! UN General Secretary António Guterres has recently said that “The UPU is one of the earliest examples of multilateralism in action”, and we believe this is what the world needs right now: countries working together to foster a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future.

Many countries are issuing special philatelic products to mark this momentous milestone, and this might be the case with yours, so check them out! If not, you can always print the commemorative postcard (available in different languages) to send some special postcards in the coming weeks or months. Print the postcard at your local print shop or online printing service, affix a nice stamp (bonus points if it matches the theme!), and voilà — you have a special card that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the UPU.

Happy birthday UPU, and happy World Post Day! 🎂

Friends, wasn’t World Postcard Day the most glorious celebration? The amount of postcards, meetings, posts on the forum, and mentions on social media was dizzying — it felt like being inside a whirlwind of excitement, shared by people all around the world! 😍

I feel like words are not enough to convey all the excitement… but let’s make an effort to document the day, and let’s start with children! Kosovo Post organized an activity at a school in Mitrovica, where they explained postcards to students, how to fill them in with the required information, where to write the address, where to put the postage stamps, etc., and also gave postcards to the pupils to mail to their friends from other classrooms. For many, this was probably their first contact with postcards, which is brilliant! We hope many of them will go on to become postcard and letter writers in the future.

Also, the Musée de La Poste in France had a special event for children, featuring not just postcards but also storytelling, music, dancing and poetry! This was part of the events surrounding their current exhibition “Nouvelles du paradis”, which will continue until March 18, 2024. If you’ll be around Paris until then, don’t miss it! In Portugal, the team from the Communications Museum walked the streets of Lisbon, offering postage-paid postcards to passersby, worth a free entry to the museum!

Dozens of meetups took place all around the world! From Chattanooga to Vilnius, Lahti to Veliky Novgorod, Bangalore to Jakarta! We enjoyed seeing the photos pop up on the forum — as well as photos of people writing or mailing their postcards, and all the tasty ravioli and other stamp-shaped food!

Remember when we put a limit in place for the day to try to reduce the number of postcards requested on October 1st (and thus relieve a bit of the pressure on Postcrossing’s algorithm)? Well, that plan backfired spectacularly! 😂 Maybe we unintentionally made it sound like the slots were special since they were limited…? Human psychology can be a mystery sometimes. The end result was that everyone seems to have interpreted this limit as a challenge, and we had the day with the most requested postcards ever in Postcrossing, just shy of 89,000 postcards! In total and across all the timezones, close to 98,000 postcards were sent and are now slowly making their way across the world. A stressful but very happy day indeed!

Thank you to every and each of you who sent out a postcard on October 1st and made this day the most exciting day of the year! We’re grateful for the enthusiastic way in which the Postcrossing community continues to embrace the event and has thus created something special that people look forward to every year.

And before we forget, today is World Post Day! The theme of 2023's event is “Together for Trust: Collaborating for a safe and connected future”. In the traditional speech for the occasion, UPU’s Director General Mr. Masahiko Metoki emphasized the historical and current significance of post offices as trustworthy hubs for diverse services, ranging from communication and commerce to finance. Recognizing the longstanding trust communities place in postal services, the statement points out that despite their vast reach, nearly 100,000 post offices globally lack proper internet access. To address this issue, the UPU’s connect.post initiative aims to provide every post office with internet access by 2030, with the goal of ensuring digital inclusion and enhancing the range of services, especially for underserved communities. Sounds like a great project!

Happy World Post Day everyone!

Friends… it was a grand party, wasn’t it? 🎉 On World Postcard Day last week, postcards were written, friends were met, and a bit all around the world, the joy of knowing we’re sharing a happy day with so many people like us was just contagious. So much buzzing energy, both online and offline… it was the best World Postcard Day yet! There’s too much to cover, so here’s a quick highlight of a few things that took place on that magical day.

First off, schools! Marjorie (aka Marjie) from Rainbows Penpal Club was busy connecting together 552 children in 17 schools and 9 different countries so that they could all exchange postcards! On the day itself, she even had time to run events on a few different libraries — how cool is that? Other schools in the UK also joined in the day, and we are so, so proud of all these teachers and educators who are raising a new generation of postcard writers!

Mailart workshops and exhibitions took place in different countries as well (like the ones in Bangalore, or in Tampere), and there were special postmarks in Portugal and Malta, at least. Besides making a handstamp available for the day, Malta Postal Museum also created a unique postcard to celebrate the World Postcard Day — as did the Faroe Post!

We cannot possibly write about all the Postcrossing meetups that took place on the day… but it warms our heart to know people got together, from Indonesia to Spain, China to the USA, India, UK or Portugal… Have a peek at the events list — there were over 100 of them!

Allow us to highlight just a couple. For instance, postcrossers and Correos de Mexico organized a postcard-making workshop to celebrate the day. It took place at the beautiful Palacio Postal (which the Little Mail Carriers visited before) and had lots of participants!

In Tallinn, a big meetup took place to celebrate both the World Postcard Day and the new Postcrossing stamp that Estonia launched on that day! A lot of the participants travelled to this meeting from Finland by boat with the Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association, who organized the meetup and took the photo on the left. Illustrators, designers and publishers were also invited to participate.

Some postcrossers cooked ravioli (remember that they are shaped like postage stamps?) on the day, and Adrienne (aka adriennefriend) and her partner made this delicious looking vegan ravioli from scratch. The filling is made of tofu-cashew cheese and fresh herbs, and even the sauce was homemade! We didn’t have much time on our hands that day, so we stuck with stamp-shaped cookies, which were also delicious.

The day happened to land on a Saturday, which made it perfect for #postboxsaturday — and so many of you joined in and posted photos of postcards alongside your country’s postboxes on social media! 😍 We loved seeing them, in all their diverse and colorful glory!

Some postcrossers have already started seeing the updated badges on your profile pages, as the postcards sent on the day start to arrive to their destinations. Over 90,000 of them were sent in the timespan that counts as World Postcard Day (in all timezones), which is massive… about 7 times more than an average day in Postcrossing. We’re relieved that the website was more or less stable throughout the whole day, as it really was not made for this kind of peaks. But everything was fine in the end! 😊 We hope these are just a few of the postcards sent on that day though, and that many more have been sent out to your friends, family, and others out there. The world’s mailboxes should be very happy indeed.

Thank you everyone, for making this such a wonderful day. It’s definitely been the highlight of the year for us, and we hope you had a nice day as well!

By the way, today is World Post Day — the day postal services are celebrated around the world, and also the anniversary of the Universal Postal Union. On the occasion, the secretary general of the United Nations, Mr. António Guterres, said:

“The theme of this year’s World Post Day – “Post for Planet” – recognizes the many ways in which postal services are finding cleaner, greener means to reach our doorsteps day in, day out. “Post for Planet” is also a call to action for the postal sector to use its position as a connector between governments, businesses, and people to take a leading role in our fight against climate change.”