Postcrossing Blog

Thank you everyone for your comments on Postcrossing’s anniversary post — your kindness and thoughtful words were the highlight of our day!

Quite a few meetups took place all around the world on Postcrossing’s birthday last weekend, and we were so emotional watching all the videos and photos, we decided to share some with you.

In Tofte and Filtvet (two small coastal towns along the Oslo fjord in Norway), a large meetup took place that included participants from all over Europe. Together, they’ve wished Postcrossing a good anniversary by singing the “Happy Birthday” song in their own languages… what a nice idea! We cannot stop smiling when we watch this video. I hadn’t even realized that the song had a different tune in some languages, and was delighted to discover that it sounds just as festive in Greek or Norwegian!

In Portugal, a birthday meetup in July has already become a tradition. This year’s meeting took place in Setúbal (a town famous for its dolphins) and it featured a cute birthday cake. Gracinha, one of the participants, had just celebrated her own birthday last week, so the participants also included her name on the cake, and sneakily prepared a big card and gifts to offer her during the meetup. She loved the surprise!

Isn’t that just wonderful?

Across the world in Indonesia, the Postcrossing community came together to organize a postcard exhibition and meeting at the Plaza Semanggi mall in Jakarta. Looks like a good time was had by everyone at the event which stretched for several days and included live music and even a doodling workshop! You can see tons of more photos on their Instagram page.

Hurray! People coming together and making new friends could not be more in the spirit of this project, so we’re delighted to see so many happy faces on these photos and videos. 😍 If you’d like to participate in one in the future, don’t forget to check the Postcrossing meetups calendar now and then, to keep updated on new events taking place in your area.

Hurray! 🎉 It’s Postcrossing’s 13th anniversary!

Thirteen years ago today was the start of this great adventure that keeps connecting the world through postcards. It’s been a great ride so far, not without its ups and downs, but always a fulfilling and learning experience. On this special day, we’d like to say thank you to all of you out there who still take pleasure in sending postcards to strangers, trusting that this small gesture will make their days a little better. Thank you for believing in this idea, and for coming along for the ride — we wouldn’t have made it without you!

Sometime ago we went back to Braga and took a photo of the balcony where everything started, in a student’s house next to the university. Paulo points it out:

It’s still there, now housing different students and being witness to their adventures. May theirs be as grand as this one has been so far! 😊

The PhillipsFamily lives in a small town Minnesota, USA, where they homeschool their daughter Maya and use Postcrossing to teach her about geography and cultures all over the world. Some months ago, we received a very nice email from them, letting us know that Maya had won 1st place on her county fair’s 4-H project by submitting a presentation about Postcrossing and her postcard collection! 🥇 We were so proud of Maya that we decided to interview her for the blog — here she is:

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

I found out about Postcrossing from a friend who thought I would like it because I really like geography. I was hooked right away! I LOVE getting postcards from all over the world and learning about different countries and people. I’m always excited to get the mail everyday to see which countries I can add to my collection. Recently I received my first postcard from Spain. I have postcards from all 7 continents!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My family really likes geocaching together. We have seen so many beautiful places hunting caches. I also really, really like to read and play board games. My favorite books are the Harry Potter series. I play Legos a lot (thanks Denmark!), and also scrapbook.

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

I keep my postcards in a nice box. They are sorted by continent and country. My mama really likes that I can have such a big collection without taking up much space.

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

One of my favorite postcards is from Gordon the Great. He is a cat from New Zealand who has to put up with Fat Dog and Skinny Dog. I’ve showed his postcard to lots of my friends because it’s so funny.

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

I entered my postcard collection into the county fair as a 4-H project. I made a big display showcasing some of my favorite cards and wrote a description telling everyone about Postcrossing and how they can join.

I won first place in my age group and second place overall. I got a big ribbon for it! I was so excited because it was my first time entering anything into the fair. I hope a lot of people signed up after seeing it.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I was surprised when I received a card from San Marino. I didn’t even know it was a country until then.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about reading. I like reading new books and rereading old books. Besides Harry Potter, some of my favorites are Calvin & Hobbes, Anne of Green Gables, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. I’m currently reading through Mensa’s Excellence in Reading book list. It has a lot of classics my parents like.

Remember the Sister Cities of Düsseldorf call for postcards we did a few months ago? The day of Düsseldorf, Haifa, Chemnitz and Reading’s jubilee finally arrived last weekend, and with it the opening of the fantastic exhibition created with all your postcards!

Sonja (aka Sonne89) from the Mayor’s office reported that it was a perfect sunny day when Düsseldorf’s mayor and delegations from the other sister cities opened the exhibition, and the atmosphere was happy, with lots of enthusiastic visitors. She sent us some nice pictures that their intern Claire took, so that we could share them with you! Without further ado…

In total, they received almost 500 postcards from 79 different countries, all with messages of joy and celebration. They even took a few quotes from the postcards and printed them on the walls, with the postcards hanging from the ceiling!

Doesn’t that look amazing? All those postcards within easy reach, the quotes, the wall of postcards they built… they even set up a little mailbox, so that visitors could send a postcard on the opening weekend, and over 60 people took the opportunity to write to their beloved ones! :)

I confess I’m getting a little teary eyed looking at all these photos… Isn’t this amazing? We brought a world of kind wishes to Düsseldorf! 😊 And if you’d like to experience it yourself, there’s still time to see it: the Sister Cities exhibition will be shown on Café Europa (Marktplatz 6A) for the next 3 weeks. If you’re in the area, don’t miss it!

Our huge thank you to Sonja, Claire and Vera of Düsseldorf’s Mayor’s office for this wonderful experience. On top of putting all of it together, they’ve generously written over 100 postcards back to postcrossers who included their email addresses on the postcards. Thank you! ❤️

All photos by Claire Brantley

The writing prompts are an ongoing experiment that invites postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards 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.

Everyone has a few dreams that they’re aiming to accomplish in their lifetime, right? They can be big or small or even a little crazy. For some, their dream could be to climb a big mountain, or to visit a special country… or maybe meeting the Queen!

Following this line of thought, July’s writing prompt comes from a suggestion that Sprinkledonut left on a blog comment:

Personally, I’m a serial list-maker and have so many plans on my bucket list that I don’t even know where to start. I want to eat all the egg dishes in the world, knit a temperature scarf, sleep on a mountain hut, see some of the fantastic places featured on the postcards I’ve received… I could write about a different goal on every single postcard this month, and I don’t think I would run out of crazy ideas. 😜

Whatever your dreams may be, they’re special to you for a reason. So we invite you to share something your bucket list and inspire others this month!