Since my original decision to start sending mass amounts of snail mail, I have steadily sent birthday cards, thank you cards, thinking of you cards, and various other types of cards to every person I have an address for. I think I get a bigger kick out of writing and sending the cards than I do from receiving them. While I’m continuing to do that, I’ve also discovered a new obsession.
In a nutshell, you send a postcard to someone in the world, and someone else sends one back to you. My first day I sent postcards to Finland, Netherlands, China, Germany and Belarus. When the first person received and recorded my postcard (via the assigned ID#), my name was given to someone else to send a postcard to me. I’ve yet to receive it, but I know it’s coming! This way you get to send AND receive postcards from people all over the world. It’s fun if you like to collect postcards, or if you like getting mail, or if you just like to learn bits of information about other countries.
In addition to the “official” postcard trading, there is a forum FULL of different types of trades. I am partial to “tags” where there’s a certain type of postcard that everyone wants, so you “tag” the person who posted before you. For example, there was a thread entitled “Flower Tag” and I tagged the person above me, and sent them a lovely postcard with a picture of a pink flower. Then someone posted after me and I was tagged, and I received a postcard with a purple flower. It’s a little like a chain letter, except it’s a public forum, and you’re only sending postcards to one person at a time. And your address is never public. You send a private message to the person you tagged requesting their address, and they send a private message back with their information. Simple!
I’ve received quite a few cards from all over the world, and you can see them here. I keep track of where they came from using the photo location tool. I’ve also sent quite a few out, and am waiting to receive my cards in turn. The sent postcards with the link in the caption are the cards that have been received and recorded on the site. You can see exactly how far they went, and how long it took. The photo locations on those cards are where the picture on the postcard was taken, not where they were sent.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all these postcards, but I do know I look forward to getting the mail every day, as well as going to the post office to send out my latest cards. It’s an inexpensive hobby, and I’m having a great time with it!