Postcrossing: The Delightfully Old-Fashioned Hobby That Made Me Love Checking the Mail Again
I have been doing this long enough now that I feel reasonably qualified to talk about it without sounding like someone who discovered fountain pens three weeks ago and immediately started calling them “a lifestyle.”
For the last couple of years, I’ve been slowly falling down the wonderfully analog rabbit hole of handwritten letters. Not just the occasional birthday card or thank-you note, either. I mean actual, honest-to-goodness letters—the kind that require ink, paper, stamps, and the increasingly rare ability to remember someone’s mailing address.
Naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do: I became gloriously overcommitted.
It started with one fountain pen. Then another. Then another. Somewhere along the way I stopped counting because “a small collection” sounds much healthier than “I literally attended the Atlanta Pen Show.” At last count I have four or five fountain pens, custom-designed stationery, paper that feels too nice for grocery lists, matching envelopes, an assortment of interesting stamps, and no fewer than four or five different wax seal designs. Apparently, my correspondence now arrives looking as though it contains either royal decrees or instructions for a secret society.
It’s ridiculously fun.
Once a week I sit down and write letters to friends and family. I don’t expect them to solve world peace or alter the course of history. I simply hope that when someone opens their mailbox, nestled between the electric bill, junk mail, and yet another offer to refinance something they don’t own, they find an envelope that exists for one purpose: to make them smile.
That feels worthwhile.
The habit spilled over into another tradition. Whenever Leslie and I travel somewhere interesting, I pick up postcards, or, more often these days, make my own, and send one to my nieces and nephew. My hope is that years from now they’ll remember me as the uncle who was always wandering off to strange places with a camera in hand and who somehow managed to send postcards from wherever the road happened to lead. Every family deserves at least one slightly eccentric relative. I’m simply embracing the assignment.
Of course, there was one small problem with all this enthusiastic letter writing.
I wasn’t getting much mail back.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t write letters because I expect a reply. But if you’ve ever tossed a message into the world, you’ll know there’s a tiny part of you that hopes one might someday come sailing back.
That’s how I stumbled across Postcrossing.
It’s a wonderfully simple, and wonderfully nerdy, idea. You sign up for free, the website gives you the address of someone somewhere else in the world, and you send them a postcard. Eventually, complete strangers from other corners of the planet send postcards back to you. It’s a giant international exchange built entirely on trust, curiosity, and the delightful notion that the mailbox can still hold surprises.
So far I’ve mailed postcards to Japan, Ukraine, Russia, Spain, and several other countries, with plenty more destinations waiting in the wings. And the best part?
The postcards that come back are fantastic.
Rather than buying generic tourist postcards, I’ve been using my own photography. I print the images on my photo printer, trim them down to postcard size, write a note on the back, and send little pieces of my work out into the world. There’s something deeply satisfying about knowing that a photograph I took in Georgia or somewhere on one of our trips might end up pinned to a bulletin board in Europe or tucked into a collection halfway across the globe.
Photography has always been about connecting with people. I just never expected the connection to involve international postal systems and enough postage to make my local mail carrier recognize me on sight.
I’ve only sent out five postcards so far, and I’ve already received four in return. Statistically, that’s a pretty good trade. Emotionally, it’s even better. Every card has its own personality, its own artwork, its own handwriting, and its own tiny glimpse into someone else’s life. They’re little paper ambassadors reminding me that the world is simultaneously enormous and surprisingly small.
Honestly… look at these things. They’re just plain cool.
If you’ve ever wanted an excuse to write something by hand, brighten a stranger’s day, or give your mailbox a fighting chance of containing something other than bills and advertisements, give Postcrossing a try.
The internet is excellent at moving information around the world in milliseconds.
The postal service, on the other hand, moves tiny pieces of humanity at the speed of anticipation.
And sometimes, that’s exactly the pace a good story deserves.
