I love love love LOVE Postcrossing, the postcard crossing project, and wanted to take some time to rave about our experiences with it over the past couple of months.
At the start of the school holidays our family signed up to Postcrossing. It has been a super easy and fun way to connect with other people around the world and learn about where they live. Also, it is free to join and costs very little to participate - just the cost of the postcards and stamps you send.
When you register you create a profile of yourself and list your address (your address is kept private to everybody except for those selected to send you a postcard). You can opt to send up to five postcards at one time. You have to send a postcard first, in order to receive one.
The site gives you an address of a registered Postcrossing member who is ready to receive a postcard. You can also take a look at their profile (usually just a brief description of the person, hobbies etc and sometimes a photo) to get an idea of what type of postcard they may like (some people collect postcards in certain themes etc). Once the card arrives at its destination and is registered by the recipient, you become the next person to receive a postcard!
So far we have sent postcards to Belarus, Germany (x2), Netherlands, Russia (x2) and USA. We have received postcards from Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and USA (x2). Somehow we have ended up receiving more postcards than we have sent, which apparently can happen when you are a new member (has something to do with the algorithm for selecting addresses). Anyway, it has been a nice surprise, because I expected that at least a couple of postcards would go astray and we would end up receiving less than we sent. I have noticed in other Postcrossing member profiles that the number of postcards sent and received is usually pretty even (and sometimes very high numbers 1000+). We're going to send one more postcard to even up our numbers.
Postcrossing has certainly made our mailbox far more exciting than the usual collection of bills we find in there. I have particularly appreciated the people who have read our profile and sent a postcard specifically for one of the children - such as the Hello Kitty card for Erica from the USA and the soccer card for Ethan from Switzerland. We've also enjoyed getting out the globe (or opening Google maps) and figuring out where each postcard came from. A cheap way to see the world!
At the start of the school holidays our family signed up to Postcrossing. It has been a super easy and fun way to connect with other people around the world and learn about where they live. Also, it is free to join and costs very little to participate - just the cost of the postcards and stamps you send.
When you register you create a profile of yourself and list your address (your address is kept private to everybody except for those selected to send you a postcard). You can opt to send up to five postcards at one time. You have to send a postcard first, in order to receive one.
The site gives you an address of a registered Postcrossing member who is ready to receive a postcard. You can also take a look at their profile (usually just a brief description of the person, hobbies etc and sometimes a photo) to get an idea of what type of postcard they may like (some people collect postcards in certain themes etc). Once the card arrives at its destination and is registered by the recipient, you become the next person to receive a postcard!
So far we have sent postcards to Belarus, Germany (x2), Netherlands, Russia (x2) and USA. We have received postcards from Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and USA (x2). Somehow we have ended up receiving more postcards than we have sent, which apparently can happen when you are a new member (has something to do with the algorithm for selecting addresses). Anyway, it has been a nice surprise, because I expected that at least a couple of postcards would go astray and we would end up receiving less than we sent. I have noticed in other Postcrossing member profiles that the number of postcards sent and received is usually pretty even (and sometimes very high numbers 1000+). We're going to send one more postcard to even up our numbers.
Postcrossing has certainly made our mailbox far more exciting than the usual collection of bills we find in there. I have particularly appreciated the people who have read our profile and sent a postcard specifically for one of the children - such as the Hello Kitty card for Erica from the USA and the soccer card for Ethan from Switzerland. We've also enjoyed getting out the globe (or opening Google maps) and figuring out where each postcard came from. A cheap way to see the world!
Comments