How a global postcard exchange connects strangers worldwide

Facing the isolation of quarantine, I joined a site called Postcrossing in 2020. The site promised to connect people all over the world through postcards. Hoping to learn about other cultures and spend my time in a more valuable way other than scrolling on my phone, I thought I’d give the site a try. 

Postcrossing was founded in 2005 and hosts over 800,000 users. The site has exchanged postcards from 211 countries and has circulated more than 80 million postcards. 

Unlike a pen pal site, Postcrossing assigns addresses randomly, and the exchange is not reciprocal; the sender will not receive a postcard back from the person they send one to. This ensures user privacy and encourages people to send postcards to many different recipients. The site requires an account but is completely free and funded by donations and digital advertising revenue. 

The steps to participate are simple: create an account, click “send a postcard,” receive a profile with an address and a Postcrossing ID number (which the recipient uses to register the card in the system), write the postcard, and send it. When another user receives a postcard, it will have a unique ID number that can be used to register the card. After registering, users can access the sender’s profile and send them a thank-you email. 

My profile includes a few facts about myself and preferences for postcards I’d like to receive. Over the years, I’ve changed my profile, but one thing has stayed the same: my preference for cat postcards. In fact, the first postcard I received had a cartoon cat on the cover. 

As my collection of foreign postcards grew, so did the number of cards featuring cats. In 2021, I received one with two anthropomorphized lions. The sender wrote, “HERE IS [sic] 2 CHATTY CATS FOR YOUR 2 CHATTY CATS.” In the small space on the back of the cards, people wrote about their own cats at home. Many shared my affinity for their beauty, curiosity, as well as their appreciation of other animals and the outdoors. 

The small space on the postcard became a place for infinite possibilities—tales of a sender’s day, descriptions of a farming village in England, stories of working as a veterinarian, and memories from travels to Croatia. Many of the people I received postcards from led lives very different from mine. When I started writing postcards at 15, most of my correspondents were much older. They had families and careers, different cultures, lifestyles, and languages from my own—but we were never intending to build a lasting friendship. 

Any bond I had with those sending me postcards was fleeting. The extent of our interaction was receiving a card and sending a thank-you email—nothing more. It kept the interaction as a brief window into another’s life without ever intruding. The transitory nature of the program also made me feel safer—I wasn’t committing myself to a friendship with internet strangers. 

Even with the cultural differences among the members I corresponded with, I often found common ground in the cards and messages exchanged through Postcrossing. We all shared an interest in the physical act of sending and receiving cards. By extension, that often translated to an appreciation—or even a talent—for the art. Many cards I received had beautiful cursive script, extra stickers, stamps, and drawings. I imagine most of us were the sentimental types. We liked things that were handmade, earnest, and personal. Plus, I have kept almost all of the 50 cards I’ve received in the past five years. If my pile of postcards—many years old, each with a special little story—tells you anything, it’s that I’m very sentimental. 

One thing I love about this hobby is that it’s incredibly cheap and easy to start. With little barrier to entry, anyone can begin at any time for the cost of a postcard and a couple of stamps. There’s no commitment to the people you write to or even to the project itself—you can stop sending postcards and, in turn, stop receiving them at any time with no hassle. In fact, I have taken breaks and restarted sending postcards several times since first joining the site. 

I’ve always appreciated the aesthetic of postcards and stamps, but before I started Postcrossing, they felt like artifacts of the past. I saw stamps as something my great-grandfather collected in an old book and postcards as a travel souvenir for my bulletin board. Seeing them as something functional has changed how I feel when I see them in bookstores. Now, when I browse postcards, I look for the ones people request most often—animals, Mount Rainier, the Seattle skyline—rather than just the ones I’m naturally drawn to. Now, every card I pick up has another life ahead of it. It’s not just going to be stored away—it will fulfill its historically celebrated purpose: allowing people to see the world.