I figured I hadn’t updated anyone on the postcrossing world lately, so I wanted to get a post on it. Also, I think I’ll be doing a new feature on the blog involving postcrossing. More on that later.
A quick reminder on what postcrossing is — it’s a global “game” of sorts where you send a postcard and receive a postcard randomly. For example, I sign up on the site and get an address for someone in Finland. I look at their profile, send them a postcard. Soon enough, I’ll receive one from some random person around the world — maybe from China.
I’m personally selecting not to send or receive from the U.S. as I want to see things from around the world, rather than in-country. I might switch that down the road, but we’ll see. I like getting things from abroad a bit more right now.
So far, I’ve sent 16 cards and have received 15 cards. Currently, I also have five “traveling,” which means that there are five of my cards not yet registered on the site. Being I have five already traveling, I can’t get a new address until one of those are logged. At this point, I can only have five addresses at a time. But, once I have sent enough and had them logged, the number will slowly increase.
This is one hobby that is really quite fascinating.
The first batch of cards I sent, I went and purchased some cards from our area shops. Nothing major, just scenes from our area and region. But I wanted to make it more personal. I recently purchased (and have already sent many) personal postcards from Moo. I took my photos and turned them into cards, which was really cool to do. I hope those who receive them appreciate the cards.
I will, however, be needed to get another order soon.
The prices weren’t bad — I paid $19.99 plus shipping for 20 cards. Add to that the $.98 it costs to send a postcard overseas, and you’re looking at about $2 per postcard sent. If you do 10 in a month (which could be a stretch, pending travel time), you’re looking at $20 for a pretty fun hobby that allows you to see all parts of the world.
Postcrossing seems to be quite the global hobby. Consider some of these statistics from their website from when I was writing this post:
- 3,033,719 postcards have been received
- 117,413 postcards are traveling at this moment
- 1,018,235 postcards images have been uploaded to the site
- 15.6 days is the average postcard travel time
- 16,619,808.222 Kms traveled — that’s 414,717 laps around the earth and 21,617 return trips to the moon!
That’s some pretty incredible stuff, to be honest.
How about this, though? Think of the amount of people and countries involved in this project:
- 130,002 users registers
- 202 countries
- Of those registered, 19,433 are males; 72,965 are females; 37,114 did not say.
Now, let’s take a peek at those 202 countries. By my count, 34 of those countries have sent more than 10,000 cards! To get it a little more broken up, of those 34, four have sent more than 100,000 postcards! Those are:
- Finland (592,182)
- United States (439,781)
- Germany (384,758)
- Netherlands (199,947)
These statistics are pretty wild. And the best part of this is that you have NO idea what is coming next or where you might be sending to when you put in a request.
Here are my statistics through Wednesday:
I would like to see a few more countries be brought into the picture so I can send and receive from different spots. Finland and China/Taiwan are pretty popular, it seems. But being I have plans for a vacation in Ireland, I wouldn’t mind sending/receiving a few more from there. But, you can’t ask or request certain countries, other than being able to say you want to receive or send to your own country.
New feature
OK, I won’t lie. I’m pulling this idea from Erika Jean who posts cards that she has received on her blog called “Postcrossing Sunday.” This is a very cool idea where she scans the cards — front and back — and puts them on the site (sans, of course, any addresses or other private info) once a week.
I think I am going to do this as well, though I need to come up with a name for the feature and decide what day to do it. I might opt for Wednesday, being the middle of the week. Not sure yet. But I have 16 cards now, so I can scan them in and get them worked on so that I can soon start posting them and getting this feature going.
Becoming part of the hobby
For those who are interested, this is an easy hobby to get involved in. Start by registering at the postcrossing website, then getting some addresses and sending some cards out. Once they are received, you’ll start getting cards back. Simple enough!
For those in the states, the cost of sending a card overseas is .98. All I do is go to the post office and get a sheet of 10 stamps. Once they run out, I go get more.
It’s a fun hobby to be part of and it’s also a good way to see different parts of the world. If you get involved, happy postcrossing!
More later!
