Postcard Obsession

Let me preface this conversation with the facts that I’ve always loved sending mail and receiving mail…and collecting postcards as tiny works of art.

And now, thanks to an Etsy seller, I have a new outlet for expressing this love. It all started with my dedication to sending postcards to lapsed voters to encourage them to vote in particular local or national elections. Most recently, I have volunteered to send postcards through Activate America.

So, I ran out of postcards and went to Etsy to find some cool voting-related postcards. I ordered some that feature a photo of a bunch of voting-related buttons. When the package arrived, I read a little note that the seller included that detailed her favorite ways to use postcards. One of them was a website called Postcrossing. I was intrigued and went to the site.

OMG. How had I not known about this postcard movement? Who would have thought that I would be over the moon about sending and receiving postcards to and from strangers around the world?

It makes total sense to me now, since it fulfills my interest in cross-cultural communication—which I used to fulfill through volunteering at a local hostel. Well, I could gush about this site all day, but long story short, the process for sending and receiving postcards resembles a well-oiled machine, and two of my postcards have already been received. So far, I’ve sent postcards to Germany, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Poland, Canada, and Australia. I haven’t received any yet, and I am impatiently waiting…

This is a perfect time to launch this new obsession as “World Postcard Day” is October 1. Write a postcard to a loved one next weekend! Or join me on Postcrossing and start sending postcards to people all over the world.