The other day, I was reading through the blogs I like to frequent, and I came across something rather interesting. Thanks, Erick.

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of having a pen pal or something like it, but I’ve never really participated in it fully. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a website that allowed you to send emails to people, but it didn’t work very well, and I got sick of the strange men who kept wanting to marry me. 🙂 I think it had to do with who built the site. It wasn’t very user friendly. I think the site is still up and running because every now and again, I get an email saying that someone has sent me an email. I don’t even bother opening them anymore.

So, I was very happy when I stumbled upon Postcrossing. Basically, in a nut shell, it works like this. You sign up, request a user’s address, and then send them a postcard. Once the person you sent it to registers it on the website(to me this is the only real pitfall, even though after a certain amount of time they expire), your name is then able to be randomly selected by other users. You can’t go requesting user’s addresses all day long. Postcrossing only allows you to send 5 post cards at any given time. They say they do this to protect users from the crazy people out there who just want to gain access to your information. I understand their reasoning, but in reality, all anyone needs is a computer or a phone book. Your address isn’t top secret or anything.

I like that you never know who the postcard will be coming from or when, but you are more or less guaranteed a postcard back if you send one. That is what I really like about Postcrossing. And besides the money you have to spend to buy postcards and stamps, it’s free. Free is good.

So far I have sent postcards to an Annette in Finland, a Robert in Germany, a Keller in Connecticut, a Vinni in Brazil and a Sibel in Turkey. I imagine that the one I sent to Keller will get to her soon, considering how close she is to me.

Hopefully, I won’t get any crazy stalkers or anything. At least, if I do, they’ll most likely have to spend a lot of money getting to me.

I’ll post the postcards as I get them.

This should be interesting. If you want to sign up, just go here.