Postcrossing

Last year the boys and I began a postcard collection as a way of connecting with other people, and learning a little bit about the world around us. We have enjoyed getting postcards from friends and family as well as strangers, and the kids look forward to checking the mail box each afternoon. At the start, we connected with a few yahoo groups and a home school group in the USA that offered a postcard exchange. We enjoyed it, but soon discovered that most of the other families involved were from the USA, and were mostly interested in collecting state postcards instead of international ones. Things kind of fizzled, until a few months ago when I discovered Postcrossing. To say that things took off then would be a vast understatement. Here is how it works: to get started, you register (free) and request an address to send a postcard to. On the postcard, as well as your note, you write a tracking number. As soon as your card is received, the person who got it logs on to postcrossing, enters the tracking number, and you go to the top of the list to get the next card sent out. At the beginning you can have up to 5 cards travelling at a time, and you are allowed more as you develop a positive track record. Here is the best part - it is international. The most recent cards that we have received are from Russia, Malaysia, Great Britain, Germany, China, Japan, Thailand, and Poland. The cards that we have received have all included lovely notes from the sender telling us about the card, themselves, or the country where they live. When you register the card as received you can also see their personal profile, the distance in km that the card travelled to reach you, and have a chance to e-mail them a thank you note. The only problem that I can figure is that this could become very, very addictive...