Emails have made things so easy. If you think about it, you don't even remember what it was like before emails were invented. When did you last send a letter to someone? It could have been 10 years ago, easily, or more maybe. You may have sent a gift or important documents to someone through courier, but when did you really write a letter and send it to your friends or family? When did you last post a postcard? Can't remember? Well, here's something that will help you remember. Postcrossing is a new trend that helps you send and receive postcards from strangers all over the world. It was started by Paulo Magalhães from Portugal, who started it as a student project. However, since it gained momentum, he decided to make a website on it.
Postcrossing is a new trend that helps you send and receive postcards from strangers all over the world
The goal of postcrossing is to connect people everywhere, regardless of their country, city or village. In India, postcrossing has also gained a lot of momentum. People now are connecting through Instagram to postcross rather than through the website. If you search for the hashtags #postcrossing #India, you will find thousands of pictures showing off postcards from all over the world.
Anamica Jain, an avid postcrosser, owns the Instagram handle postcardsfromindia and has been doing this for about two years. She said she loves to travel, and this led to her love for postcrossing. "A major part of my travel is taking pictures and making memories. Postcards are a great way to do that. I send postcards to myself from every place I visit within India and abroad and to my friends and family. Just like a little note and to make them a part of my holiday."
She says since she can't travel everywhere, so postcrossing helps her.
"I haven't seen all the places in the world, so postcrossing gets me first hand experience and knowledge about different parts of the world and not from a tourist perspective"
Another postcrosser from India, Shikha Nambiar, has been doing this for 8 years. She even started making her own postcards because she couldn't find any interesting ones in the market. She says, "It/s just a nice way of sending people a message, through a postcard. We send Whatsapps and emails every day, but it feels good to receive a postcard with a handwritten message."
Postcrossing is quite easy, all you do is sign up on their website and they give you five addresses you can send postcards to. Once they receive your postcards, you will receive five postcards from anywhere in the world, and that's how you get started. This is an interesting way to make new friends as well as travel all over the world without actually going there. So don't you want to try postcrossing?
Pic credits: postcardsfromindia
Also read: Arunima Choudhury collaborates with Bengal’s artists to take their work to the world