Postcrossing Blog

Now that the rush of the 80 million milestone is behind us, it’s time to sit down and sift through the data to see how Postcrossing is doing, stats-wise. We know many of you like to check out these posts with numbers and statistics, so let’s get to it!

5,014,287 postcards received

That’s a good 58,827 postcards more than last year, which is great to see! A steady average of 5 million postcards a year is quite impressive and puts us on track to celebrate 100 million postcards sometime in 2029!

29.1 average travel days and 19.2 median travel days

Average travel times keep increasing slightly, year after year, reflecting postal delays, global logistical challenges or just a higher number of postcards traveling over slower routes. However, the median travel days have only slightly increased, indicating that most postcards still arrive in a reasonable timeframe.

27,256,320,327 kms (16,936,292,258 miles) traveled

That’s a little bit more than Voyager 1’s current distance from Earth! 🛰️

19,941 kms (12,391 miles) was the longest distance traveled

Postcard ES-784984 was our long distance winner of 2024, again with the classic combo from Spain to New Zealand! Sabine (aka sabine223) from Germany used the Travel Mode in Spain last February and unknowingly sent the postcard that traveled the longest distance last year, aaaaaaaaaall the way to Neil (aka durbanshark) in Auckland.

The average distance a postcard traveled in Postcrossing in 2024 was around 5,436 kms (or 3,377 miles). It looks like our average postcard easily travels the length of a continent, which is impressive!

1,194,298 postcards were sent from Germany

Germany is once again the country with the most postcards sent in Postcrossing, at just over 1 million postcards per year! 💪 The USA came very close to that magical number, but is not yet over the threshold. Surprisingly, China had a big jump up the charts this year, surpassing Finland and Japan to reach the fifth place in the rankings. Well done! Here’s how the rest of the top 20 chart looks like:

For those unfamiliar with this statistic, here’s a quick explanation: it represents the number of postcards sent from these countries and registered in 2024. This includes some postcards that were sent in 2023 but only registered in 2024, while others requested in 2024 are not included because they’re still in transit and will likely be registered in the coming weeks or months. By focusing on postcards registered within a specific timeframe, we can maintain consistency and make comparisons with previous years more straightforward.

BeckyS sent the most postcards

Looks like BeckyS grabbed first place this year, up from second last year! 😊 The top 5 senders in Postcrossing continue to be from the USA: BeckyS (2,297), ennasor (2,280), Shelleh (2,273), Djain (2,237) and RomaandPaul (2,231) took the top spots. All of them have chosen to exchange postcards within the USA, which speeds things up… as does the fact that the USA does not currently send mail to Russia, a country with slower mail delivery.

If we count only international exchanges though, then ned44440 in Ireland 🇮🇪 takes the cake, with 1,871 postcards sent! Other runner-ups are mapcardcollector 🇬🇧 (1,841), tiinama 🇫🇮 (1,833), SMatti 🇫🇮 (1,827) and uconn 🇺🇸 (1,802).

Åland Islands sent the most postcards per capita

Åland Islands, Finland and Liechtenstein continue to be the top contributors per capita, with Belarus rising through the rankings this year to grab fourth place.

(*) This ranking is calculated per 1,000 inhabitants, for countries with at least 10 members.

October 1 was the day in which more postcards were sent in 2024 (81,810)

As expected, and even with some limits in place, World Postcard Day continues to beat all the records, with about five times more postcards being sent on that day than on any other random day. 😅 It’s a lot of pressure on Postcrossing’s servers and database, but each year we introduce tweaks that seem to improve the situation and help things go smoothly.

Other big days this year were December 1st (the start of the Cards for Literacy initiative), the days around October 1st, and other assorted days between January and March.

November 13 was the day in which more postcards were received in 2024

Usually, the day with most postcards received is sometime in January… but not in 2024! November 13 saw the peak of postcards being registered, with 19,866 of them arriving to their destinations on that day alone. Most of the other high volume days happened between October and January.

Postcards were sent from 224 countries and received in 157 countries

Postcards were sent from an additional 3 countries or territories this year! Woohoo! Thanks to the Travel Mode, more and more postcrossers make an effort to locate a local wifi network, postcards and a post office during their trips abroad, so that they can send some postcards. That’s why the difference between the number of countries that sent postcards and those that received them is relatively large. Neat!

11,572 new forum topics and 892,564 forum posts in 2024

Less new forum topics, but more posts in 2024! The forum continues to be a welcoming space to organize events, swap postcards, play games or just a place where people can chat and get to know each other. This is thanks to our team of volunteer moderators, who do an excellent job keeping things tidy and running smoothly.

1,835 meetups in 62 countries

A slightly higher number of meetups, but the same number of countries! A curious mind might ask whether these 62 countries were the exact same ones that had meetups in 2023… they were not! For instance, Gibraltar, Jordan and Denmark all had meetings in 2024 but did not have them the year before. Wouldn’t it be cool if in the future we could have meetings in 100 different countries? It should be possible!

11,987 email replies

This is how many support emails the team has replied to throughout the year — a mind-boggling average of 32 per day. 🤯 That’s… a lot of emails!

And that’s all, folks! 2024 was another good year for Postcrossing, and these numbers offer a fascinating glimpse into it, highlighting the impressive scale and reach of our community. As we get started in 2025, there’s plenty to look forward to — new milestones, evolving trends, and even more postcards connecting people across the world. Here’s to another great year of postcards and connections!

PS: For those of you who would like to see longer rankings that don’t fit on a blog post, here they are.

Oh, happy day — today is the day lucky postcard number 80 million has been received! Woohoo!

Whether you’ve sent just one postcard or many thousands of them, you’ve played a part in this achievement. Bravo, everyone! 👏 Also, we’re celebrating this milestone almost exactly 2 years after the last big milestone (70 million), so it looks like our trajectory is still very stable, with an average of 5 million postcards per year. Which is just brilliant!

80 million postcards is a lot of postcards though, and my mind is not quite able to visualize that many postcards… but this is where math comes in! Calculating the area of all these postcards, we know that they would be enough to carpet the Vatican with postcards two times and a half, or the area of the Forbidden City in Beijing over 1.5 times! Also, assuming each postcard weighs about 5 grams (0.17 ounces), all these postcards would weigh as much as 67 fully grown African elephants! 🐘

Now, we know what you’re really curious about: which postcard was the lucky 80 millionth, and who got the closest guess in our celebration contest? Without further ado…

Postcard number 80,000,000 was NL-5891077, sent by turtle_lover in the Netherlands on 23 December 2024 and registered on 07 January 2025 at 02:32:25 UTC by Flicki, in Germany!

And the sharpest guesser in our milestone contest? That honor goes to jennyfleur! You will receive a bonanza of papersisters prizes, including postcards, rolls of tape, stickers, a rubberstamp and more. But that’s not all! Runners-up dessie82, Emicho, Viiliaaa, Yunling, dhe and xxxxyyyyzzzz were just minutes off the mark and will also receive sets of lovely postcards and stickers to celebrate as well. Enjoy all these gifts, generously offered by papersisters!

No matter how many postcards you’ve sent or how long you’ve been a postcrosser, we hope you’ll take a moment to celebrate this milestone with us. Do a little happy dance, send an extra postcard, or share some Postcrossing joy with friends! This community thrives because of you — your love of connecting, sharing stories, and spreading a bit of kindness to mailboxes everywhere. 💌

And now, a brand new year unfolds ahead of us, with plenty of postcards waiting to be written. Let’s brighten mailboxes worldwide and come back to celebrate 90 million postcards in a couple of years!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

Happy New Year, everyone! 🎉 As we step into 2025, we invite you to take a moment to reflect on the beauty and creativity that inspires us — and what better way than by sharing our favorite pieces of art?

Art has a magical way of connecting us to emotions, memories, and stories. Whether it’s a painting, sculpture, photograph, or even a doodle, art resonates differently with everyone. It could be something you’ve admired in a museum, a piece you’ve stumbled across in a small gallery, or even a cherished creation made by a loved one.

What makes it special to you? Is it the artist’s unique technique, the colors that seem to come alive, or the story behind the creation? Maybe it reminds you of a special time in your life, or perhaps it’s simply something that makes you happy every time you see it.

Feel free to share the details on the postcards you send out this month! If it’s a painting, what does it look like? If it’s a song or performance, what emotions does it evoke? Maybe you could describe how you first encountered it, or why it holds such a personal meaning for you. Art, like postcards, has the power to bridge distances and spark conversations — so let your favorite piece inspire your next card!

Here’s to a year filled with creativity, connection, and beautiful postcards. Happy writing, and may your postcards carry a little piece of art across the world.

Postcrosser Laridian is at it again! After the world map quilt from some years ago, they continued collecting bits of fabric, which were put together on a new quilt this year! It’s a gorgeous piece shaped like a heart, which Laridian wrote about on their blog:

My second Postcrossing quilt project is complete: The Heart of Postcrossing!

This has taken since 2021 to complete, as it relies entirely on fabrics generously sent to me by other postcrossers. More than 150 postcrossers sent fabric for me to use!

I started working on the Heart of Postcrossing as soon as I completed the World Map. But this time, I decided to go for something a little smaller scale. (The World Map is more than 2m / 7' wide!) I’d also hoped it would be completed faster than the World Map, which took about 3 years. As you can see, it took about the same amount of time for this one to complete!

All the colored fabrics were sent to me by postcrossers, most of them included with their postcards, but a few were sent from Postcrossing forum members who had heard about the project. Some of the white fabrics were also sent by postcrossers, but the majority of the white “outside” pieces are from my own collection. People don’t often send white fabric.

Getting a random piece of fabric this way was such a lovely surprise each time it happened. Often, the senders had stories to tell about the fabric: if it was local to their region, or a heritage textile; if it was leftover from some other project they’d worked on; if it was from a childhood dress or a husband’s work shirt. The histories and information about the pieces was inspiring, and I loved every piece of fabric sent to me.

Each square measures 2" / 5cm. The finished wall hanging is 42" / 1.06m square. The binding is in pink, red and yellow to match the colors of the fabrics. Due to the cutting and piecing process, each fabric may be found up to 4 times throughout the finished work.

Postcrossers from North and South America, Asia, Oceania, and Europe all contributed to this project. The country that “sent” the most fabrics was the United States, with 27 different fabrics coming from postcrossers there. Second was Germany with 21, and Russia was third, with 17 different fabrics.

Postcrossing has been such a wonderful and loved hobby for me, and I have “met” so many wonderful people through it. This quilt represents the diverse and and colorful people of Postcrossing, and the little triangles are the “postcards” flying away around the world to their recipients.

Below is a detail of some of the blocks. If you’ve sent fabric to me, maybe you see your fabric in there?

Here in Yorkshire, 'tis the season for some cosy reads. It’s chilly outside (…and sometimes inside), and the perfect time to curl up with a hot chocolate and a book. In this case, Sorcery & Cecelia, by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede. The book has the alternate title of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (meaning something like a teapot, but intended for serving hot chocolate). It’s not a particularly wintery tale—in fact, it’s set during the London Season in the Regency period, which often meant the months from April to August. Even so, the fact that the plot partially revolves around a chocolate pot means I can’t help but keep thinking about cold days and hot chocolate… Plus, it feels like a very cosy story in general.

Sorcery & Cecelia is a very charming fantasy novel which is narrated entirely by a pair of cousins, writing to each other while one is in London for her first season, and the other remains at home. At first we just read about their day to day activities—new dresses and visits to local clergymen and all the sorts of things respectable young ladies did in the Regency period. But both of them start experiencing unusual events, and as their letters back and forth unfold it becomes clear that their mysteries are linked.

There’s a lot of affection in the cousins’ letters to one another, which is part of what made this such a cosy read to me. They do also each have a romance, which is a little predictable in a way (and one could wish that there were a few letters from the love interests as well, to help round things out)—but there can be something very cosy about that, as well!

The especially fun thing about this novel is how it was written, though! The two authors actually sent each other these letters, building the story up and twining the threads together as they went along. There is a genuine eagerness and excitement about some of the letters, I think, as the authors looked out for the next piece of the story. Obviously the finished product was then edited and tidied up to make it work well, but I still think some of the enthusiasm of the game has been preserved, and it’s great fun.

So if you’re looking for something cosy (whatever season it is for you!) I really think this might do the job. It’s very charming! And as ever, I’d love to hear about the books that feature mail/postcards/etc, fiction and non-fiction in the forum topic I created so people can chat about potential books to review. To view the thread and add your own post, you may need to log into the forum and spend some time browsing and participating in other parts of the forum first, if you haven’t used it before!