Why do I have so many cards traveling to the same country?

Did you accidentally select the option in your settings that says that you prefer to have several postcards traveling to the same country at the same time? That could be the reason! This option is not enabled by default, and if it is selected for your account, you must have turned it on at some point. It's ok to switch it off again, if you're looking for some more variety!

However, if you have not selected that option, please note that countries can still repeat. To learn more, read on.

As you probably know, some countries are a lot more active than others in Postcrossing, meaning they send much more than others... which means they have to receive many more postcards as well. This is why you might have more than one postcard going to a very active country.

What Postcrossing does is to try to maximize the number of different countries you are sending postcards to at any given moment. However, at some point, repetitions must still occur, in order to keep the system balanced.

Postcrossing allows repetitions to happen more frequently to members who are sending larger amounts of postcards at the same time, while being less common for those who can send less. Since those who can send more have (by consequence) a wider variety of different countries than the rest, we feel this is fairer to all.

If Postcrossing prevented any repetitions from happening, members in very active countries would be unable to receive the amount of postcards they were due — they would be sending, but not receiving! So repetitions are a requirement to keep the number of postcards sent and received in each country as balanced as possible.

Lastly, note that the amount of repetitions can and does change over time. Postcrossing dynamically adapts to the balance of each country at any given moment, and this is why you sometimes might see more or less repetitions.