I think that when in a country there are few members it would be hard to spread the word and let more people know about the project because not everyone is interested in that hobby.
While when there are many members it’s easier to reach people who will actually be interested. From my point, Greece does have an anount of members but to any other person i talk to about my hobby they are just not interested or ask in order to not be rude or find it good for me but they wouldn’t try. So to my point, when there aren’t that many members in a country the number hardly increases.
3 Likes
Too right, too right!!! 
1 Like
I think this will always be so… and that’s part of the ‘chase’ (to me!).
1 Like
@metlodyt made an interactive map to visualize the postal monitor. There you can not only see the countries Post NL does not send to but also all the countries which do not send to the Netherlands.
8 Likes
Some of the large postcrossing countries – Russia, US, Canada – also have vast regional differences. Maybe plotting the senders on a map would interest your kids, or a game like the Russia bingo here (just collect all 80 oblasts;-)
6 Likes
That could be fun as well… I am plotting all my send/received information in Power BI at the moment… would need to do some extra plotting for provinces etc. but that could be fun! Thanks
1 Like
Covid also prevents people from traveling and before we had the Travel Mode, that was increasing the numbers of the “rare” countries since it was created (and that I miss a LOT).
Personally, I prefer to have 6000 cards sent to the “big” countries instead of the hundreds lost that were sent to smaller countries and never got registered. The same for the received, I guess those senders were pretty happy that their card was registered.
As someone said already: cards are exchanged between people, be happy with the card, not with numbers or statistics! 
6 Likes
Off course I am happy with the cards… but to have some exotic countries on my wish-list is an added bonus.
Now I am wondering if there is a postcrosser with all the countries (send and/or received)?
I’m always happy, if I draw an addy from Germany. 
(Relatively) cheap postage, relatively short travel time, relatively likely for snailmail to arrive, … lots of advantages!
5 Likes
Then you can chase the longer, the more often you get addies from the same countries! 
I enjoy sending the card to an individual. Once that card is sent, all I am left with is a record here and an email which I do keep. It’s not particularly exciting for me to send to a rare country because a) I don’t care about where these people live and b) their postal system won’t be as reliable as the German one.
I don’t think so. It’s still all random. You might want to have a look at Willi’s statistics, he’s the biggest Postcrosser. 
2 Likes
Even Willi is missing 72 countries, regions, territories and areas.
3 Likes
Also, postage rates go up annually in the most countries which makes postcrossing more and more expensive. I personally find annual price rises disencouraging although I can afford postcrossing at the moment, even if the price and quality of the Finnish postal service don’t quite match. I can understand that this mismatch can make many quit postcrossing because they don’t get what’s worth their money. Even I have sometimes asked myself what’s the point in this hobby when we postcrossers only seem to be a nuisance for our country’s postal service.
Even if the postage rate of a certain country wouldn’t be too bad compared to the national average incomes in our country, it might be just too expensive for people living in that country. For example, in Kenya a stamp costs 0,50 €, which sounds quite an affordable price for me as a Finn, but might be quite a lot in comparison what an average Kenyan earns.
13 Likes
It’s likely that rare countries are becoming more rare, but it’s not just because of lack of word of mouth. For starters, some countries have an abysmal postal system, so people join enthusiastically, but end up dropping out.
Countries with political unrest or growing violence against women don’t have many participants. If every trip to the post office is risky, sending a postcard no longer seems worth it.
And like @Regndroppar said, not everyone can afford it. Plus, COVID-19 increased the gap between poor and rich. For instance, most low income countries weren’t able to pay a benefit to those who lost their job due to COVID-19.
9 Likes
I do not think so, because you are not fired if you stop sending cards, so you stay a member unless you actively quit. Maybe getting many addresses and cards from the same country bores some people so they quit, but I think massive increases of postages and worsening postal services drive more people to quit.
1 Like
I started postcrossing to add fun learning for my son’s homeschool. He gets discouraged at times when we get the same country back to back to back. (I have 14 cards currently traveling and 10 of them are Germany, Russia and US)
I would love to see a little more variety in country instead of back to back the same, but realize that is part of it somehow. And try to encourage my kiddo to look at the cities, towns, states, continents, etc of each one we get from the main 3. I live in US but each state and each city in that state is so different, that we enjoy seeing if it’s coastal, or in the mountains, or prairie, etc. same with Germany and Russia. Does the city border another country, is it near water, what is the climate like, what animals live in that area. One we received was from an island in Germany. I didn’t even know that was a thing, so that was fun.
Now my son wants to learn the German language because he says, “since we send and get so many cards from there, it would be cool to write them in German”. How awesome is that?
And postcrossing has opened up my 12 year kiddo wanting to try foods from all the countries he’s sent to. That’s been fun.
Sorry for the long post, but from someone who loves postcrossing and uses it also for education and fun learning for my son, hope some of what I’m sharing can help others have fun too.
Happy postcard adventures!
27 Likes
That’s pretty cool! How old is he?
1 Like
Just turned 12 last week. 
1 Like