Due to safety reasons, I didn’t want to have the option on when I was working. Now that I am on sick leave I feel safer to send and receive cards inside Finland.
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I don’t have this option turned on, but for a different reason which I don’t think has been mentioned here before: Portugal is a relatively small country, and I want more people to be surprised with a postcard from here. If I get a postcard from my own country, that’s one person elsewhere that doesn’t get one from here. 
I’d rather give them that joy!
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I am incredibly oblivious to things like safety (e.g. I am not scared of walking alone late at night, though strangely I am more self-conscious the older I get - and yes I’m a woman but I really dislike how these things are gendered and we are supposed to be scared by default) so I never even thought of this by myself (= without reading it from others). Though I never lived anywhere where the likelihood of getting to send/receive from own country is high. The USA has a lot of members, but it’s also incredibly huge. When I lived in the UK, I got same country maybe 3-4 times over several years - once I sent to someone rather close, I would pass by her town by train almost every weekend. It was funny to actually know the place I was sending to.
Where I live now, I always wondered if it’s even possible to get someone from the same country, since it’s also the same city.
At the very beginning, I didn’t have the same country on because of thinking I would like to receive from other countries, but then I realised how rare it is and how there are so many places even in the same country.
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Maybe on travel mode you can get? Not sure.
I feel you, sometimes I wish I get Singapore too 
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That’s possible I think, when I lived in the UK I got UK twice in travel mode!
I don’t think I have used travel mode since I’ve been in SG, apart from the obvious reasons of those two years stuck on the island, I tend to use it less these days 
It was always my understanding that Postcrossing will never give you the address of someone in the same state as you, and vice versa. I don’t remember where I read this and maybe it’s not true, but I’m sure there is a minimum distance for addresses. You most certainly won’t receive addresses of anyone in your city or a neighboring city.
Personaly, I would LOVE to receive official postcard from my own country. But we are small, not many postcrossers…I don’t believe it will even happened 
You can absolutely receive an address from a neighboring city. It has nothing to do with distance, only with the name of the town you have selected in the city/place field in your profile. It is really only your own town that is excluded.
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I’ve several times gotten addresses of people in my own state, and I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten one or two in neighboring towns that would be considered part of my metro area i.e. I live in a suburb and they live in a different suburb.
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I am using it. I think it is less likely to atrack creepy people by postcrossing than on facebook/tiktok/other social media. And if a creepy person wants to be creepy, they will just visit your profile to send a creepy message. The chances are really small that one gets your address.
But because I feel ok with it, you don’t have to. So if you don’t want to, just don’t!
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Just thinking that, for reasons that might not be logical, I would be far more worried about using my real name and a picture of myself online, than the address. The address only goes to whoever is sending to you and disappears afterwards (of course they could be saving it, but you know…) while the rest of the info is online for all to see.
There are people who sent/received like 2 cards and abandoned Postcrossing years ago, and their profile is a pic of themselves and the username is namesurname. Prime stalking material, if anyone is bothered to stalk them. (like I don’t think I am interesting enough to be stalked, but I try not to put all that info out there if I can help it).
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I think the creepiest persons are stalkers who don’t contact you directly, or wait to get your address, but those who believably pretend to be your friend to others. So like for me, if not many Finnish members get my address, they can’t accidentally give it anyone.
And of course, it can be wise to make arrangements, like getting your mail elsewhere if possible.
So no stranger will get your real address.
The victim of a stalker is often a “girl next door”, it can be anyone.(Celebrity stalking is only one type.)
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True. You don’t have to be famous to have a stalker.
As I am getting older, I know more people who had to deal with some (minor) stalking. None of them is famous, but most of the time is was an ex date/boyfriend/partner.
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I am from the Netherlands and have had the own country option turned on for many years now. 
The last year however, I noticed that I am barely sending to my own country even though it is the 4th most active Postcrossing country. Let’s look at some of my stats:
By sent cards, Netherlands is the 9th country in my overall stats. 31 sent there out of 1025 (3,0%). By received cards, it’s only the 18th country in the list, with just 10 cards from my own country (1,0%).
Since January 2022, I have sent only 5 out of 333 cards (1,5%) to my own country. Of these cards, two were sent when I was living abroad (
), and one was in travel mode (
). So during the past year and a half, I have sent just two actual 
cards. When filtering out the cards I sent when I lived in Lithuania (60 cards), but including travel mode, the percentage is just 1,1%.
Last week I sent some cards from travel mode again (
) and suddenly two addresses again! It really feels like the algorithm keeps me from sending cards to my own country when I’m actually there, but in travel mode, the distribution seems much more natural for how active is.
This is not a complaint of any sort, just an observation of how odd it seems to me that despite being from an active country, I don’t interact with my own country as much as statistically should be the case. I’m wondering if anyone else notices a similar trend!
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I suppose this is because many Dutch disabled their own country, so you cannot draw their addresses when you ar in NL.
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I was just thinking could it be this, but remembered, I asked this once, that if a Finnish postcrosser travels to Sweden, can they get my address in travel mode, and the answer was no. (Because I have chosen not to send/receive in my country.)
So if you have send within own country, you should only get the addresses that agree to this too, even when you aren’t in the same country at that moment, but using travel mode.
Living in another country, then you can get it.
But I think I get Netherlands very rarely compared to how common it used to be, so could it also be that?.
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I’m also a young woman and have been sending to my own country for 11 years without problems. Also, Postcrossing won’t give you an address from your own town.
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Hi. Is this written somewhere, like in the rules? Thanks!
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Paulo wrote that somewhere here in the forum. He must know, for he coded the whole postcrossing software.
I’m in Ohio and have drawn Ohio addresses and received cards from Ohio members