Is anyone like me ? When I get an address to send a card too I look up the address on google maps . I find it fascinating that I can then see the house where my card is going to. At the same time I feel a little guilty , worrying that it might be seen as being just a little too nosey. Is there anyone else out there that is willing to confess that they do the same thing or am I the only one?
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I do that for tricky addresses or for towns/cities I visited. And yes, I also feel about checking someone’s google street view as a creepy thing to do 
[wouldn’t it be fun some day to click on street view and saw a postcrosser waving the received cards from their house/street at you with blurred face?]
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sometime I feel like I want to do it but I can’t figure out which is the street name in some address , so I just let it go
It sounds creepy (like stalking), but I think it’s not as long as you don’t have ill intentions
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I agree it could be though as creepy, but we’re thousands of miles away and we didn’t get the address through some shady process but are going to sending a card, so it seems OK. I do this hobby because I am fascinated by the world and the people and want to learn from them, the map is part of that.
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I agree. If you’re just doing it out of curiosity, there’s nothing creepy about it. I haven’t ever done it myself, but it’s the sort of thing I would find interesting. Though if I was ever to do it, I wouldn’t say I’d done it on the postcard, just in case the person I’m sending it to felt as though I was stalking them.
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I really love doing this!!! 
I do it always. In every swap, lottery, oficial sending…
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I’ve not done it for postcard friends, but a few penpals, but I prefer the mystery really and yes, some people will think/find it creepy.
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I did this once because the profile mentioned that they have really nice looking house, but I got such a strong “I am being a creeper” feeling that I have never done it before. It is a bit strange feeling actually, doing something that technically is not creepy at all but still feeling like this is not completely ok either. I guess we are on very fine line here, like nothing weird with curiosity or looking, but if you comment on card what you saw… I think then it might be bit creepy…
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Thanks Ian , made me feel better ? I agree , I find it fascinating and certainly have no ill intentions . I would never mention that I had done it to the individual as I would hate to make them feel uncomfortable .
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I did it one time only because the person I was sending to had the address written strangely, and I wanted to see if there was an error. So I rewrote the address the way Google had it and explained to the recipient that they might want to correct their spelling.
I once used Google maps to look up the address of a Postcrosser to whom I was sending a card because he had stated on his profile page that he’d like to send more postcards but postage was becoming “unaffordable” for him. After seeing the picture of his house, I felt sorry for him and sent him two cards. (I bet they have large mailboxes there, at The Palace of Versailles).
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I often use Google maps to look up addresses and also look at Google images of the city in which they live. Sometimes I feel nosy but I like to see how other people live. It is interesting to me, no harm intended. I hope that’s ok!
I look up towns, but not the actual address. I use a PO Box so it strikes me as unfair if I can look at people’s addresses and no one can look at mine (not that there’s much to see, we have a lot of trees between the house and the road).
I find it interesting to look at the towns though, because they’re so unfamiliar to me but would be very familiar to my recipient. I think that’s cool.
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Some people, like me, like to keep their address in certain way, so it’s easy to know where the card is from, just by seeing the address (and also possible track where from or who leaked it 
) so I always write the address how it’s given to me.
Mostly I would trust the person more than Google, especially if they had received cards, but I guess someone can be very young and not needed to write their address before.
Once I contacted the Postcrossing team, because the address was so short and weird, and it turned out to be post box type address.
But no, I don’t look at the house or address. It’s almost like googling this person. I am happy with the information I am given. If they like to share their house, maybe they would put a link to that.
Some years ago a Finnish member told someone had written them, they had looked where they live. (I think that was also a reason why they didn’t want to write anything about them in their profile.)
But, I have received a card where I can see the house where the sender lives, and the sender told it, so that’s really fun.
To me feels only creepy looking others houses, even when not telling, but telling too. Feels like they are not having enough with what I tell, but they search more. For one time card sending it feels weird.
Same.
If it’s a longer time friendship, I appreciate people sharing information in amounts they feel comfortable with.
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I try to resist the urge even though I am curious how others live. Googling the address crosses the line for me so I don’t do it.
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I sometimes look for information about the city or village on Wikipedia when i do not know it especially the number of inhabitants and monuments. But i do not go further.
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I’m a stalker at heart 
but I rarely bother looking for other people’s addresses because I don’t see any point in it. Sometimes I’ve googled postcrossers out of curiosity (and I’ve found more information)
I once looked my own home street on Google Earth and I was surprised to see only wasteland. 
There was not the house, where I live. The whole neighborhood was missing. 
That was creepy!! 
I recommend not to trust Google Earth.
I never do it for official cards, but have done it 2 or 3 times after many, many cards exchanged with the same person (when the texts got a lot more personal). So I could imagine the surrounding better, they wrote about.
Whoever wants to check my house will get disappointed: Google car did never pass our house directly (they stopped at the last crossing before and went to the dead end street instead Not that it would be a major difference as our house is pixelated on street view nevertheless! Google earth view has very old pictures for my area (2009), it doesn’t look like that any longer 
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Hi. A Twitter follower reached out to me & said they joined Postcrossing. She quit when someone wrote her a letter (instead of a postcard) via Postcrossing. This letter showed them a picture of her house and compared it to his apartment. She found it creepy & quit Postcrossing. I told her to report it to admin. This seems like stalking to me. I don’t blame her for quitting. My question is: Can Postcrossers see your house? This seems like a violation of privacy. I only thought Postcrossers could see the general area/the town you lived in.
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