Hello everyone! I am an American enjoying a wonderful vacation in St. Lucia! I was so excited for the trip…. and for sending postcards in travel mode! St. Lucia has had very few postcards sent in total, and I saw it as my responsibility to send some from this beautiful island. I purposely let my available postcards to send go up in number so I could send as many as possible. I have the postcards and the stamps…… but I can’t be verified as being in St. Lucia. I’m on the local resort WiFi. I tried connecting via cellular and no WiFi and it says it can’t verify. Does it take time? Any suggestions? I’ve got a stack of stamped postcards ready to go! Is there an alternative? Sending a photo of m passport with St Lucia entry stamp and exit permit with departure date? Any help appreciated! Thanks!
I never had to verify anything when I was in travel mode. Maybe because St Lucia is rare? If it doesn’t work maybe offer some direct swaps here? I would definitely love one
Please contact the Postcrossing Team via the main website, they might be able to help you:
https://www.postcrossing.com/contact
Make sure to add a subject into the contact form that makes it clear where you are and you’ve got problems with the travel mode.
Sometimes resorts use WIFI connections through other countries
As an alternative:
Is there a chance to have WIFI access at some place outisdes the resort? A public WIFI in a cafe, a supermarket, …?
Hi! The check is on your IP address and whether it belongs to the country in question, so it sounds like both your resort and your mobile connection are routing back to your normal country. I think the only solution is to make sure you use a connection with a local IP – maybe someone who works at the resort will have a suggestion?
I didn’t get travel mode to work at Svalbard because the wifi gives out a Norwegian IP address. The same can happen in a few other places around the world. My best tip is to to as @Reisegern suggested:
What’s interesting is I just went online and googled “what’s my IP address” and it says my IP address is in the Cayman Islands!!!’ (which is nowhere near St. Lucia)…. So the plot thickens! I’m not interested in sending St Lucia cards and stamps under a Cayman Islands identifier either. I will probably just send them from here under my US address then. Sigh. I’m at a resort that I’m not leaving until it’s time to go and have no transportation so it’s not like I can go to some cafe and try and find another network.
interesting. as your ip address is cayman island, will you be able to get addresses with the US id#? i don’t think so. well, send with cayman island id#and explain why not st lucia id# - its a great and interesting story
No, that’s not a good suggestion - St. Lucia is over 2000 km away from Cayman Islands and it is not correct to send a card in travel mode with the wrong ID.
The best thing to do is, as @Reisegern suggested, to contact the support.
@samquito you know I’m not sure but since I’ve established myself as being in the US for so long I would think it would let me still be sending from US and not from Cayman Islands. If I travel and don’t go into travel mode I would think if I request a postcard it would still let me be a US sender because maybe I’ll be home by the time I post it.
(Shoutout to New Mexico! I lived in Las Cruces for a short time and LOVED it and miss New Mexico so much!)
That’s exactly how it works - if you never change to travel mode, you can always send cards with your “home ID” regardless of your actual location. The IP address is irrelevant in that case.
Maybe they have computers with cable connection to the internet, wich are available for guests. Then you can log in there and set your location to St. Lucia and draw addresses.
It’s possible that the resorts wifi is routed through their regional office in the Caribbean which may well be the Cayman Islands or that the resort uses a VPN WiFi network to protect its guests from outsiders eavesdropping on guest data connections.
I had the same problem when staying in the Isle of Man a few years ago, after a while it mysteriously sorted itself out.
its a very interesting story and want to find out what happens - usa or st lucia id numbers.
oh, and it harvest time and due to the pandemic, need people to pick the green chile - you much remember “red or green” when you were living or even visiting new mexico. oh, i’m red! jeje
Find a local wifi spot. Do they have Starbucks or some kinda of coffee house or even a McDonald’s. Connect to local wifi with a St Lucy (St Lucia) IP.
Or better yet go old school, leave the resort and go into town and find a local Internet cafe, anyone remember those. I do and I’m not not that old.
I just know how to live like a local wherever I go.
How would the locals get Internet? A lot of Latin American and Caribbean countries have these cafes or at least places where you can get web access for pennies on the dollar. Those places have local IP addresses.
Leave the resort and go!
The original poster stated that they cannot leave the resort due to lack of transportation.
Oh Lord, paying all that money for a resort with no transportation. It’s definitely a SMDH situation.
But, OP got feet. If he wanna make it happen, he make it happen. Nothing is impossible!
But I do wonder, if Wifi is routed from KY (Cayman Islands), where are the PC’s routed through? Did everyone forget PC’s? Also KY or LC(Saint Lucia). Perhaps OP can ask the desk if there is a PC he can use. If it doesn’t go through again as reading from Saint Lucia, then he’ll have his answer.
If all else fails, OP could probably do some trades on the forum. Saint Lucia is “rare” and the forum has members who want “rare” country destination postcards. Upside, OP has an option to trade with who he wants and receive good cards and he sends from LC, downside, the cards are private trades.
I suppose file this under I was today years old. I suppose if you find yourself again at a resort, a new question to add to the ask the staff is, where is the WiFi IP address from.
I will have to add that IP address question to my FAQ’s next time I travel.
Message for OP: Don’t give up OP. I’m your cheerleader from one end of the sea. You can do it!
Best of luck, to all.
@princeofasturias I want to thank you for editing your post. (There are plenty of times where I travel to experience local culture and that’s just not what this trip is about, nor do I want to feel guilty about being at a resort). The truth is you are right if I want it badly enough I can make it happen- I want it, but no I don’t want it badly enough to hire a taxi to take me 25 mins into town so I can log in and send 8 postcards, assuming that St. Lucia’s other businesses don’t use offshore IP addresses. I will see if there’s a computer (I really didn’t see a business center here but I will look for that). If not then I can send St Lucia postcards to friends and family or.some of my Postcrossing buddies.
@GeoJosh , have you tried contacting PC admin? I believe from past threads on this topic, they can manually set you as being in St Lucia. Maybe you are running out of time in your trip to worry any more about this, though!
The member has contacted Postcrossing and we are in conversation with them.
I am closing this topic.
Vicki