I love to receive all postcards. I love when people explain why they sent a particular card but it’s ok if they don’t do that either.
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Thank you! That’s a great thread and very enlightening
I like to receive both. Local area or state and really anywhere else the sender wants to talk about.
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I don’t mind if I receive a card that’s not from the same place the sender lives. I usually buy postcards whenever I travel so have quite a few non-local cards.
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I personally don’t care where a card is mailed from. But I know some Postcrossers don’t like to see a postcard from one country with stamps from a different country on the other side.
On the bright side, those Postcrossers don’t seem to care where in the US a card is mailed from, since the US has one postal system and use the same stamps no matter which state you’re in. I think in my entire time on Postcrossing, I’ve only encountered 1 person who wanted a card mailed from the actual state the card is from…and that was a specific request from a person setting up private swaps, so not through the official site.
As of yet, I’ve never encountered a US participant who cared if a card from one state was sent from a different state.
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I don’t mind the region, only the country. And I send touristic postcards from all German regions if not precisely asked for my hometown / region only.
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I love hearing about peoples travels! I wouldn’t care
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This brings up a cultural issue: a card I send of Hawaii is okay, but if I sent one of Montreal, far closer, that’s disappointing? There seems to be some assumption about geographical space being my point.
First of all: that’s different for everybody. For me it’s the stamp, a Montreal card with US stamp feels wrong to me, while a Hawaii card with US stamp is normal.
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People who request a “postcard from the sender’s hometown” make the faulty assumption that every town has its own postcards. My collection has exactly ONE of my hometown. I wouldn’t worry about others who wring their hands over such excruciating minutiae.
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Frankly, if I am receiving cards through postcrossing I donot mind receiving cards not sent from origin. However for direct swaps or personal swaps regarding a specific series I am collecting, i like them to be sent from the origin as I need the cancelation or digital barcode cancel to depict the harmonious conjunction between the postcard, stamps and the cancel. For eg there is this series I am collecting here in the USA called world travel poster and I only collect the US states when sent from origin. The cards are inexpensive and you could get all 50 states in one go for 20 bucks but I believe the origin cancel, the stamps, writing on the postcard together makes it worth collecting for me only if sent from origin state.
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Sometimes I’ve used as an excuse to travel to other states by sending cards from other states that are not mine in that states. I know not everyone has that luxury. But, if I dont feel like travelling or have the money to go to a certain destination, let the postcard do the travel. I have written to postmasters of certain stations before.
For example if I have a Lou Paper state Missouri card, but Im living in California, and I want to make this Missouri card look like I sent it from Missouri, instead of dropping it off in my mailbox in my home state, I pick a city and state in a more relevant place that could fit the postcard. I find a post office in the area of the card. Ill use for example St Louis, Missouri. So after I pick an office in St Louis, ill get the post office address. Then, I’ll write out the card and put it in an envelope addressed to the postmaster of that post office and include a note addressed to the post master of that station requesting a hand cancel from their station with the city and zip. When the envelope with the card and note arrive in St Louis Missouri, the postmaster or an employee will stamp the card with the station postmark so it will read St Louis MO and send it on its way. (Most postmasters will just postmark it and send it on its way. There is a very rare chance that others may not and send it back, but many will postmark and forward it on). The cancel when it arrives to its destination will be the cancel of that station you sent it to and it looks like the card was mailed from there. (It was, you just weren’t physically standing in that office). The website collectpostmarks.com has more information on that.
Writing to postmasters is how some people send Guam and Marianas FOTW cards without stepping foot on Guam for example.
Also another way too, look at the postal bulletin. You can also send away for the first day of issue postmark and most have either a picture or not, but also a city and state and the date of issue so it looks like it was sent from a certain part of the US on the date of the issue stamp.
The postal bulletin in Stamp Services also lists pictoral postmarks, which are avaliable for a limited time.
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I don’t mind receiving a card depicturing another place from where a sender lives. Why should the sender be bound to his state? Maybe he can tell me something interesting about it. What makes me really disappointed when nothing aside from “Happy postcrossing” is written on a received card. I appreciate at least few sentences, otherwise no connecting. 
But maybe people can’t write more for some reasons?
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I wouldn’t mind. My opinion is that if the sender sends a postcard from the country they live in it is ok.
When I’m travelling in Norway I usually (means always) buy postcards from where I am (if awailable) and end up with extra. I will use those anyway when I get home.
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Ditto.
In general, people are usually happy with “country of origin”. Strange that it could be different with the US. I certainly don’t mind!
But then, I don’t mind cards sent from the other side of the world either, if that’s what you have at hand. Sometimes, those are rare countries and even cooler than a card from origin. And sometimes, they are boring, but that can happen always, too. If the message and/or stamps are nice, it can still become one of my favourite postcards. 
I love this, too! Even if it is just, “I found this card on my way to work” or “My neighbor didn’t want this card and gave it to me.”
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I also think that’s silly. I have said this before but I can walk to Calais, Maine, USA in 1 minute. I live in Canada. Calais, Maine is the closest place for me to buy postcards and the images actually reflect where I am from. Yet, some people would be happier if I got them a postcard from Vancouver, British Columbia, which takes me 10 days to drive to because it is in Canada. However, BC looks nothing like where I live.
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Can I ask why? That pet peeve seems made up out of thin blue air. National lines mean absolutely nothing to many of us who live in border towns. Wouldn’t you want to know about my actual culture and day-to-day life rather than me send you a card to match a stamp from a place I’ve never actually been? Postcrossing is supposed to be about making connections with people, not about collecting matching cards and stamps.
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Not that you’re obligated to, but just a question. . . If you’re sending to someone who cares about the stamps and postmarks matching the card, couldn’t you also walk back to Maine to mail it? And isn’t US postage a little cheaper anyway?
But then the postcard wouldn’t match my country code. I think that is against the rules. I do believe that you have to send your cards from the country from which you drew the codes. Obviously, I’m not going to permanently be in travel mode.
ETA: I’m also not really obligated to honour every request someone makes, especially if it is inconvenient to me or is not something I want to do.
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Origin isn’t necessarily about postmarks though. I know it can be to some collectors, but in my mind it has more to do with your connection to a place. If you live in X state and send a picture from X state, I couldn’t care less whether it’s postmarked in Y state.
Likewise neighboring states or countries, especially if you live near a border, feel like “from origin” to me, but if I got an Iowa card from New York, I wouldn’t think of that as from origin. It wouldn’t bother me either though, because I’m not picky about such things, but I’m just saying if there was some connection, like “I took a vacation here last year” it would be nice if they wrote that on the card. On the other hand a Mexico card sent from Texas or a Canada card sent from Maine would need no explanation, because I would assume that they probably go there all the time.