In July, I made a trip out to visit the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru.
I was inspired by the Postcrossing Blog Posts about Acclax sending the first postcards from South Georgia and Andry1961 driving across the continent of Africa and mailing postcards from each country along the way. I knew I wanted to do something similar- bringing Postcrossing to countries that hadn’t had any postcards sent from them yet. I did a lot of research on each and decided that Nauru would be the best to visit.
I started researching Nauru and planing for the trip in March to have everything ready to go in July. I couldn’t find a lot of information about tourists visiting Nauru because it is the “World’s Least-Visited Country” according to some websites, but I eventually got in touch with Nauru Airlines and asked them to how to visit Nauru, and they provided me the application form for a Nauruan tourist visa, which I had to fill out and then mail to the Nauru consulate in Brisbane, Australia. I filled out the application and sent it off, and a few weeks later I got an email saying that my visa had been granted!
The next step was figuring out how to get there. Nauru is very remote so there are only a few flights in and out per week, going to and from Brisbane, Australia; Nadi, Fiji; and Majuro, Marshall Islands via Tarawa, Kiribati. I decided to fly through Majuro and Tarawa because the flight schedule was lined up so that I could visit Nauru, spend one night there, and then continue onwards to Brisbane the next day.
To get there I first had to fly from my hometown of Houston, Texas, USA to Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. This flight took about 7 hours!
Once I got to Honolulu, I had to spend a night there before continuing onward to Majuro because that flight only operates in the morning, so it isn’t possible to fly all the way out there in one day. My hotel had postcards available for guests!
The next morning, I went to the airport to fly from Honolulu to Majuro, Marshall Islands. This flight took about 5 hours and is part of the United Airlines “Island Hopper” service, which is a flight from Honolulu, Hawaii to Guam that makes stops along the way in Majuro and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands and then Pohnpei and Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia before completing the journey in Guam. This is an important flight that delivers supplies to these smaller countries and also serves as an important connection to Hawaii and onward to the mainland United States for people living there. It is common for many coolers to be loaded on the flight because people bring fish from the islands to Guam and Hawaii and then return with the coolers full of meat.
While many people were taking the flight through the whole journey to Guam, I got off at the first stop in Majuro to spend the day exploring the island before continuing onward to Nauru the next morning.
Mail for the Marshall Islands is handled by the US Postal Service, so you can use postage stamps from either the Marshall Islands Postal Service or the US Postal Service when sending mail. I stopped by the post office at the airport to mail my postcards.
I went on the hunt for postcards to buy in Majuro but didn’t have any luck at the shops around the island. Majuro isn’t a major tourist destination, so there’s not a big postcard industry there. However, the island was beautiful and I enjoyed visiting!
The next day I flew from Majuro to Tarawa, Kiribati and then onward to Nauru.
The flight had a brief stop in Tarawa and I hoped to mail the postcards but there was not a mailbox at the airport so I held onto them and mailed them later. This is a photo of Tarawa from above.
The next stop was Nauru! The flight arrived in the evening, so the post office was already closed for the day so I did some exploring.
The next morning I went to the Post Office. There are 3 post offices in Nauru but only the largest main post office was open when I went because it was a Saturday.
The international postcard postage rate was $1.50 AUD (about $1 USD or .90 EUR). For most of the postcards, I used a $1 fish stamp with a $0.50 Butterfly stamp because they were fun and colorful.
Postcards were also available for sale for $3 AUD each
The post office had a great selection of stamps available- several binders full of sheets in almost every stamp design ever issued by Nauru
The main post office also serves as a sort of general store / drugstore selling all kinds of supplies including suitcases, coolers, food and drinks, tools, and even TVs.
I mailed the postcards from the post office counter
The post office clerks were very helpful and friendly and said that they had never seen anyone mail that many postcards at once before!
After visiting the post office it was time to get ready to go back to the airport and continue onward to Brisbane, Australia.
I regret to report that I did not find any mailboxes to take photos of in any of these 3 countries, I think you might have to just hand your outgoing mail to a letter carrier making deliveries or to the clerk at the post office counter.
When leaving Nauru, I got a nice view and could see the entire country at once out of the plane window. Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world, behind Vatican City and Monaco, so it is the smallest country outside of Europe.
Big thanks to Ana and Paulo for helping make sure everything went smoothly!
The first postcard from Nauru to arrive was Postcard NR-10 which arrived in Australia after traveling for 79 days!
This is a brief recap of the trip but I also recorded a podcast episode about the whole thing (it’s 45 minutes long!) If you’re interested in listening to that, you can find it here- Trevor Talks - Postcards from Nauru | RSS.com
It’s also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts (for free of course) and you can find it by searching “Postcards from Nauru”.
Thanks for reading!
I wish this was a common practice in other places as well, where you can choose stamps yourself from such a lot of variety at the post office. Where I live in Spain they hand you in whatever stamps they have and look at you strange if you ask for other stamps available.