Indeed, it is disappointing but I am lucky, I am just staying in Egypt for a few months, but for the local postcrossers, it is really problematic, knowing that sending a postcard is very expensive here. Three years ago, it cost 10 Egyptian pounds (it corresponds to one kilogram of banana), and now itās 80 pounds. I know an Egyptian who send and receive postcards/letters from time to time, and all the registered envelopes she receives are open before by the postal services (to check whatās inside), and she even has to pay to obtain itā¦ She stopped Postcrossing now because it is really too expansive, but told me that before stopping, the postman would ask her every time she saw her: āWhy do you keep sending letters? Donāt you have more interesting or fun hobbies?ā.
So itās definitely not easy to be a postcrosser in Egypt!
I was wondering about this. Iāll be travelling to a couple of rare countries this summer, and Iām wondering how far in advance I needed to stop sending cards to open as many slots as possible (Iāll only have 6 since Iām still very new to this - in fact, Iām still waiting to receive my first card!)
I wouldnāt call it weird at all many postcrossers like to do the same, even with US national parks. Thereās series of postcards - like those from Paper Sisters and FOTW - that seem to be a goal, too.
My goal may sound a bit out of the ordinary compared with that of many Postcrossers.
In writing postcards to strangers, I aim at getting myself inured to small talk, to conversing with others in a socially appropriate way across cultures and languages.
In my daily life, I speak very little but given time and a dictionary, I can write a great deal. This ābadā habit may have something to do with the pathologies I have suffered from since early childhood, namely OCD and autism. One aspect of OCD is perfectionism. When expressing myself, I always feel that I have not explored the idea thoroughly ā nothing is ever complete, good, or simply perfect enough. For instance, when writing a college-level essay on a certain topic, I would be obsessed with each single detail surrounding it, and people often thought I was writing a PhD thesis. My sentences get longer and longer, and structure more and more complex, to the point of sounding pedantic. Once in my life, I meant to apologise for an offense committed in my youth (somehting that appears to be so insignificant that the person had long since forgotten), and I ended up writing a 200-page letter / confession because there were so many things I wanted to explain.
To some extent, I kind of praise myself for being capable of writing such things. I mean, they are beautiful prose, but very few people can read them without the slightest uneasiness. (If anyone is interested, there are some of my youthful writing samples on my website under āwritingā.)
So, I want to train myself in writing succinctly by maximizing meaning while minimising expression. Regular-sized postcards are the perfect medium for this practice: space is too small for developing a Theory of Everything but ample enough for introducing myself and greeting others. I am also training myself to deduce what the recipients would be pleased to receive by reading their profiles. Ordinary people may not have much trouble coming up with such intuition, but I as an autist have really struggled throughout my life to āread peopleās mindā. As I have confessed elsewhere, I think so far I am the one who wrote things that others didnāt enjoy reading, but I think I am improving, though slowly.
Folded cards or letters would be out of question, because I will just keep adding pages to them
As an āordinary personā I can relate to a lot of the things you mentioned. My small talk skills have drastically improved over the years, haha. During the first few years I never knew what to write on the postcard (or I was inspired but then it would be too long and wouldnāt fit the small space). It has become so much easier now! I still struggle with hurray messages though. Thatās my next challege, haha.
Well you canāt blame them, 200 pages is already a book
A hurray message is the message you write the sender when you register their postcard (when your postcard is registered you receive an email titled āHurray! Your postcard ID to Country arrived!ā with that message. So people call it a hurray message). I would like to write more than just something like āThank you, I like your postcardā to make it more personal but it is difficult for me to think of something more to say.
Greetings to all! In addition to the exchange of postcards, I like to track their ādifficultā path. Here is one example . From the Russian Federation to Mexico, the postcard went through two transit countries: Serbia and Netherlands, and returned through one country -
Latvia
I want to get to ā30 traveling cardsā. That way I can plan to send a card a day. But Iām far from that, too. I am juuuuussssstttt waiting for one more of my sent cards to arrive to put me at 13. I havenāt done the math yet to figure out how many sent cards will get me to 30 Traveling, but at the pace my official cards are going, it will probably be years!
many postcrossers like to do the same, even with US national parks. Thereās series of postcards - like those from Paper Sisters and FOTW - that seem to be a goal, too.
And spread some joy besides! 
