As someone from South Africa. Our postal system isn’t as efficient as it used to be. Also, the lack of advertising and promoting of the post office and such hobbies/interests are rarely seen
However, our mail system may be slow but they eventually get there
I’d love a mail piece with a Nepalese stamp, but they’re so hard to come across. Nepal stamps are kinda harder to get now
Like others have mentioned, there is a number of reasons. This hobby is all about patience. It took four years for me before I received my first card from South Africa. Now I have done this over seven years (and over thousand cards) and I haven’t sent any card there. Even in Europe there is still countries where I have not received or sent cards.
A postcard is essentially just a picture, so if I wanted pictures from Africa or somewhere else ‘exotic’, then you sending me a card from the US would be fine. But really, I could just go online and look at pictures there. For those who want more than just a picture, an American sending an African card from the US just doesn’t have the same allure as an African sending an African card from Africa.
@borealis Perhaps. But what you are saying is that the stamp and postmark are important. The cost of mailing postcards by themselves is getting crazy. What I have done with some traders here is let them pick a card(s) from another country in my album(s), I then affix used stamps from that country (if I have them) on the cards, write a message on it, insert them in an envelope and off they go.
No, what I’m saying is that for a non-collector like myself, getting a card from an ‘exotic’ place is about getting a card from a person in that place. Many Postcrossers don’t care about stamps, postmarks OR postcards in themselves, they are here to connect with people. And on this particular site, hearing from Americans isn’t exactly unusual, so getting an exotic card from you just wouldn’t be a big deal.
I understand that for a collector it might not matter, simply because if a card fills a hole in a collection, why would one care where it was sent from. It’s all about understanding that we’re all different, with different reasons for being here. A missed opportunity for you, is a silly option for some - and vice versa.
Yes, precisely, that’s also how I see it. It’s that “Wow, this card has really been in country X and it was put into a mailbox there by someone and travelled from there to me” aspect. If I just wanted a printed picture, I could print one from the internet myself 
One of my recently sent cards went to a PXer who asked for “rare country” cards regardless of where they were sent from so I sent them one that I purchased in Papua New Guinea some years ago. Some PXers would prefer an exotic card actually sent from its country of origin. Being a fan of postal history I can understand why a card that shows evidence of being sent from PNG is more interesting than an unused one or one sent from Australia.
My wife has cards on her received wall bearing ID codes of Ecuador and Congo - the former was stamped and posted in Mexico and the latter from the USA. In our experience you have to be very lucky to receive exotic cards actually sent from the country whose ID appears on the card.
People like to collect postcards for a variety of reasons. If I am sending postcards from my location then I send as a stamped written card. If I am sending someone a card for another location (at their request) then I send in an envelope, written or unwritten as they prefer and I tell them in advance this is how I would do it because it seems odd to send a stamped postcard from a random geographical location. The joy of knowing a card came from a specific person in a specific place in the world is special. But it is also fun when you “connect” with another avid collector and trade cards from your collections with each other. A beautiful postcard is not the same as a picture if you love postcards. For me, I enjoy looking through my albums and remembering how I acquired the different cards and the people who have helped me build my collection through the years.
This. I stopped Postcrossing for a few years because the price of stamps went up so high so quickly and I needed a lie down every time I thought about it.
I’m back now because I’ve managed to not think about it 
Apart from the savings, one of the reasons I like the auspost pre-paid postcards and maxicards is it divorces the purchase of the postage from the sending - at the time of writing a card, I’m not thinking about the price anymore… when I have to stick a stamp on a regular card, it really hits me.
And they are much cheaper than purchasing an international stamp! My local Post Office has them at $2.40 and that includes worldwide postage. I notice on the AU Post online shop currently there are several series that work out at $1.85 each including worldwide postage.
I’m just going to look… just look…
Very well said. In fact I even feel that way about local friends offering to send me cards while on vacation in rare countries. They’re welcome to of course, any mail is kind of fun, but I’m really trying to collect little messages from people who live all over this beautifully diverse world. Someone I know from my hometown mailing a card from the far side of the world is not really the same, even though it carries the appropriate stamps and postmark, so they don’t need to put themselves out on my account.
Talking about Brazil, I don’t think postcrossing is very popular due to many reasons. I only heard of it because I’m a member of a few penpal groups and saw people talking about it, which got me interested in being a part of it. Another thing about postcards in Brazil is that they’re not very easy to find and to be honest people don’t really care about them (some don’t even know you can still send postcards). I live in a touristic city (Rio de Janeiro) and all we find at local stores here are touristic cards, so it’s not very easy to fulfill other postcrosser’s wishes when they say they don’t want these types of cards. About postage costs, we’ve recently had our prices raised, but for me in particular it’s still reasonable to keep sending cards, although it might be a bit expensive for some people. Plus, not everyone speaks English here (to be honest I think most people do not have this skill), which can also be a barrier in exchanging postcards.
Is there any way to choose a country to send to?
Thanks
Penny
Fortunately no there isn’t . It’s all random
Unless you play tag games here in the forum
Ah ok thanks for the heads up.
Funny thing is that i wanted someone from Ukraine and i just drew someone from there 5 minutes ago!!!
Wow that must be your luck 
Hope the receiver will be very happy when he/she receives it 
Actually a lot of countries in Europe are quite rare too. Denmark is quite rare, probably because stamps are expensive, around € 3.