You probably all know this situation: Coming home, seeing that there is something in your mailbox. The exciting feeling when you open your mail box. And then.. the disappointment because it was just another advertising flyer or a bill.

But sometimes you find something personal in your mailbox. A letter. Or a postcard. I am one of the persons who really loves to receive (and of course also to send) real handwritten letters and postcards.  I have had pen pals for a long time already. I can’t remember when I started this but it has definitely become one of my hobbies.

Not all correspondences with pen pals were long lasting but I made some good friends and met some really interesting people. Over the time I have gained some experience with pen pal pages in the internet. I am still member of some and I decided to introduce those to you. This might make it easier for you if you decide to look for a pen pal yourself 🙂

Please note: This post is quite old already. The pages are sometimes changing or vanishing. I am trying to update this post every now and then. But since I am not really looking for new penpals at the moment I am not that active on these pages. So.. if you notice some changes on one of these pages, please let me know!

I hope this entry is maybe somewhat helpful for those who are looking for snail mail exchange. 🙂

Postcrossing

Before I start with the “classic” penpal pages I would like to introduce some other concept to you. This is not about snail mail exchange in terms of long lasting friendship. This is about sending and receiving post cards without any obligations. And I totally love this page, because I just have to list it here.

The idea is simple: Send a postcard, receive a postcard. After you have signed up and created a profile you can request up to 7 addresses. Next you have to send a post card to each of this address. You will get the profile of the people you are going to send a postcard to. Most of them have some postcard preferences listed on their profile. I always try to find them motives they have listed.

Along with the address you receive a code you have to put on the postcard. This way the receiver can register it as soon as he receives it. In order to receive a postcard yourself you have to have sent at least one postcard. You won’t get a post card from a person you have send one to. This is totally random.

I can really recommend this page to anyone who likes to receive postcards from all over the world 🙂

The postcards I have received so far

Brieffreunde.de

Brieffreunde.de says to be international but I haven’t found any option to change the language yet, so it is only for German speakers. At least so far. Who knows, maybe they will translate it at some point?

I am quite new to this community but I really like it. It has the options of creating a very detailed profile, you could even write a blog there, but of course your profile does not have to be that detailed.

One thing I really like about the page is that you can join groups of interest. I joined one group saying something about looking for snail mail pen pals. And this way it was quite easy to find some good pen pals.

Interpals

I started using Interpals some years ago. I really like this page even though it sometimes also annoys me. Here you can find everything. It is basically a community, a bit like facebook but here it is easier to find friends from all over the world.

Interpals has a forum and a chat. The search option is very good and can be very detailed. As I said, you can find there anything you want. Snail mail pen pals, e-mail pen pals, language exchange, just friends to chat.

The only thing that annoys me here is similar to the one on ePenpal: I receive many messages saying only “hi”. I mostly ignore those.

Anyways. I can recommend this page.

Update from March 2021: The page does not have a forum anymore which is kind of sad. For people like me who don’t really like to send messages to any random person the forum was the place to find penpals. The rest is still as it was though 🙂

Penpal Gate

Penpal-Gate is probably the pen pal community I have known the longest. I have found some pen pals there and I am still in contact with one of them (via facebook by now). But this page also doesn’t seem to be so active anymore. Or maybe I just became too old because the age group there seems to be mostly younger than 20.

This page has a forum and a chat. The search function is quite good and it is easy to use.

Update from October 2021: The page has changed a lot. People are more active again and the age range has also increased again. Also this pages has added some new features like a travel map.

Mailfriends.com

Mailfriends.us used to be quite good to find pen pals but unfortunately it is not really active anymore. At least not in the category of snail mail pen pals. What is good about this page is that it is quite easy to use and it has different categories you can look for. You can find pen pals, e-mail pen pals, travelbuddies, language exchange, people for sports and activities and there is even an option for flirts and relationships. The age group seems to be mostly 40+.