Love's the only road to travel

I would like to share a new hobby in which I'm engaged in since two weeks, and it's called Postcrossing. In one sentence: "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world". It means that I can have 5 cards traveling at one particular moment. The more cards you send, the more you will be able to send more cards. It's really fun! I love sending, but of course also receiving postcards. Postcrossing enables me to travel the world without actually going there. Don't get me wrong, I would love to travel to a lot of countries but it's just impossible. As with a lot of hobbies I have this is something I'm really intensely involved with. It's a sport to find cheap, but nice cards and to find a card that fits the person I'm sending it to. Luckily, most people like the same kind of cards. Otherwise, it would be a day job just to find the right cards for each person. Maybe I also want to buy a lot of different stamps, because there are people who like a lot of stamps. But for now, I don't want to rush into it too much, because I just started and it can be a lot of work just writing the postcards.

This is my 'status' in Postcrossing:
- Sent a total of 8 cards to: Belgium (1), Finland (3), U.S. (1), China (1), Hungary (1) and Germany (1). 3 out of 8 arrived so I'm anxiously waiting for the other cards to arrive.
- Received a total of 1 card from: Italy

This is the card I received. It's a beautiful card.



What I think is really striking is the fact that there are a lot of people who don't have the opportunity to engage in this kind of activities and obviously don't think it's that important. This is resembled in the top 10 of the countries who sent most postcards:

1. Finland
2. U.S.
3. Germany
4. Netherlands
5. China
6. U.K.
7. Portugal
8. Japan
9. Taiwan
10. Canada

The bottom five of the list:
177. Svalbard and Jan Mayen
178. San Marino
179. Senegal
180. Samoa
181. Smaller Territories of Chile

And of course, there are also a couple of countries who do not participate in Postcrossing.
Despite these depressing statistics I hope I can send my love to a lot of people all over the world. After all, "Love's the only road to travel".