My name is Anne and I was born and raised in a small village in the Netherlands, which resulted in my lack of knowledge about the world. Now, however, at 20 years old and a student at an international University, I am more curious to meet new people from across the globe and I do this through pen palling.  

In my small village were little to no residents from other countries or cultures even, I grew up in a very typical Dutch, farmer bubble. The bubble I lived in only made my dream of moving far away from home to another country grow, though back then I still had no idea of the difference in people and cultures that I would be faced with there. It started as just a regular, naïve, childhood dream. 

Making new friends 

Since my childhood in a small Dutch farming village, I have gotten to know more about the world, even studied the basics about difference in cultures and made a few friends on the internet who live in the United States. Though I feel like we talk less and less each year.  

When you happen to meet someone new, it is often a thrill to talk to them the first few weeks after meeting. They do not know your life story yet, do not judge you and are more than eager to make time for longer and deeper conversations. However, as time goes by, that once exciting contact dilutes as it is not that interesting anymore and the messages get lost in between the others.  

Pen palling is a much more exciting and unique way of communicating and connecting with each other.

Sometimes you have to wait weeks for a reply, but that makes it more fun as you spread out the conversations over a longer period of time. You take the time to write a little story, which leads to such interesting and inspiring conversations and it gets so personalized as you will not have the same conversation with everyone you talk to.  

Penpal.me 

I use the website called Penpal.me, which kind of works like Tinder, you can even swipe left and right. But on here you can find pen pal friends instead of possible love interests. Though I think some people also use it to do this, so feel free to join them.  

On PenPal.me you can add your interests and find people who share these. Upload pictures and add a description about yourself.  

I, for example, added that I have an unhealthy obsession with cows and now I’ve got tons of people sending me cards on which is a picture of their cow, or they have included a book recommendation, you should really read “The Secret Life of Cows”. With others I talk about music that we like or about places we have visited.  

The concept of Penpal.me is that you make a card online and you can even personalize it start to finish as you can include a picture on the front that represents the content of the letter you put on the back. They then print and send this card to your pen pal with priority mail, granting you privacy of your address and the luxury of not having to hand write a whole letter and going to the post box or office. This all for just 2 euro’s per card.  

There are people from across the globe on this platform, which is nice if you are planning to travel.

You can meet people from the area you want to visit on here with whom you can exchange letters in order to get to know more about the area or even find someone who wants to be your guide. 

On the occasion that you would like to correspond through hand written letters with a trusted pen pal, you can just exchange your addresses through the messages function.  

And if all of this is not spicy enough for your liking and you want to get an even more interesting Pen Pals, there is always the option to seek out communication with inmates through their special Pen Pal programs. Like Meet-An-Inmate where you can, find both female and male inmates, who’ve committed various crimes, to connect with. That ought to be a key to interesting conversations.  

Kind regards, 

Anne