Penpal sites on the net / opinions, anyone?

[penguy]

Welcome, I hope you will stay around and explore the site. There are a lot of avid letter writers here and the site lets you explore all sorts of things related to letter writing, ink, fountain pens, stationery, food, lots of things. A relaxed group I hope you stick around and get to know the everyone.

Retired teacher here, fountain pen user/collector, and a lot of other things.

[Catida]

Feb 10, 2021 16:48:50 GMT Catida said:

After being a member of PenPal World for almost 9 months, I have today, for the first time, actually received a letter from someone in there! Time will tell if this is leading to a long lasting correspondence.

Edit. What's ironic is that I have meanwhile found more than enough penfriends from other places. I guess I should take my profile away. But I didn't want to tell her no when someone finally reached out

I should add an update, that I never got a second letter from this person. So the number of actual penpals found through PenPal World is still zero.

[ginny]

Nov 14, 2021 16:34:10 GMT Catida said:

Feb 10, 2021 16:48:50 GMT Catida said:

After being a member of PenPal World for almost 9 months, I have today, for the first time, actually received a letter from someone in there! Time will tell if this is leading to a long lasting correspondence.

Edit. What's ironic is that I have meanwhile found more than enough penfriends from other places. I guess I should take my profile away. But I didn't want to tell her no when someone finally reached out

I should add an update, that I never got a second letter from this person. So the number of actual penpals found through PenPal World is still zero.

That's pretty disappointing, Catida, isn't it! I have found three reliable penpals through PenPal World, but considering the number of people who contacted me and then never wrote at all, that's still quite a meagre rate. Overall, of all the penpal sites I've seen, Global Penfriends seems to be the one with the highest success rate.

[sastrugi]

I heard a few good things about Reddit and decided to give it a try last weekend. Oh my... big mistake! Maybe I was unlucky but all I got were requests looking for female pen pals to share their wildest fantasies behind their wives' backs...
So far, Interpals is the only place where I never had issues. Plus, you can block people based on different parameters so I feel quite safe there.

[ginny]

That's interesting, sastrugi - a lot of people seem to be rather wary about Interpals these days. I've read a lot of comments from people who said that many folks seem to see it as a dating site (which it really isn't)... I have found some nice people on the platform in the past, but haven't been there in a long time.

[sastrugi]

Dec 6, 2021 9:41:23 GMT ginny said:

That's interesting, sastrugi - a lot of people seem to be rather wary about Interpals these days. I've read a lot of comments from people who said that many folks seem to see it as a dating site (which it really isn't)... I have found some nice people on the platform in the past, but haven't been there in a long time.

I'm very strict with my settings in Interpals and also the filters. I blocked certain areas of the world and I saw an improvement after doing that. No more spam, marriage proposals, etc... I get very few messages and most of them are from great people, I found nice friends.

[ginny]

Has anybody had a look at Global Penfriends lately? They have revamped their platform, and I must say that it's much nicer to look at, also in the mobile version, and there are a few features that have improved. I hadn't been there in a while but received a message recently, so I checked in.

One improvemenet is: as a free member, you couldn't see more than the last 100 conversations that you had (obviously not a big deal if you haven't had much communication there, but I got a lot of messages from different people over the past 2 years or so - it was definitely more than 100 different conversations!) - now they are all visible, unless you delete them, of course.

Also, their layout is more easy on the eyes.

[superpenpal]

Hey, just saw this post and thought i should provide some feedback. Ginny - i too noticed the changes at Global Penfriends. I have been a long term member and was pleasantly surprised when i saw the new look site. Global Penfriends has always been a great resource for me to find penpals, but it lacked a good interface. The changes GPF have made are fantastic and now they not only function great - but looks great too.

I became a premium member just before the changes and noticed that they introduced a cool new features that I have always been wanting. Now you can archive your conversations to pdf file. This allows me to save my correspondence for later - just like I would my penpal letters sent via post.

Oh - and now they are logging any snail mail letters sent - just like postcrossing. You send your item by post - flag it as being sent and then when the recipient receives their item - they log it in. Its a nifty feature.

Hope this helps.

[ginny]

Dec 8, 2022 6:14:47 GMT superpenpal said:

Hey, just saw this post and thought i should provide some feedback. Ginny - i too noticed the changes at Global Penfriends. I have been a long term member and was pleasantly surprised when i saw the new look site. Global Penfriends has always been a great resource for me to find penpals, but it lacked a good interface. The changes GPF have made are fantastic and now they not only function great - but looks great too.

I became a premium member just before the changes and noticed that they introduced a cool new features that I have always been wanting. Now you can archive your conversations to pdf file. This allows me to save my correspondence for later - just like I would my penpal letters sent via post.

Oh - and now they are logging any snail mail letters sent - just like postcrossing. You send your item by post - flag it as being sent and then when the recipient receives their item - they log it in. Its a nifty feature.

Hope this helps.

I did notice the snail mail log feature. Personally, I'm not using it (I use an old fashioned notebook for logging my letters), but I can see how people find it useful. Do you use it, superpenpal? All in all, the new look is a lot more attractive, and I'm sure that brings them more traffic.

[hoyabella]

Sendsomething.Net is running again!
Although I am not looking for correspondents, I am so glad 😀

[hoyabella]

Is anyone familiar with epistolia.com/ ?

[ginny]

Feb 3, 2023 9:50:04 GMT hoyabella said:

Is anyone familiar with epistolia.com/ ?

I've never heard of the site before. Had a look, and it seems interesting if you are OK with the risk of getting mismatched (that being said, I've been matched up with some wonderful people at random in penpal exchanges while contacts with people I picked myself have not lasted, so there's always some kind of risk and no guarantee, I'd say).

If you give them a try, hoyabella, keep us posted on your experiences!

[distractedmom]

Feb 3, 2023 9:50:04 GMT hoyabella said:

Is anyone familiar with epistolia.com/ ?

I’m intrigued except for the recommendation of exchanging a minimum of 1-2 letters per month. I’d never be able to do that. Some of you have been waiting months for a single letter from me. 

[Gary S]

I always hesitate when a site demands handwritten mail from potential members. I've had letters returned as unreadable due to how small I write no matter that it's printed and fairly neatly written. A few of the folks on here have seen samples of my normal handwriting so know of that which I speak. I can write smaller if I try but my regular font is very small. katiel is one of the few that I've seen that writes in a similar size font.

[hoyabella]

Feb 3, 2023 19:50:32 GMT distractedmom said:

I’m intrigued except for the recommendation of exchanging a minimum of 1-2 letters per month. I’d never be able to do that. 

Same for me, that writing rate is not feasible at present (and, apparently, neither is for almost all of my correspondents, present and past - and that seem to work, anyway 🙂 ).
Plus, I am not looking for new penpals, at least not actively.

Ginny, you are right, I, too, have experienced that choosing a potential penpal on the basis of common interests, catchy ad or whatever criteria is no guarantee of a successful correspondence, and vice-versa random matching may work.