While I think that sending physical mail is something that is becoming less and less common in favor of electronic communication, I do have a handful of people in my life who I send and receive mail from, usually greeting cards or postcards. It’s fun to find these short personal messages in the mailbox!
When we sold our house and began this slow travel experiment, we retained a mailing address for financial purposes. It is essentially a post office box operated by a private mail service and whenever we receive mail at that address, the envelope is scanned and sent to us electronically. If we like, we can request to have the contents scanned as well, or forwarded to another address if necessary. Since we only plan to be in the U.S. a couple of times a year, we only have the opportunity to see and touch our mail that often. That was a little disappointing for some loved ones to hear.
But even if I can’t receive mail, maybe I can still send mail to them from around the world! I decided to try.
Correos de Mexico
There are drop boxes scattered throughout Mexico City if you know what you are looking for, and plenty of places to purchase souvenir postcards. The challenge was postage. I imagine if we’d been staying in a hotel, someone at the front desk could have helped me with this, but we were in an Airbnb. I searched online for post office locations (called Correos de Mexico here). The closest was inside a shopping mall about a 20 minute walk from our apartment. (Another option that might have been cool would have been to mail them from the historic Palacio Postal, but I wasn’t sure if we would make it over there since it meant facing the crowds at the Zócalo.)
The office was a little run-down looking, as many post office branches in the US can be, but once we got inside and greeted the man at the counter, he and the other woman working there were warm and helpful, communicating with a mix of Spanish and body language.
I mailed four postcards to the United States for about .75 USD each on May 27. How long will they take to cross the border and reach their destinations?
