Ask Ms Nel: How To Find A Penfriend

Finding a snail mail pen friend used to be quite straight forward. All one had to do was to check out the personal columns of news papers and magazines and write to any pen pal clubs who had their adverts there but the internet changed all that. People deserted snail mail pen friend clubs in favor of internet dating sites however there are people who are not computer savvy or prefer to correspond with others the old-fashioned way, the advantages of this are the dangers of internet dating compared with correspondence by letter. What can be more personal than receiving a handwritten letter through the post?

So how does one make the initial contact when there are so few in any correspondence clubs advertised in the newspapers? The most obvious answer to that is to do a Google search of pen friend clubs. I know that may sound contradictory to my earlier statements but some snail mail pen friend clubs have gone online but have still retained a snail mail option. Some safe guards need to be put in place when making any initial contact online and that includes not using an email address in any ads you place or set up a separate email address for the sole purpose of finding a pen pal.

Writing to the editors of overseas newspapers is another way to find some pen friends. Again you can do a Google search to find the addresses of local newspapers in the areas where you would like to make new friends. This can result in some inquiries.

Another option is that you can make the initial contact through dating sites but request in your profile that you are seeking snail mail pen friends. There will be a certain number of people who prefer contact in this way.

I first began writing to pen pals in 1985 after noticing an ad for a pen pal club in a British magazine and ended up subscribing to their contact magazine. Most of the ads in the magazine were from the United Kingdom. I wrote to several who advertised but my biggest responses came when I placed my own ad in the magazine. I got up to around 30 replies from some of the ads I placed and some I clicked with and got around to meeting up with them when I traveled over to the United Kingdom. Other people who have began writing as pen pals ended up being married to them whether that was their intention or not, who knows? It just shows you that a fascinating hobby such as writing to pen pals can have a major impact of where your life goes.

Corresponding with people from other countries and other cultures can be a rewarding an interesting hobby. It can be a life-changing hobby as some people have discovered. There are fewer pen pal type publications available these days due to the popularity of dating sites and those that remain, have an online presence. One such site which has some valuable information on pen palling is http://www.penpalsnz.weebly.com Here you will find details of my pen pal booklet and some tips on pen palling in general.