How to send postcards in the Netherlands

How to send postcards in the Netherlands I must confess, I did not expect to have to write this post ever.

But, it turns out that the Dutch have made it a surprisingly weird process, that some guidance is required for the innocent tourist, wanting to send an old school postcard to his friends or family.

1. Buy a postcard

The first step, obviously, is to buy a postcard.

Surprisingly, this is very hard. You will find celebration/birthday/... cards pretty much everywhere, but postcards are extremely hard to find.

No supermarket, no post shop sells them. Your only luck will be to find one of those tourist shops (the one that sell magnets and other silly tourist gadgets), or to find those hipster second hand clothing shops, who will tend to send postcards made by some local artist.

If all fails, Amazon.nl can deliver postcards within a day or two.

Postcards in the Netherlands usually cost between €1 and €3.

2. Buy a stamp

The second step is to buy a stamp.

You might think: "easy, I'll just go to the post shop", wrong. In the Netherlands, stamps are only sold at the help desk of the main grocery chain: Albert Heijn.

Once there, make sure to ask for International Stamps, the national ones being invalid for abroad recipients.

3. Write your card

No need required here :)

4. Go to a mailbox

Time for the final step. Go to the nearest mailbox and just drop the postcard in it. Luckily, mailboxes can be easily found via Google Maps.

And that's it, you've just sent a postcard from the Netherlands!

Hope this will help the next postcard-fanatic! And please, keep sending postcards :)