Sending and receiving paper mail certainly isn’t what it used to be. People don’t have the patience to sit and write by hand, find a stamp, mail a letter, wait for it to get to its destination, and then wait for a response. But there’s still nothing like getting a real letter in the mail.
Imagine what it must be like, then, to send and receive letters from these cool locations
Picture a mostly bare, rocky island with two black painted wooden buildings and a metal hut. The island itself is only the size of a football field, so you can pretty much see from end to end, if there isn’t too much fog. You may spot a few dozen penguins hanging around the buildings. The harsh wind sweeps through, stealing your breath. You’ve just arrived at Goudier Island in Port Lockroy, Antarctica, located about 7,000 miles south of Argentina. It may not look like much. But you want to write home to tell your family about it. And guess what? You actually can.
A British flag — the Union Jack — flaps and snaps at the end of a tall flagpole in front of the buildings. It’s a post office, often called “the loneliest post office on Earth.” I have no idea how they measure how lonely a post office is. But it is the world’s “most southerly functioning post office,” meaning it’s the post office located farthest south on the globe — and it’s still in operation. And though it may be “lonely” in its location, it’s actually quite popular for a post office. In pre-Covid times, around 18,000 people a year came to visit (and send some mail, because it’s cool to write from such a place).
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