#UrbanKidPenPal · a UrbanKID project
Do you want to be my pen-pal?
Real letters, with a stamp, between children around the world.
An envelope in the letterbox, your name handwritten by someone you have not met yet. We match children (and adults) who want to write to each other, by language, age and what they love. Free, by hand, with care.
Sign upHow it started, in 1994
Who is already writing
Every dot is someone waiting for a letter.
The gold lines are friends already matched. The red one was the first: Sinaia, 1994, Cambridge. Dots only show the town, roughly.
How it started
In 1994 I was 13 and had a pen-pal: David G. Kendall, a professor at the University of Cambridge.
I wrote to him about my life at 13; he wrote back long, numbered pages full of life lessons. They came in envelopes we did not have in Romania, with the Queen on the stamp. Only many years later did I learn that David had been the first Professor of Mathematical Statistics at Cambridge.
Now we want our children to get letters that matter, too.
Mihai Dragomirescu · the full story →
How it works
Three steps, then an envelope.
- You sign upTwo minutes: who is writing, their age, languages, what they love and your postal address.
- We match by handWe read every sign-up and look for someone with a shared language, a similar age and interests that meet.
- The first letterYou get your friend’s name, town and address by email. The rest is paper, pencil, a stamp and patience.
Sign up
Let’s find someone to write to.
For children, a parent signs up. Adults can sign up themselves.
- Your address and email never appear on the site.
- The globe only shows the town, roughly, once we have checked the sign-up.
- An adult reads the children’s letters.
- We delete your details whenever you ask.
Questions
What you have already asked us.
Can only children sign up?
No. Many adults told us they would love to get a letter again. Adults are only matched with adults.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. You only pay for the stamps.
How long until we find a friend?
It depends on how many people with the same language and age have signed up. We write as soon as we have a good match.
Can we write in a language other than Romanian?
Yes, and we encourage it. Tick every language the child can write in, even with some help.
What if something is not right?
Write to us at hello@urbankid.ro and we stop the exchange.
Who we are
UrbanKID: a family writing about family, since 2009.
We are Dana and Mihai, from Romania, parents of two curious children. We started UrbanKID in 2009 as a family journal, and it grew into a magazine with more than 6,000 stories, play ideas, children’s writing and guides, written by parents for parents.
We believe being a parent is fun. And we believe a handwritten letter is a small digital detox: in a world full of screens, endless content and text written by AI, an envelope from a real child, with a real stamp, is the most genuine kind of connection we know. #UrbanKidPenPal is how we take it across borders.
Pass it on