I recently joined several websites that offer international penpal ads for free. It didn't cost me anything and for the sake of "Internet Safety" I used a free email account at yahoo so that if I received anything I found alarming or something that I would rather not deal with, I can block their email and be online without worry of stalking or harassment. So far I have written to a very nice lady in England, replied to a lady who wrote me from Scotland and had a few responses from Korea and one from India.
Maybe you have never considered pursuing a venture such as this, but consider the possibilities! You can go to the Library and read about foreign lands and cultures, but it isn't quite the same as being there yourself (or growing up there for that matter). We all have within us the ability to learn, to expand our horizons and you never grow to old to connect with other people, even with people half way around the world via the Internet.
If this were something I was going to pursue off-line I would have had to pay to register with a service and I would have had the expense (and time) of paying for overseas postage etc. The delay in response is minimal (most countries are several hours behind or ahead of the United States so I may mail them while they are sleeping and will not get a reply until they are up and about their day. You can find links to some of the providers of this service in my link section.
If you have never considered doing something like this but would like to try, keep in mind the following things.
1) Use an email account from a free provider (such as: http://www.hotmail.com or http://www.yahoo.com) The providers of these services have no control over what type of response you may get from some malicious person on the net. At worst, you can shut down the free account without worry. If you do use your ISP address, you are putting yourself at risk for harassment. Once you have established a relationship with people you plan to write to
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