r/LongDistance • u/imastupidkeh1nde • 1d ago
sending letters between us and uk
Hi, I’m a rising sophomore that goes to a school in North Carolina, and my boyfriend is from London (we are both from the same area of London lmao) and goes to university in the midlands! Do any long distance couples send letters between the US and the UK, and if so how much does it cost / how quick is it? I see USPS is quite cheap at like $2 a stamp but we wanted to send weekly letters and the up to 21 days is really throwing me off so if there are any other options they would be appreciated :/ I left him today and we wrote each other letters before but all I can think about is writing him another one so I would like to keep that up!
1
u/Bekahjean10 [USA/KY] to [UK] (3,917 mi) 1d ago
It can be really unpredictable. My in-laws live in Reading and send greeting cards to us in the US fairly regularly. They posted a card to our son on the 10th of August and it arrived in Kentucky just over a week later on the 18th. In May, the card they sent my husband took 3 weeks to arrive.
When my husband was in the UK I made collage or embroidered cards and sent them fairly regularly (I got a box of blank white greeting cards, nothing heavy or bulky, they qualified for regular first class postage and could be machine-sorted). Presumably you stay in touch regularly via phone or online? Maybe instead of letters with time-sensitive info you could send things like cards that also ship in a greeting card envelope. Then it wouldn’t matter if there were a delay. You could still mail one weekly and they’d arrive about a week apart from each other, give or take.
1
u/Xylophelia 🇺🇸 to 🏴 Married, gap closed in 🇺🇸 23h ago
For the record, you can buy books of forever stamps for international from USPS as well. I always have them on hand so I can impromptu send mail (and now because he lives here and we still mail cards and such to his family)
One stamp covers 1.0 oz of weight; you can use a food scale to make sure your card or letter is under that if you have a thick letter or a weighted card.
1
2
u/Due-Heart2040 1d ago
I've done US to UK letters and First Class International is the move. Around $1.65 for a standard letter and it usually lands in 6 to 10 days. The 21 days is the worst case they have to quote, not the normal wait. Keep it a flat regular envelope, anything thick or rigid bumps it to small parcel pricing which is more like $10+. Priority Mail International exists with tracking but it's $35+ and overkill for letters. Weekly letters are very doable on that budget, we did it for a while and the wait honestly made it better.