APP
OF THE
DAY
Slowly - Make Global Friends
Write Letters & Make Friends
If you miss the delayed gratification of letter writing—but don’t miss all the effort of actually mailing those letters—consider corresponding with Slowly.
The app matches you with people from all over the world who share your favorite conversation topics. Through digital letter writing, you can become old-school pen pals without ever trekking to the post office.
All letters are typed through your iPhone or iPad keyboard and sent digitally, but depending on the distance between pen friends, your letter will take anywhere from two hours to two days to arrive. For example, if you’re in the U.S. and writing to Germany, your letter may take up to 12 hours to get there.
Even though it’s all digital correspondence, Slowly encourages you to choose your words wisely. The format also takes some of the pressure off of responding instantly and makes every letter something to anticipate.
It may feel odd to write a letter to a complete stranger, but a good place to start is with an introduction about yourself and, in turn, posing some open-ended questions to your partner about their life. Use the app’s auto-match feature to find those who share your interests, then filter potential matches by gender, country, or language capability.
Still unsure what to write? You can always talk about stamps! Seriously. Part of the fun of using Slowly is collecting the beautifully illustrated (digital) stamps attached to every letter. There are more than 100 in total—earn them through meeting new people, traveling to new countries, and using the app during the holidays.