A pen pal is someone you write letters to regularly, even though you live far apart and might never meet in person. Before email and texting existed, having a pen pal was one of the few ways to make friends with someone from another city, state, or country.

The tradition works like this: you write a letter sharing news about your life, your interests, and what things are like where you live. Your pen pal writes back with their own stories. Over time, through these back-and-forth letters, you get to know each other and build a real friendship, despite the distance.

Many schools used to arrange pen pal programs where students would exchange letters with kids in other countries. You might have a pen pal in Japan who tells you about their school day, or one in France who describes what their town looks like. These friendships helped people understand what life was like in other places and sometimes lasted for years.

Today, people sometimes use “pen pal” to describe email friendships too, though technically those would be e-pals or keypals. But there's something special about a handwritten letter arriving in your mailbox: it means someone took time to sit down, think about you, and carefully write out their thoughts just for you.