Pen pals (or penpals, pen-pals, penfriends or pen friends) are people who regularly write to each other, particularly via postal mail.

Purposes

A penpal relationship is often used to practice reading and writing in a foreign language, to improve literacy, to learn more about other countries and life-styles, and to make friendships. As with any friendships in life, some people remain penpals for only a short time, while others continue to exchange letters and presents for life. Some penpals eventually arrange to meet face to face; sometimes leading to serious relationships, or even marriage.

Penpals come in all ages, nationalities, cultures, languages and interests. Pals may seek new penfriends based on their own age group, a specific occupation, hobby, or select someone totally different from them to gain knowledge about the world around them.

A modern variation on the traditional penpal arrangement is to have a keypal / epal and exchange email addresses as well as or instead of paper letters. This has the advantage of saving money and being more immediate, allowing many messages to be exchanged in a short period of time. The disadvantage is that the communication can be very ephemeral if the email messages are not routinely saved. Many people prefer to receive paper letters, gaining the satisfaction of seeing their name carefully printed on a thick envelope in the letterbox. Using postal mail, it is possible to trade coupons, swap slips, postcards, stamps and anything else light and flat enough to fit inside an envelope, often called "tuck-ins". Many penpallers like to trade sheets of stickers, notecards and stationery sets.