I once read a book in childhood titled, There's No Such Place as Faraway by Richard Bach...and after corresponding with people all over America and the world, I honestly feel I could apply that title to my adventures via penpalling. My love affair with correspondence started when I was 10 and exchanged letters with a young boy from India; I felt I was leaving my narrow world in the American South and experiencing a foreign culture through his words. That proved to be an interesting friendship, but gradually diminished when we both became teens.
Read this work at the World Public Library (library card needed).