Commentary: In praise of piXPost

Last month, having occasion to travel overseas on holiday and seeking to avoid the harsh winter temps of inland Europe, I spent ten nights in Italy. Originally my plan was to stay exclusively in Naples, but on the advice of numerous friends and colleagues I ended up dividing my time between Naples and Rome. I left Israel Saturday, January 10th with my trusted CabinZero backpack and a return flight scheduled for the morning of January 20th.

It had been twelve years since the last time I traveled in Italy. In the summer of 2013 I had visited Milan, Turin and Genoa en-route to the French Alps. My phone in those days was a Nokia 5630 ExpressMusic, which sported a 2.2-inch color display and a numeric keypad with joystick. Although smartphones and Google Maps were already a part of the travel experience back then, two apps that figured prominently in this year's travel experience were not: Google Gemini and piXPost.

Jerusalem | Vienna | Bratislava | Budapest
2025: Amir Afsai

Launched in June 2025, piXPost was developed by Graham Beck of Exploring Stamps as part of his mission to make philately social, interactive and fun. At its core, the app invites users to photograph sites of philatelic significance around the world and share the photos publicly. The user gives each photo a name and can include an expanded description or sentimental message, and the photo is linked to a pin on a world map that the app's other users can then view and interact with.

My first upload to the app was in July 2025: a pillarbox behind Jerusalem's main post office. Later that month, while traveling with my brother in Europe, I added sites in Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. At the time, it wasn't possible to take photos directly from the app. This was a deterrent to frequent use because it meant that, unless subsequently deleted, the photos taken would remain on the user's phone, occupying valuable storage space. Thankfully, the camera is now integrated into piXPost's UI and, like Snapchat, piXPost stores the captured photos and videos on its own servers.

Capri postcards
Left: "Capri by Night," Carcavallo/Pro.Gra.Ms. #2348
Right: "Cartolina un Maschietto," Carcavallo/Spedisci Qualita #C/205

Mailboxes and post offices are stationary landmarks. Once pinned on the piXPost map, there is little incentive to return to them beyond the postal service they provide. Stamp Quest, released as an update to piXPost in December 2025, changed that. By scattering virtual stamps at random pins around the world for users to collect, and redistributing them on a four-day cycle, piXPost transformed its landmarks into exciting sites of pilgrimage. When a piXPoster navigates to a green-colored pin, the stamp hosted at the site is collected and added to a personal in-app virtual album.

One of the pros of traveling solo is the freedom to be spontaneous, to formulate and change plans without regard for another person's expectations. When I queried Google Gemini for a cheap Indian restaurant in Naples, the results it suggested initially seemed too far to be practical. But when a green pin appeared halfway to one of those restaurants, the matter was settled: Samia Indian-Bangla Restaurant became my go-to for tasty, filling meals in Naples. The walk to Samia not only rewarded me with a virtual stamp but also revealed a reality of Naples I would otherwise not have been confronted with. Similarly, when I walked from my accommodations at The RomeHello to the Vatican, rather than take the shortest path, I followed a path charted by Stamp Quest's green pins and was afforded a glimpse into areas of the capital whose charm I otherwise would have missed. In Capri Island's Anacapri, I beheld arguably the world's densest concentration of postboxes, with one lurking behind virtually every corner, and eventually had to stop documenting them for piXPost because my battery was dying. On my last day in Rome, having time to burn before my train back to Naples, I again let Stamp Quest be my compass, and it's thanks to the app that I discovered the authentically hip area around Piazza della Madonna dei Monti.

Left: "Vesuvio," Daniele Minopoli Editore #EM_G_102
Right: "Civita di Bagnoregio," Edizioni Archidee

No app is perfect. Even Google Gemini, an indispensable resource when it comes to travel planning, botched my transit schedule on multiple occasions, resulting in precious hours wasted. The two highlights of my visit to Italy were day trips – from Naples to Mount Vesuvius and from Rome to Civita di Bagnoregio. In the case of the former Gemini instructed me to ride an express train to Sorrento that didn't stop where I needed to get off, and in the case of the latter it stranded me in Orvieto for hours waiting for a bus to Bagnoregio.

piXPost has come a long way since first introduced: it is fast, visually appealing and stable. Because its pins are user-generated, however, some of them are either misplaced or placed in areas not publicly accessible. In Vatican City, for example, a pin was placed at a location within Saint Peter's Basilica that guards wouldn't let me approach, and I myself placed a pin in the Vatican Museums that only museum visitors will be able to access. In Jerusalem, a user placed a pin in the Old City corresponding to where the post office is shown as being located on the map, but the map is wrong and in reality the pin is located behind a wall and beyond reach.

Post office (Google Gemini)

Every traveler has a hobby checklist they carry around with them on their trips, be it physical or mental. Runners seek out races and local running groups, craft beer aficionados explore local bars and breweries, and soccer fans visit museums dedicated to legends of the sport and stadiums where local teams play. These checklists enhance the trip, customize it, make it more personally meaningful.

We philatelists have our checklists, too. For us every postcard stand steals our attention, every mailbox demands a photo, every post office bids us enter. If we return home from a trip without a philatelic souvenir, something is forever missing from our memory of the trip. piXPost is a digital travel companion with whom we are encouraged to share our philatelic travel experiences, and it in turn is the portal through which other philatelic travelers are sharing their experiences with us.