Time to explore outside of social media & your standard websites! These are some of my favorite projects and places on the internet. Check them out, maybe you’ll find something new you’ll love!
Writing & Connecting
- PostCrossing – This place has a great and safe system to connect you with random people around the world via postcards. You get an ID number and send one postcard out to a randomized person, when they receive it they register the ID, when you receive one (from another random person) you register the ID and on and on it cycles. Really one of the coolest projects around since 2004 and still very active!
- Love For Our Elders – A project where every month, there are different elders featured who would love letters. Make someone’s day, spread love and warmth through snail mail.
- Letters Against Isolation – Another great place to use snail mail / pen to paper to help bring friendship, love and support to elderly folks in care home or who are isolated at home.
- Goodreads – Keep track of all the books you’ve read, want to read and write reviews. Community based as you can read others reviews, follow their reviews and join book clubs where you read along together.
Relaxation
- myNoise – Fully customizable soundscapes for relaxing, sleep, background noise and more. Totally ad free and distraction free.
- Nature Mixer – Mix a nature sound track and live nature video. Can go fullscreen with 0 ads, 0 distractions. Really relaxing. Sometimes I use this as “slow tv” or background for when I’m journaling.
- lofi.cafe – Lo-fi beats stations to relax to. No ads, no distractions
- Monterey Bay Aquarium – All of the live cameras from Monterey Bay Aquarium can be found here! Relax to the jelly fish cam (my favorite!), the kelp forest, otters, open sea, moon jellyfish, shark and more.
Zines!
- POC Zine Project – a part of the collection of zines by POC by POC Zine Project for free.
- EBABZ Zine Library – a collection of zine PDF’s many free from East Bay Alternative Book Zine Fest.
- Zines on Internet Archive – Over 60k archived zines you can view digitally for free! Searchable by keyword. I’ve even read zines as far back as 1984. If you don’t know what a zine is: “Zines are self-published, non-commercial publications with typically small circulations. They cover a wide range of topics with many focused on politics, art, creative writing, and personal theory.”
- QZAP – An archive of queer zines going strong since 2003.
Just Really Fun
- GoodNewsNetwork – Literally just that. Good news happening around the world.
- Magnetic Fridge Poetry – Did you ever make poetry or write fun sayings on the fridge with words or letters provided? You can do it digitally! The mix of words with this kit (there’s more available at the top of the site!) is usually astounding. A really fun and creative way to make poetry & share with your friends.
- MyRetroTV’s – A super fun website where you can watch TV’s with content from era’s passed. The 90’s one is so nostalgic!
- CloudHiker – This website allows you to click on categories and then randomly find hidden gem websites you’d really never find on top search results. Super random, interesting and fun.
Useful
- JustTheRecipe – this website filters out all ads and junk and gives you just the recipe from any website.
- WhichBook – Find your next book to read based on your emotions & mood instead of basic categories.
- Music Map – Type in a music artist or band you like and it will visually map out similar bands and artists you may like.
- Looria – Look here before buying anything pricey. Real reviews on the actual best products. No fake reviews, no paid reviews, shows you best for budget, upgrade or best for the average person. Can save you tons of time and money!
- Polotno Studio – an ad free, no tiers, absolutely free graphic design app online (an alternative to canva)
Learn Some Things
- The Solo Artist – Alex Huneycutt’s Curriculum for absolutely free. If you’re a self taught artist, this is an amazing resource compiled and ready to go.
- Free Learning List – A really well organized resource of all of the internet’s best education resources.
- All That History – A great website with daily history, archeological discoveries, unexplained phenomena, ancient civilizations and more.
- TypeLit – Learn to type by typing out full classic literature.
