Maine has more than 400 Post Offices — and Al D’Andrea and Margit Ahlin have been to each one.
The married couple’s trek began in 2010 after USPS released a stamp honoring artist Winslow Homer.
The Maine residents, who are stamp and postmark collectors, were near Prouts Neck, a coastal peninsula in Scarborough, where Homer painted.
“I just got this crazy idea. I thought it would be fun to get a hand cancel of the stamp from the local Post Office in the vicinity of where Homer lived and painted for many years,” D’Andrea said.
“Then I had this notion that it would be fun to take this stamp and go around to every Post Office in Maine and get a hand cancel.”
The couple visited 444 Post Offices during their decade-long trek, but currently the state has about 430 Post Offices, including contract offices.
Like Homer, D’Andrea and Ahlin were transplants from New York. They moved to the Pine Tree State in 2009.
“Because we were relatively new to Maine, I thought this would be interesting. We would really get to know the state and it would be a great way to see some far-flung places because you figure anywhere there are people, there’s going to be a Post Office,” Ahlin said.
The couple, who run a theater company, began their odyssey by visiting all the offices near Portland, ME.
Eventually, they broke out a state map and used the USPS Mobile App to plot their trips, including more than a few overnight visits.
The couple’s record was visiting nearly 30 Post Offices in one day.
“I would go in and get the hand cancel and Margit would take a photograph of the Post Office and also some identifying marks around the building, like a nice view of nearby mountains or if it was overlooking the water or anything else that was quirky,” D’Andrea said.
The couple had 40 Post Offices left on their list when the COVID-19 pandemic sidelined their travel plans for nearly three years. However, once they were back at it, they were able to complete their goal, but not without other challenges.
“Maine is so unusual because of the number of islands and so many Post Offices are on islands. We were able to use our boat to visit one or two, but mostly we had to take ferries out and it was really a logistical challenge,” Ahlin said.
Both also said that their accomplishment led to a reinforced appreciation of the Postal Service.
“In Maine, there are a lot of seasonal people but also a lot of rural communities. The Post Office is the center of everything,” Ahlin said. “People come to Post Offices for their P.O. Boxes to collect mail, so it’s kind of the social hub and fabric of the town. It’s remarkable in this day and age that there’s one thing that can bring people together like that.”