Think about it: when was the last time you sat down and wrote a handwritten letter to a friend who lives on the other side of the world? My guess: a very, very long time. There is nothing like a good, old-fashioned letter. But, sadly, they have become antiquated, outdated and irrelevant. Why did all of the sudden the world change from one of written notes to one filled with text messages?

Each and every summer, I attend a summer camp in the mountains of West Virginia, first I went for seven summers as a camper, but now I work as a counselor. When I attended as a camper, we were cut off from the internet-filled world completely: there were no cell phones allowed, no calls home and no connections to the outside world besides your classic pen-and-paper letters. And yet, I found myself writing letters left and right when I was a camper. Maybe it was due to the fact that letters were my only source of communication to the world outside of those mountains. But really, it was so much more fulfilling to write letters to my friends at home to fill them in on my camping antics. And it was even more exciting when my friends at home wrote me back, and I received their handwritten responses in the mail. It is so much more exciting and worthwhile. When I became a counselor, I earned the privilege of having my cell phone while spending the summer at camp. And quite frankly, in the three summers I’ve worked as a counselor, I haven’t written a single letter, or received one, while being there. And it’s really not the same.

While I am just as guilty of not spending the few extra minutes to write a letter as opposed to sending a text to a long-distance friend, I would love to return to this way of communication. A letter is personal, meaningful and wholesome. A letter is worth a thousand texts.

So I challenge you to write a letter to a loved one who lives far away. There doesn’t need to be a reason; just send a note saying that you’re thinking of him or her. You have no idea how much it means. And maybe you’ll even receive a letter back.