Weird and wonderful mailboxes around the world

Post Office Bay on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, is a historic site dating back to the 18th century, when whalers erected a wooden barrel to use as a makeshift post office. Sailors would leave mail addressed with a destination, and any other seamen heading to that place would take it with them and deliver it. The system is still used today by tourist visitors to the island.

This letterbox has quite a history! It's originally from a station along the Usambara Railway in the former colony of German East Africa, now Tanzania. After the British captured the area in 1916, the mailbox was presented to the post office in Lahore, Pakistan, by a British officer. It now adorns a historic postal train carriage displayed at the Golra Sharif Railway Museum in Pakistan.

A mail carrier puts letters into the knothole of the more than 500-year-old "Bräutigamseiche," or "Bridegroom's Oak" in northwestern Germany. For some 100 years, the knothole has served as a dead drop for lonely hearts from all over the world. Anyone can retrieve the letters and read through them, in the hopes of finding true love. It's said more than 100 marriages have resulted from the custom.

A visitor to Dal Lake, located in a disputed Kashmir region administered by India, places postcards in a mailbox at what is claimed to be the world's only floating post office. Located on a 200-year-old houseboat, the post office dates back to 1953, when the local postal service established mobile delivery to households near the lake. It's still used today by both residents and tourists.

In 1999, to attract more visitors to the Japanese coastal town of Susami, the local postmaster installed an underwater mailbox. Divers can descend 10 meters (about 33 feet) to drop special waterproof postcards into the box. The local dive shop owner collects them and takes them to the post office. That may seem like an unnecessary extra step, but it has made Susami a popular diving destination.

This piece of public art in Bratislava, Slovakia by sculptor Ladislav Sabo depicts two young women taking a break from skateboarding. But what one of the figures is resting on is actually an official Slovak Post mailbox, ready to accept ordinary cards and letters. The art and the collection box commemorate the city's first mailbox.

When Typhoon Soudelor hit Taiwan in 2015, a signboard crashed onto a pair of postboxes in Taipei, tilting them to one side. Bent at a jaunty angle and with features looking a bit like human faces, the mailboxes quickly became a viral sensation, with people lining up to take photos. The Taiwanese mail service even has a unique postmark specifically for mail dropped in these mailboxes.

The "black mailbox" along Nevada Highway 375 (aka the "Extraterrestrial Highway") is traditionally a spot where UFO hunters meet to search the skies near Area 51. Originally the mailbox for a private citizen, it started being used by people trying to communicate with alien life. The owner eventually abandoned it to its crowdsourced fate — as a depository for messages to otherworldly visitors.

More than 40 years ago, two people set up the Kindred Spirit mailbox on a remote stretch of Bird Island in North Carolina, with a communal notebook for visitors to write in. Since then, thousands of "kindred spirits" have poured out their hearts in messages left for others to read — and some of the notes have helped save the island from development, ensuring its status as a coastal nature reserve.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla view a crocheted mailbox topper of a crown during a tour of the market square in Selkirk, Scotland. Handmade toppers created by private citizens have become popular additions to the United Kingdom's iconic and beloved red pillar mailboxes, often commemorating historical events or holidays.