Letter with a map instead of an address delivered to the right place

A woman mails a letter. — (Image credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

When you don't have an address but really want to mail a letter to someone, you have to improvise.

A tourist who stayed at a horse farm in Bú∂ardalur, Iceland, did not have the property's exact address, so on an envelope drew a detailed map and wrote (in English) the information she did have: "Country: Iceland. City: Bú∂ardalur. Name: A horse farm with an Icelandic/Danish couple and three kids and a lot of sheep!" She added: "The Danish woman works in a supermarket in Bú∂ardalur." The letter was mailed from Reykjavik, and eventually made it to Rebecca Cathrine Kaadu Ostenfeld, the woman who owns the horse farm, the BBC reports.

The delivery was made earlier this year, but the story went viral this week after it was featured on Reddit. There's no explanation on how the post office was able to track down Ostenfeld, but the Icelandic news website Skessuhorn thinks it worked out because "anything is possible in Iceland."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.