How long does a letter take to arrive? Delivery times by city (Lettie)
Lettie computes delivery time from the real distance between two cities. How long from Seoul to Tokyo, Hanoi, Lisbon and New York — and why we made letters slow on purpose.
How long does a letter take to arrive?
A letter on Lettie doesn't land right away. The envelope lifts off the globe, flies to the other person's city, and reaches their mailbox after a delay computed from the real distance between the two cities. We get asked about this a lot, so here's the table.
Sent from Seoul
| To | Distance | Arrives in |
|---|---|---|
| Same country (Busan etc.) | ~300 km | 1–2 hours |
| Tokyo | 1,150 km | about 2–3 hours |
| Taipei | 1,480 km | about 3 hours |
| Hanoi | 2,740 km | about 5 hours |
| Bangkok | 3,720 km | about 6–7 hours |
| Delhi | 4,690 km | about 8 hours |
| Sydney | 8,300 km | about 13–14 hours |
| Istanbul | 7,960 km | about 13 hours |
| Lisbon | 10,300 km | about 16 hours |
| London | 8,880 km | about 14 hours |
| New York | 11,050 km | about 17–18 hours |
| São Paulo | 18,300 km | about 24 hours (cap) |
Delivery is at least 30 minutes and at most 24 hours. Within one country it lands somewhere between one and two hours, slightly randomized. The exact time shows under the envelope the moment you send ("lands in N hours"), and you can watch the envelope cross the globe.
Why we made it slow on purpose
An instant message asks for an instant answer. So messages get shorter, lighter, and eventually become "ok". When you know it takes 14 hours to arrive, you write differently — longer, with the day you actually had, imagining the moment they'll read it.
This isn't a story we made up; it's what the letters look like. One from Hanoi opened with how the rain there is short and heavy, so everyone keeps a poncho under the motorbike seat. Sentences like that don't happen in chat.
While you wait
- Watch the envelope on the globe. You get a notification when it lands, and from 2.0.6 a "landing soon" notification an hour before.
- Read letters strangers released in Discover — three new envelopes drift close every eight hours.
- You can't write the same person again until their reply lands (turn-taking). If you'd rather not wait, gems unlock an unlimited conversation.
Is this the same as Slowly?
Same principle — Slowly also computes delay from distance. What's different is that you see the delay as an envelope moving across a globe, and that a letter that lands can be translated into any of 28 languages right there. The full comparison is in Lettie vs Slowly.