One of my first travel memories was seeing a postcard come through our letterbox when I was a child in Bangor, Northern Ireland. As a kid, you ignore those boring brown or white envelopes and you are intrigued by colour so the postcard that arrived in the post caught my eye. [I:https://www.papublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/JonnyBlair30.png]
That postcard was from possibly Holland or maybe London, I can’t remember exactly but I kept it. Postacrds are the best and ultimate travel souvenir! Postcards tell a journey for themselves. These days getting an e-mail or a photo from a friend travelling will never mean as much as getting a postcard, which has been on a travel journey of its own. Hopefully postcard writing and sending is not becoming a forgotten art.
The last time I visited my family I sought out my travelling postcard collection that I had sent them – mostly to my youngest brother. The collection has now amassed postcards from over 50 countries – hundreds of postcards.
These postcards have been bought, written and posted from all seven continents – yes I even found a postbox at Port Lockroy in Antarctica! All the postcards detail where I was, what I did and showed a picture and a stamp. Arrival of my postcards to my family’s home is the completion of a crazy journey.
In a cold hut in Port Lockroy in Antarctica I was able to buy, write and post a postcard from the world’s coldest continent all the way to Northern Ireland in the UK. What an amazing travel journey and memory I thought in a world bereft of mobile phones.
Perhaps the younger travellers amongst us even wonder why anyone would bother sending a postcard, when you can just e-mail. Well it’s the story of the postcard that does it for me!!
What’s the difference
1. E-mail: E-mail v postcard. So I logged onto the internet and sent a quick e-mail.
2. Postcards: Postcards v. e-mails? A postcard is physical and real – it was bought in a shop on holiday, written by a beach and then posted in a town. You didn’t even need internet.
what one would you prefer to get?
Don’t forget on your next trip you should send a postcard! A physical present. Sending postcards to friends and family really puts a smile on their faces and means a lot more to people than an e-mail.
Postcards are great – keep writing and posting them everywhere you go!
To read more articles like Lost art of postcards visit Jonny Blair’s hugely extensive site Lifestyle of travel for more travel stories and advice.
