The first postcards originated in Austria in the latter part of the 19th century and were intended for short notes only. Later picture postcards become popular.
Email and SMSs
Today of course, attaching a holiday photograph to an email is as easy as pressing a few cyber-buttons and hey presto an instant snap-shot of the day's events sent around the world in a twinkling of an eye.
However, nothing can compare with just sitting in a quite place a cup of tea or something stronger with real postcards and postage stamps in hand.
Writing Postcards is an Agreeable Holiday Passtime
There is something very agreeable about the postcard-sending process. Selecting the card is just the beginning, handing over a few unfamiliar foreign coins and then choosing who would like what scene; would Aunt Josephine prefer the view of the mountains, the beach or a monument? Laboring over the message; what to write? Should the message be a few lines of greeting or a screed of tightly packed words describing in detail events and travels to date?
Selecting an appropriate Stamp
The joy of entering a foreign post office selecting some colourful stamps to attach is just the beginning of the cards' journeys. Once deposited in the yellow, or green, or blue post boxes to be collected, sorted shipped and delivered on its journey who knows who will read its message?
These little billets-doux of love, affection and the whole inconsequential minutia of love, life and travel are open to inspection by the postman, flat mate, friends. In this secrecy-obsessed age exposing oneself on a postcard has the edge of dissent to it.
Postcards are Personal
Unlike text messages or email where to press the send button is the end of an almost impersonal process, postcards are not convenient; they need to be bought, written on, stamped, and posted in a box. But this is a highly personal act and one that says far more about the sender and his relationship with the receiver than merely sitting at a computer keyboard or worse sending an SMS or text from a mobile phone. The selection, writing and dispatching a postcard is a personal, special act of consideration.
"Old Fashioned" Technology Still Has a Lot to Offer
No matter how astonishing the technical marvels that allow travellers to sit in an internet café or at a laptop computer and get instant messages and even 3-D photos of friends, family or sights from half way around the world, the joy of seeing a personalised handwritten postcard on the door mat is incalculable.
For nothing says "I am thinking of you" more than a postcard personally chosen and displaying a colourful stamp from an exotic location. So carry on the tradition and forget the email with its amateurishly shot photo and thrill family, friends and workmates with a real postcard.
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