What happened to postcards?

I have always loved receiving postcards and even relish the opportunity to sit and rest weary feet and write postcards.

You just don’t see postcards for sale in great numbers any more.  Rather than have them “in your face”, I have often had to go in search of them.

But what happens to postcards after you have applied those precious words of “remember me…”? I am quite sure not even half reach their destination. Perhaps a few of those postcards destined for Australia end up in Austria. Postcards we sent from China arrived within a month, those from Uzbekistan took about 5 weeks to reach their destinations.

Perhaps postcards don’t even rate for many post offices around the world.

And finding a Post Office is often a challenge.  In Tonga we walked 5km each way because the Post Office in town was “under renovation”.  In Barcelona we walked 3km to the “Post Office” only to find it is an “office”, so it was another 2km to find a retail outlet – and then a 30 minute queue to be served.

I’d like to revive the old postcard. I will happily spend $0.50 to $1 on the post card and somewhere between $1 and $3 for postage. I select my good friends and I feel like I have communicated, shared a coffee, but my shout. It really is incidental cash in exchange for the joy of receiving a well thought out, well travelled picture of somewhere that inspired you. Communication can’t get much better.

Come on post offices of the world. Forget the ROI, just embrace the post card.

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2 Responses to What happened to postcards?

  1. plenty of postcards here in Broome – maybe it’s an English thing.

    • thea says:

      Sometimes you can find postcards easily, sometimes you can find stamps easily, but not often in the same place.

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