*this is an sponsored article
Buy postcards is a tradition for many travelers, but in the age of start ups and new technologies, is there a better method than collecting postcards to show your love ones the places you visit?
I´m a big postcard collector and collecting postcards has always been a tradition for me ever since I started traveling 8 years ago. I´ve always loved to keep a photograph of the destination I traveled to and I even used to have a wall with more than 100 postcards from all different kinds of cities sorted by country, region and continent. However, it has been more than a year now since I bought the last postcard and still, my collection hasn´t stopped. On the contrary, it has even become larger and has better photos now. Let me tell you what I do, so you can start doing it too.
My first postcard was probably from my first trip during my exchange year in Germany. I went to Amsterdam with my language class for a weekend and when I saw these colorful photos of 6`x3` I thought this could not only be a great present to my friends and family, but also a nice thing to collect to keep some travel memories on my wall. My photography skills weren´t so good at the time and getting such a great printed photograph for less than 1 Euro sounded like a good deal to me. From Amsterdam I went to Brussels, London, Berlin and Prague; of course, whenever I traveled to one of these magical cities, I made sure to get a postcard for myself and one for my parents back in Colombia. Collecting postcards became a tradition.
After some years my photography skills improved, I got a better camera and I was photographing more interesting situations in every destination I visited. I was still collecting postcards, however, I started liking the photographs I took with my camera more. You probably know what I´m talking about: No matter how nice these postcards look, you always appreciate more that photograph you took yourself and that brings you back nice memories of these travels. After losing interest in the postcards I saw in the souvenir stores and finding the right postcard for my collection became more of a challenge rather than a fun task to do before departing. I wished I could have my photographs as postcards instead of buying them.
Almost one year ago I started using MyPostcard. I was trying out different apps for printing photographs and I simply loved the idea of getting my pictures sent home as a postcard only a couple of days after ordering them. MyPostcard offered me a possibility for creating my own postcards and not only sending a copy to myself for my collection, but also to my friends and
family all over the world. All that while avoiding the sometimes-annoying process of finding the right postcard, getting stamps and finding a mailbox before leaving the city (a task which probably many of you are familiar with).
I stopped buying postcards at souvenir stores and started sending home postcards of the same photos I was sharing on Facebook or Instagram. I was even able to give a personal touch to each photo and send a personal message to my loved ones in a creative way. My family was able to see amazing destinations like China or Iceland from the same perspective I had at the time and I had the feeling my photographs started coming to life. My nice little collection of postcards hasn´t stopped either; and with my photography skills improving every day, I am now happy to be able to send home photographs that I´ve taken with my drone or underwater cameras.
Postcards are a wonderful travel souvenir and with mobile phone cameras taking excellent pictures, editing apps which work perfectly in a matter of minutes and apps like MyPostcard that send postcards within just a couple of clicks and for less than 2 Euros, I think I have a good reason not to buy postcards anymore.
