The world needs to keep this joyful aspect of travelling alive

Three cheers for Heinrich von Stephan!

I first learnt his name many years ago as I was travelling around Poland to update a Lonely Planet guidebook. Strolling through a scrappy park in the Pomeranian city of Slupsk (pronounced delightfully as “swoopsk”), I stumbled across a sign marking the birthplace of this 19th century Prussian postmaster. His greatest reputed achievement? Inventing the concept of the postcard.

Credit: Jamie Brown

That was enough to raise von Stephan to my pantheon of heroes because I love postcards. I love sending them, and I love receiving them; though the status of postcard-sending has changed dramatically in the decades I’ve been travelling.

Back in 1990, when my wife Narrelle and I took our first overseas trip together, postcards were a routine element of travel. Travellers made their way through whatever country they were visiting, and in their quieter moments jotted greetings to friends and family on the back of cards depicting (ideally) the places they had visited.

We went a bit overboard on that month-long trip to Britain and France, sending forth a flood of postcards. Nowadays, the equivalent would be over-sharing holiday photos on Facebook. Still, it was fun and a way to connect with home because in those days you really were out of touch on the road due to the absence of email or social media.

I’ve maintained my postcard habit across the years, somewhat against the odds. The more universal smartphones have become, the more the utility of the postcard has waned. Why, after all, go to the trouble of buying a card, writing on it, then finding a place to buy a stamp and post it, when you can instead upload some holiday snaps to inspire FOMO?

Postcards – keep them coming.Credit: Bloomberg

However, the sheer effort involved in sending a postcard has wrought a curious transformation in its status. Nowadays, when your loved ones receive a postcard, they know you’ve gone to a lot of effort. Without the process having changed in any way, it’s now a niche activity performed for a particular individual and thus its social value has risen. Dispatching a handwritten postcard is like engaging in a specialised artisanal craft, one that draws gasps of appreciation from your audience.

I like that. And I like making the effort to find a selection of good postcards from each trip and sending them off to family members and friends. One of those friends includes Magda, a former colleague from time spent teaching English in Poland. She has a wall covered in my cards, creating a slightly cheesy though colourful montage of the world.

When I went on my big Eurail train trip in 2023 I dispatched postcards from various countries between Portugal, where I started, and Serbia, where my journey came to its end. My unbending rule when selecting cards is that they must bear the name of the location in text across the image; to me, that’s what differentiates a true postcard from a mere snapshot. So in Belgrade, I made an effort to find a card with the city’s name written in Cyrillic script, to send to a Scottish friend who’s interested in languages.

Though this self-appointed mission is fun, I have noticed it becoming gradually more difficult, with postcards and post offices harder to locate. To which I say, borrowing from Dylan Thomas, do not go gentle into that good night! The world still needs such simple, heartfelt greetings. Join me in sending a postcard or two from your next trip as an act of love and friendship, a transmission of the pure joy of travel from one person to another, magically conveyed upon a flimsy but colourful piece of card.