I did this, but not always. Just when I remembered, had few cash left (postage could be expensive and I prefer to spend it on other stuff) and found postcard+ stamps easily
But I only wrote my address, I asked someone in the post office (mostly who works there) to write me few words on the card
Always when traveling! So many benefits: getting to a choose a card, keeping an eye out for post offices, having an inexpensive and lightweight souvenir that doubles as a travel journal.
Two highlights:
For anyone who goes to Seoul, the Lotte World Tower has a mailbox on the observation desk. Write your postcard, drop it in the box, and receive it on a one- year time delay. Like a time machine. When I did my card, I was planning a move and knew my future address. So I sent it to my new home, and it arrived just as planned.
The other one is sentimental: my then-boyfriend and my routine was to write a shared postcard to ourselves whenever we went somewhere. So I wrote my top half of the card, then passed it to him to do his part. When he handed it back to me, I saw his recap of the day + a last line of “And I’m going to ask Sarah to marry me.” I couldn’t have asked for a better proposal. And I was so nervous to drop it in the mailbox!
I never have before. But because I was away from snail mail for 6+ years, I sent myself two postcards when I started the hobby again in January - one with an envelope and one without an envelope, sent one week apart. I just wanted to see if I would receive fun, handwritten mail in my PO box that was not the usual, routine, boring, marketing mail that I normally get. And I did.
Yes! I started recently to send a postcard to myself whenever I’m traveling (in addition to the ones I send to family or friends). I try to write about what I did during the day, describe the image/place on the postcard or just write overall thougths that I had. It is like a mini-journal .
This is a little off topic…
I received a sealed letter the other day from myself 10 years ago. Because 10 years ago, I wrote a letter and put it in a mailbox of Meijimura. This is a service of Meijimura in Japan called “Heartful Letter”. (It must be a dedicated letter set.)
I thought it would be nice if there was such a service with a freely selectable postcard.
Well, I have 2 Accounts. My Private Account and I’m running the official Postcrossing Account of my Working Place.
When I’m on a Trip or on a Meetup I’m always sending a Card to the official Postcrossing Address of my working place.
Not only the 4 Group Members are reading the Post Cards - everybody of my 30 Colleagues can see and read the Post Cards.
That is a good idea. And it reminded me of something else. I also have a one year old toddler and maybe I should start sending cards to her with the dates of our travels and some facts. That should make a nice memory.
I haven’t done that yet but plan to do it on my next adventure trip - in addition to my travel journal. If all the cards arrive I‘d add them to my Holiday Album / Scrapbook.
This reminds me of the FutureMe website. You can write yourself an email and set how far it the future it will be sent to you. It can be really cool reading your thoughts years later.
It would feel weird if I wrote a postcard to myself. I would rather buy some postcards and keep them for myself instead of sending them out if I wanted a memento from the trip.
I send postcards to myself a lot. If I am travelling, I will usually send myself one on the last day of the trip so that it’ll usually arrive after I get home and be a lovely reminder while I’m settling back into real life.
And I collect postmarks so I often include one for myself when I am sending cards for others (or maxicards I’ve made) off to be postmarked.
In both cases, I usually leave the contents of the card blank and just write the address (usually without a name even as that’s fine for addresses in Australia).
I would rather buy some postcards and keep them for myself instead of sending them out if I wanted a memento from the trip.
I understand this but, to me, being able to see the stamps and postmark used years later is also a fun (sometimes unexpected) memento. For example, my favourite postcard I sent myself is about 7 years old from Taiwan and it has churches on the stamps because that’s what the post office randomly gave me — I would never have intentionally thought to get a memento of the churches but now when I look at it, I think about parts of Taiwan that I wouldn’t otherwise.