Why Do I Send Postcard to Myself When I Travel?
I love to travel ever since at young age. Postcards are always available every tourist centre but the thought of buying the postcard only is for sending message from overseas to friends and family. It didn’t cross my mind that I would send postcard to myself. Why would one do so? It seems weird to do so to send postcard to yourself!
However, since 2011, I start sending postcard to myself. It started as a normal postcard (stated location and date visited). However, at later stage, I started to developed a habit to write messages to myself for every trip I went. Looking back at the postcards I received, it is a good encouragement to myself.
Sending Positive Reminder Messages to Myself to Encourage My Future Self
It was just a random thought to send messages to myself. I look forward to every postcard I sent as it usually took 3 – 4 weeks to receives the postcard after I sent from my trip. The feeling each time that I am able to receive it also surprise and wonderful feeling to receive it as it takes quite long to received it and sending by normal postage always make me worried it might be lost.
I always write encouragement messages as a reminder to my future myself. Using each postcard to represent the places I visited, I pen down my feeling at the moment.
The messages could be the feeling at the moment of that particular trip, that particular trip which I took a leap of faith to go alone (I would definitely regretting not going instead), how every journey of my trip should also be a journey of my life, and so on.
“Insist on Your dream, It will Come True”
On occasionally I look back at my postcards, my postcards never fail to encourage me to go further, stay healthy, be more courageous (you will never know what will surprise you) – be it in my personal life or work life. It will shape me even for workplace to be more courageous.
Another Way of Reminiscing My Memories
Besides looking at the photos that we took during travelling, postcard is another good way to remember our travelling memories. Pen down the feeling during the trip and lock in the postcards.
Travelling is not just a getaway, it is a world book that everyone must explore in their life. What is another country’s culture? How to people live, work, eat, behave and so on. Writing down at that moment memories always make me feel fortunate (I off and on went on travelling to poorer countries which food, water is a scarcity. I am always reminded that how fortunate I am).
Looking back on my postcards which depict the places (I always try to choose the postcard image which depict the same place I am visiting) I visited also bring back my memories of that place I have been before (not only the wordings in the postcard). It can be a travel journal.
“See More, Travel More”
A Great Home/Room Decoration Option
I decorated my bedroom wardrobe with some of my postcards. It actually looks great. Besides able to look back at my travel memories at a glance on daily basis, it is a great idea to decorate another place such as wall, cupboard, fridge and many more. You don’t need expensive artist paintings. You can decorate your home/room wall with postcards which is a better and cheaper option. What best is the postcards (the deco) are filled with your own memories to reminiscing. You don’t have to keep in journal book hidden but display them upfront (like a photo frame).
In conclusion, don’t buy too much gift to friends or family. Travel memory should be always special to you. Buying gifts such as keychain, bookmark, foods and etc for your friends and family will take out your luggage space and you might accidentally exceed luggage weight when travelling back, is it worth it to pay for it? Nevertheless, hunting for postcard(s) and post office (some places even offer to send postcard on your behalf to post office) will be an everlasting memory for you even in the future when you take out your postcards to view.