Writing a Postcard

Before the advent of mobile phones and e-mail sending a postcard to somebody whilst you were on holiday was a tradition that most of us participated in. We’d usually set aside half a day to buy, write and post all of our postcards to friends and family. More people go on holiday more than once a year these days. Add on shorter holidays too, e.g. mini breaks and weekends, alongside the fact that access to the internet, e-mail and live instant messaging services in virtually any location together with text and picture messaging on mobile phones, means that the technology available to us nowadays enables us to keep in touch with loved ones far more quickly and easily. Consequently, the postcard has tended to become overlooked by most of us as a way of keeping in touch.

Short and Sweet

However, some ‘traditionalists’ still prefer to send postcards. The key is always to try and send them so that they reach the recipient before you get back from holiday. This isn’t always easy to achieve as some countries’ postal services might not be quite as quick as we’d like so you can often end up having returned from holiday and telling all your family and friends what a wonderful time you’ve had and the postcard arrives a week later.

In essence, the postcard is simply an informal means of telling loved ones that you’ve arrived at your destination safely and that all is well. There isn’t usually a lot of space to write too much and we’re all familiar with the well known phrase,” Weather is great, wish you were here”, used by so many to quickly let people know that you’re OK.

The style of your writing is usually going to be very informal. Not only might you use slang terms but people often use incomplete sentences that still make sense just so they can fit more into the available space. This style has, in effect, been adapted today and used when sending text messages. Paragraphs, too, tend to be disregarded in order to conserve more space.

Here is an example of how you might write a postcard.

Its a little more informative than simply writing, “Wish you were here.”!

Hi Susan and John, It’s fantastic here! We landed on time and the coach journey to our hotel only took 15 minutes. Weather is unbelievable. Sunny and hot. 35C every day since we arrived. You should see the hotel. The pool is massive and there’s a great mini-pool for Alice to swim in with lots of slides for her to play on. She’s really having a ball and she’s made a couple of friends already so that’s a relief. The only time we ever see her is when she wants a lemonade or ice cream. Food’s great, buffet style, as much as you can eat and lots of variety. Going on a catamaran trip tomorrow. Whale watching. Hope we see some huge ones. Got some great photos to show you when we get back. Well, time I hit the beach. Gotta keep the tan going, ha ha! See ya next week! Love Jenny, Tony & Alice xx