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Postcards are becoming a rarity as travellers tend to snap pictures and share them with friends online, rather than seek out a post office and buy stamps.
Although just 39 per cent of people surveyed say they never send postcards when travelling, according to a British survey, only 18 per cent of Britons still send a postcard each time they go away.
More than one in five of those questioned said they used to send postcards to their loved ones, but do not any more.
It is not a generational shift, however. While older generations grew up using analogue forms of communication, it is millennials who send the most postcards, according to the poll by Britain’s InsureandGo, an online travel insurance provider.

More than half of millennials (53 per cent) send postcards when they travel, followed by Gen Z (aged 16 to 26), of whom 47 per cent send postcards while away. After that came Gen X (aged 43 to 58), with 34 per cent sending postcards.
Many who send postcards say it is because of a family tradition or a personal habit, or wanting to connect with loved ones by sharing experiences of travel.
Although fewer people may be sending postcards, some 41 per cent like receiving them, the survey said. They cited feeling happy, remembered, and loved as the three emotions most frequently mentioned upon receiving one.
People also often keep postcards they receive, sometimes for a very long time.
One of them is Jürgen Hartwig, a German collector who has collected half a million postcards over decades.
Kept in shoeboxes, some are pretty unusual. One is a portrait of a woman covered with real hair. Another, from Lake Constance, is decorated with dried edelweiss. Some are made of wood, silver foil or even cork.

Hartwig, reasoning he “can’t take the cards to heaven and I can’t take them to hell, because they would burn”, is now searching for a museum.
Germany has no plans yet for a postcard museum, although the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg has a large collection, with some 1.5 million postcards.
Postcards have a special place in Germany – they were conceived by postal reformer Heinrich von Stephan. In 1865, he proposed the introduction of an “open post sheet” as a simple and inexpensive alternative to the letter. The Austro-Hungarian postal service introduced it on October 1, 1869.
A few years later, the plain postcard was spruced up with pictures, resembling the cards we know today.

“Because printing technology was so well developed in Germany, cards were produced for the whole world. Everyone was enthusiastic about it, there was a real picture postcard mania,” says historian Veit Didczuneit, head of collections at Berlin’s Communication Museum.
Collecting was widespread at the time and there was hardly a motif that did not end up on a card. Wars and disasters were often depicted. Before television, postcards were an important way to share information.
While collectors remain passionate about the cards, postal operator Deutsche Post is not very optimistic.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing a similar trend with postcards as with letters. Volumes have been falling for years and we expect them to continue to decline in the coming years,” says spokesman Alexander Edenhofer.
In 2023, Deutsche Post delivered around 95 million postcards.

Didczuweit is excited about new approaches to postcards, citing Postcrossing, an online site that encourages strangers around the world to send postcards to others.


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Tourism

Millennials send more postcards than anyone else – online site encourages more to join in

Postcards have been losing popularity for years, with travellers choosing to share photos online, but millennials are keeping the tradition of sending them alive, mailing more than any other section of the population, according to a British survey. Photo: AFP

Postcard enthusiast Gesa Funke writes on a postcard in her flat in Berlin, Germany, in 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo: AFP

A postcard showing a herd of pigs under a tree, by Franz Marc, 1913. Photo: Altonaer Museum

Variety Dancer, Max Pechstein, 1910. Photo: Altonaer Museum

A tourist looks at postcards in 2024 in Paris, France. Photo: AFP

5 tips to avoid ghosts in your hotel, from knocking before entering to covering mirrors

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The lobby of the Bangkok Palace Hotel, which also has a reputation for being haunted. Photo: Facebook/Bangkok Palace Hotel

19 long-distance routes for a European cycling holiday, plus how to plan your own

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EuroVelo 1 starts in the North Cape, Norway, and finishes in Alentejo (above), in southern Portugal. Photo: Shutterstock

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Barcelona to ban Airbnb-style short-term apartment rentals. Will other cities follow?

Apartments in Barcelona whose residents are protesting against eviction to make way for short-term rental units. The Spanish city has announced a ban on such Airbnb-style rental properties from 2028, which could serve as a blueprint for other tourist destinations to follow. Photo: AP

Tourists at Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s most famous sightseeing spot. Many visitors to the city stay in short-term rental properties, but this is set to change. Photo: AFP

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Demonstrators cordon off a bar during an anti-tourism protest on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas. Many of the city’s residents are fed up with overtourism and its effect on housing in their city. Photo: AFP

Demonstrators hold up a sign decrying Airbnb during a protest against mass tourism in Barcelona. Photo: AFP

Lifestyle

Travel & Leisure

Postcards are losing out to social media, but many people still enjoy receiving them. Millennials send more postcards than others


Postcards have been losing popularity for years. Millennials send more postcards than any other age group, and an online site is encouraging more people to send them – to strangers.
