<p>Have you ever sent postcards from Europe? Any advise? </p>
<p>We will leave soon on a trip to Europe (Barcelona, Western Med Cruise incl Rome, Madrid). I am hoping to find affordable postcards somewhere. I’m packing US stamps, thinking I’ll write them on the return plane trip and mail from DC layover (or if not possible from home). </p>
<p>I do have a niece who collects stamps having her first communion next month, so if possible I’d like to send hers from Rome. Or maybe Barcelona or Madrid (our hotel cities).</p>
<p>I nearly always send postcards when we travel internationally. They usually do seem to be about 1 Euro. I generally print out addresses on a sheet of address labels, then just peel and stick. Sometimes I buy stamps and mail them while we’re traveling (slow and rather expensive); sometimes I mail them after I return.</p>
<p>You need to write them and send them from over there, preferably while you’re in the city/area the postcard is from. It’s much better to write them while still in the location or maybe the next day at most and it should only take a couple of minutes each anyway. It’s anti-climactic to get a European postcard mailed from the USA. You’ll be able to find postcards all over the place over there. To mail them from over there just take it to the hotel desk and they’ll be able to post if for you after charging you the stamp - leave your USA stamps at home.</p>
<p>Definitely send some postcards and have fun doing so - you might even want to send some to yourself. </p>
<p>Postcards are still very popular in Europe. Mailing them to the US is cheap. They will usually get there within about 4 days from France, Germany, Belgium etc. Italy is another matter, my last postcard took six weeks.
Do not buy them in the center of the tourist industry. Just three minutes from the center of Rom they will be about half price from what you pay close to the Vatican. But so is everything else.</p>
<p>Back in 1995, the cost of mailing a postcard from Germany to the US was about $5 US, which was more than we thought it was worth, so we didn’t mail anything from there. I’d imagine the price has only increased since then. You cannot use US stamps in Europe. Our S is mailing his Thailand postcards to friends in the US now that he’s returned here & is working in the US. Our D thinks that’s silly & strange that he’s waited until he returned to mail them. It could be written when you buy the postcards & just mail them as soon as you can–whether US or elsewhere.</p>
<p>D1 mailed postcards from Great Britain, France, Germany a few years ago. A euro was more than enough to cover the cost of each. As far as when to mail them, I’d mail them from where they were bought or not at all. That’s me though. I like the idea of mailing a few to yourself!</p>
<p>My D, when going on exchange a few years ago found postcards at Goodwill of the country she was visiting, wrote the cards on the plane going over, and mailed as soon as she got there. She knew she’d be busy on arrival and for a few weeks afterwards.</p>
<p>I ,personally, would either mail them directly from the countries visited or not bother at all. Getting a postcard with US stamps and mailed from the US seems to defeat the purpose.</p>
<p>It was $2 to mail a post card from south Africa to here…and it got here well. And it got here well before we returned. The person was touched that we mailed it from our trip location. I have one I bought to send to a friend when I returned and haven’t sent it YET. </p>
<p>I agree…either mail from your trip location or don’t bother.</p>
If not one can just order whatever postcards they want on the internet from home before going, write some canned “Having a great time - wish you were here” on it, and after they get home just hand t to the person.</p>
<p>That kind of loses something in the process.</p>
<ul>
<li>Buy it there, write it while close to the postcard location and still pumped up about it, and use a local stamp to mail it. It’ll be one of the least expensive things you’ll do on the trip (as long as you don’t have 500 friends you’re mailing them to).</li>
</ul>
<p>If you want to do something a bit different and you have a smart phone with camera or Ipad, then you can download a photo/postcard app and make your own postcards from photos you have taken. Pick a photo, do what you want with it, write your own message and then click send. The postcard is then mailed to the US address. There is a fee for the postcard that includes processing the photo, making the postcard and sending it. I can’t quite remember how much though - maybe about $1-2??</p>
<p>I did this during my recent European vacation and the postcards turned out great. They were sent out very quickly too and my family had the cards before I even returned home. It was a nice way to personalize my experience there. Of course if you are looking for a foreign stamp, then you would have to do it the old fashioned way and buy a postcard!</p>
<p>^^ As a variant of that on some recent vacations I take a pic on the iPhone of us at a place and immediately email it from the phone to the grandmas who loved receiving the pics real time like that. I didn’t do it from Europe though and would be sure of the network costs to do so first. </p>
<p>On a side note - make sure you think about costs when you bring your cell phones there.</p>
<p>You can often purchase stamps at the same kiosk where you buy the postcards. It’s a wonderful activity to do while sitting at a sidewalk cafe taking a break from touring around.</p>
<p>The idea to mail from US was partly for postage costs, but also partly because I had heard about long delays on European mailings. But most of the recipients are family out of state, so delay I guess is not a huge deal. Seeing the foreign stamp may be more fun.</p>
<p>The few minutes each to write them on trip would not be too much trouble. However writing them during one of our layovers or on the plane would help fill the time on our return trip.</p>
<p>I just checked the postage. Mailing a postcard from Germany to the USA is 0.75 Eruo, that is about one dollar. From France it is even cheaper and buying a postcard is about 0.50 Euro.
So I hope your friends and family will enjoy receiving lots of them.</p>
<p>When I was in Europe many, many years ago, we just bought postcards where ever we were, usually right at the hotel we were at, wrote them out and mailed them from the hotel. They sold stamps back then and I would assume they still do now. It was pretty easy. I usually bought 2 of every postcard, kept one for myself and mailed the other one.</p>
<p>Steve - I did similar from Ireland in 2003, using prewritten labels like I’m doing this trip. They did take a long time. I think my Dad got the 2nd one from US before the first one from Ireland. </p>
<p>On that trip I brought home about 20 postcards for us. It really made the photo album nice to have a combo of the perfect postcard photos plus our more casual family shots. We still smile at the ones where the kids are falling over sideways asleep in the bus seats with arrival-day jet lag.</p>