---
title: World Postcard Day
description: Celebrate World Postcard Day on October 1 and discover postcard history, traditions, collecting, fun facts, and ways to celebrate.
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#### Wish You Were Here. Postage Due.

World Postcard Day is celebrated every year on October 1, giving us an excellent excuse to rediscover one of the simplest and most enduring ways people have kept in touch across towns, countries, and continents. Long before text messages, social media posts, vacation selfies, and the dreaded family group chat, there was the postcard — a small piece of card carrying a picture on one side, a few handwritten words on the other, and just enough room to tell everyone back home that the weather was wonderful.

The postcard has been carrying greetings, travel reports, birthday wishes, holiday messages, advertisements, historical images, and occasionally handwriting that requires the services of a trained archaeologist for more than 150 years. Millions of postcards have crossed oceans and borders, providing snapshots not only of places but also of the lives, fashions, humor, architecture, transportation, and everyday experiences of generations past.

World Postcard Day celebrates postcard history, the pleasure of sending and receiving handwritten mail, postcard collecting, postal services, and the simple human desire to tell somebody, “Wish you were here.” Unlike a social media photograph that may disappear beneath 400 newer posts before lunchtime, an old postcard can survive in a drawer for generations. That little rectangle of cardboard may eventually become a family keepsake, historical record, collector's item, or evidence that Great-Uncle Albert really did visit Niagara Falls in 1957.

And unlike your smartphone, a postcard has never demanded a software update before allowing you to use it.

#### What Is World Postcard Day?

World Postcard Day is an international celebration of postcards and the simple pleasure of sending a handwritten message through the mail. The day encourages people to put down the phone for a few minutes, pick up a pen, and send an actual piece of mail to a friend, relative, or perhaps somebody who has forgotten that a mailbox can contain something other than bills.

The celebration also recognizes the important place postcards hold in postal history and communication. For more than 150 years, postcards have carried vacation greetings, birthday wishes, holiday messages, photographs, advertisements, announcements, and everyday news around the world. Because many old postcards featured photographs and illustrations of towns, buildings, landmarks, transportation, and daily life, surviving examples can also provide fascinating glimpses into places and communities as they appeared generations ago.

World Postcard Day is also a celebration for postcard collectors, postal history enthusiasts, travelers, artists, photographers, and stamp collectors. But you certainly don't need a collection or an encyclopedic knowledge of postmarks to participate. Find a postcard you like, write a few words on the back, address it, add the proper postage, and drop it in the mail. There is something surprisingly satisfying about sending a message that has to physically travel hundreds or thousands of miles to reach its recipient — particularly when you consider that it manages the entire journey without Wi-Fi, a password, or a charging cable.

#### Why Is World Postcard Day Celebrated on October 1?

World Postcard Day is celebrated on October 1 because the date marks an important milestone in postcard history. On October 1, 1869, the Austrian postal service introduced the **Correspondenz-Karte**, or correspondence card, an inexpensive way for people to send short written messages without using a traditional letter and envelope. The idea proved enormously popular and helped establish the postal card as a practical new form of communication.

![Woman smiles as she reads a colorful vacation postcard delivered to her home from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.](https://marktheday.info/images/mark-the-days/october/oct-01/world-postcard-day-1.webp "Receiving a Postcard from a friend is always uplifting.")The first cards were considerably plainer than the colorful picture postcards we know today. They were designed primarily for written correspondence, with one side used for the address and the other for the message. Nevertheless, the idea caught on quickly. Other postal systems introduced similar cards, and over the following decades photographs, illustrations, tourist scenes, artwork, advertising, and increasingly elaborate designs transformed the humble postal card into the familiar postcard.

The date took on a new significance in 2019, when celebrations were organized to mark the 150th anniversary of the postcard. The success of that anniversary helped inspire World Postcard Day, which was officially launched on October 1, 2020, as an annual celebration of postcards, postal history, and handwritten correspondence.

So October 1 isn't a date somebody pulled from a mailbag at random. It connects World Postcard Day directly with the beginnings of the modern postcard — and celebrates more than a century and a half of people discovering that there is just enough room on a small card to write “Wish you were here,” but never quite enough room to explain what happened at the hotel last night.

#### Austria Sends the Postcard on Its Way

The story of the modern postcard begins in Austria-Hungary in 1869, although the idea of sending short messages on inexpensive cards had been discussed before then. Austrian economics professor Emanuel Herrmann argued that many everyday messages did not require an entire letter, envelope, and full letter postage. Sometimes people simply needed to send a few words, and paying for all that paper and postal ceremony seemed rather excessive.

The Austrian postal administration agreed that there was something to the idea. On October 1, 1869, it introduced the Correspondenz-Karte, or correspondence card. The card provided a simple, inexpensive way to send a brief written message through the mail without an envelope. It was not the colorful souvenir postcard that would eventually become familiar around the world. There were no photographs of beaches, mountain resorts, impressive hotels, or questionable jokes involving donkeys. It was a practical piece of postal stationery designed to get a short message from one person to another.

The public quickly demonstrated that Herrmann had been onto something. Millions of correspondence cards were mailed during the first year, and other countries soon began introducing versions of their own. Britain introduced postal cards in 1870, and the United States followed with government-issued postal cards in 1873. A new form of everyday communication was spreading rapidly around the world.

Those early cards established the basic idea that would eventually produce the picture postcard: a message could travel cheaply and conveniently on a simple card without being tucked inside an envelope. Once printers, photographers, artists, advertisers, and the growing tourism industry got involved, however, leaving all that empty cardboard undecorated didn't stand much of a chance.

#### Pictures Changed Everything

Once the postcard had proved that people were perfectly happy sending messages on pieces of cardboard, it was probably inevitable that somebody would look at all that unused space and decide it needed a picture. During the late 19th century, illustrated postcards began appearing with drawings, printed designs, advertising, and eventually photographs. The practical correspondence card was becoming something people might actually want to keep.

Tourism helped push the transformation along. Postcards featuring famous landmarks, hotels, railway stations, seaside resorts, city streets, mountains, historic buildings, and scenic views gave travelers an inexpensive souvenir they could also mail home. Instead of merely writing that they had visited Paris, London, New York, or some picturesque seaside town, travelers could send friends and family an actual image of the place — photographic evidence that they had escaped home while everybody else was still working.

Advances in photography and printing technology made picture postcards increasingly attractive and affordable. Publishers produced enormous numbers of cards depicting everything from major cities and national monuments to tiny communities, local businesses, railway lines, ships, automobiles, holiday greetings, humorous cartoons, and everyday street scenes. Some photographers even produced real photo postcards, using photographic processes to create postcard-sized prints that could travel through the mail.

Pictures changed the postcard from a convenient method of communication into a combination of message, souvenir, photograph, advertisement, and historical record. People began buying postcards even when they had no immediate intention of mailing them. They saved them, traded them, displayed them in albums, and started collections. The postcard had discovered pictures — and the Golden Age of Postcards was about to begin.

#### The Golden Age of Postcards

By the beginning of the 20th century, postcards had become much more than an inexpensive way to send a quick message. They were a full-blown international craze. The period from roughly 1900 through the First World War is often described as the Golden Age of Postcards, when enormous numbers of cards were printed, mailed, exchanged, collected, and carefully arranged in albums. For a generation discovering faster transportation, expanding postal services, improved printing, and greater opportunities for travel, postcards arrived at exactly the right moment.

People sent postcards for almost everything. There were birthday postcards, Christmas postcards, romantic cards, humorous cards, advertising postcards, patriotic cards, photographs of family members, pictures of ships and trains, city views, rural scenes, famous buildings, and major public events. Postcard collecting became a popular hobby, and publishers responded by producing an extraordinary variety of designs. A person could build an impressive collection without traveling farther than the nearest post office or stationery shop.

Travel and tourism were particularly important to the postcard boom. Railways and steamships were carrying growing numbers of people to seaside resorts, cities, scenic destinations, hotels, monuments, and tourist attractions, and postcards provided an inexpensive souvenir of the journey. Visitors could buy a card showing the very beach, hotel, mountain, railway station, or landmark they had just seen and send it home to friends and relatives. The familiar vacation message “Wish you were here” became closely associated with the postcard because the card itself could show exactly where “here” happened to be.

Postcards also provided travelers with a wonderfully efficient opportunity to boast. A few words scribbled beside an attractive photograph could casually inform everyone back home that the sender was enjoying sunshine, spectacular scenery, excellent food, and absolutely no responsibilities whatsoever. Long before vacation photographs appeared instantly on social media, the postcard allowed travelers to announce, with admirable politeness, “Look where I am and you aren't.”

The Golden Age eventually faded as communication methods, postal rates, technology, and society changed, but the postcards produced during those years never completely disappeared. Millions survived in family albums, desk drawers, boxes, antique shops, archives, and private collections. More than a century later, many of those cards offer something their original senders probably never considered: a remarkably detailed picture of a world that no longer exists.

#### Postcards Became Tiny Pieces of History

Nobody mailing a postcard from a railway station, seaside hotel, or small-town post office in 1905 was necessarily trying to preserve history. They were probably just telling Aunt Margaret that the weather was lovely and the train arrived late. More than a century later, however, that ordinary postcard may provide a surprisingly detailed glimpse into a place, person, or way of life that has long since disappeared.

Old postcards can preserve images of streets, buildings, businesses, railway stations, ships, automobiles, hotels, amusement parks, schools, churches, military installations, farms, and entire communities as they once appeared. Buildings shown on postcards may have been demolished, roads renamed, businesses closed, and landscapes transformed beyond recognition. For local historians and genealogists, even an apparently ordinary postcard can contain useful clues about the past.

The handwritten side can be just as interesting as the picture. Names, addresses, dates, family news, travel plans, occupations, and everyday observations provide small pieces of social and family history. A message about catching Tuesday's train or arriving at Grandma's house safely may sound thoroughly unremarkable until somebody discovers it 100 years later while researching the people who lived in a particular town or tracing the movements of an ancestor.

Not surprisingly, people collect these little pieces of history. Postcard collecting is known as deltiology, and collectors are called deltiologists. Collections may concentrate on particular towns, countries, historical periods, buildings, railways, ships, military subjects, holidays, advertising, famous people, artists, or practically any other subject that has appeared on a postcard. Some collectors specialize in real photo postcards, which can be especially interesting when they contain unique photographs of people, businesses, buildings, or events.

Then there is the stamp. A postcard that survived with its original postage stamp, cancellation, and postmark can tell another part of the story. The postmark may reveal exactly where and when the card entered the postal system, while unusual stamps, routes, cancellations, or destinations can make a card particularly interesting to collectors of postal history and philately. Sometimes the picture attracts the postcard collector while the stamp attracts the stamp collector, leaving both of them politely pretending they aren't interested in the other half.

Not every old postcard is valuable, of course. Age alone does not turn a piece of cardboard into a retirement fund. Rarity, condition, subject matter, photographer or publisher, historical significance, postmarks, stamps, and collector demand can all influence value. A common postcard produced by the thousands may be worth very little, while an unusual photograph of a vanished building, rare event, small community, or historically important subject may attract considerably more attention.

Whatever its monetary value, an old postcard can still possess something more interesting. It represents a specific person, place, and moment in time. Someone chose it, wrote on it, addressed it, bought the postage, and dropped it into the mail. Decades later, that inexpensive little card may be one of the few surviving records showing what their corner of the world looked like — complete with a stamp in the corner and Aunt Margaret still waiting to hear whether the weather improved.

#### Writing a Postcard Is an Art of Limited Space

Writing a postcard used to require a skill that younger generations may never fully appreciate: spatial planning. You had a postcard, a pen, several days of vacation to describe, three amusing incidents that absolutely had to be mentioned, and a message area approximately the size of a respectable sandwich. There was no delete key, no backspace button, and certainly no opportunity to increase the font size after discovering you had started much too enthusiastically.

Everything usually began well. Dear Mum and Dad, appeared across the top in beautiful, confident handwriting. Having a wonderful time. The weather has been fantastic and yesterday we went... Then you looked down and discovered that half the available postcard had disappeared while you were still describing Tuesday.

That was when postcard mathematics began.

![Cruise passenger relaxes beside the ship’s swimming pool while writing postcards to friends and family back home.](https://marktheday.info/images/mark-the-days/october/oct-01/world-postcard-day-2.webp "Taking a moment to think about the Folks Back Home who are not on vacation.")The handwriting became slightly smaller. Unnecessary words disappeared. We are going to became We're going to. Tomorrow might become tmrw. Sentences that had started with punctuation, grammar, and dignity were gradually reduced to whatever could be squeezed into the remaining territory. The final three lines often became progressively smaller until the writer was producing letters normally associated with the fine print on an insurance contract.

Then came the desperate search for unused space. Perhaps there was room beneath the message. Maybe a few words could be written sideways along the dividing line. Experienced postcard writers knew that the margins represented valuable real estate. The truly desperate would turn the card ninety degrees and continue writing vertically, leaving the recipient to rotate the postcard several times while attempting to determine whether everyone was having a wonderful holiday or requesting emergency assistance.

And somewhere, somehow, you still had to fit “Wish you were here. Love, Paul.”

There was also the address side to protect. Wander too far across the dividing line and your heartfelt description of dinner might suddenly become part of Aunt Margaret's street address. Stray toward the upper-right corner and you entered the sacred territory of the postage stamp, where even the most determined postcard writer knew better than to trespass.

Writing postcards therefore required a peculiar combination of storytelling, handwriting, editing, geometry, and optimism. You began with plenty of room and ended by squeezing three abbreviated words into a corner using handwriting visible only under laboratory conditions.

And somehow, despite all of that, the recipient could usually read it ~ Mostly.

#### How to Celebrate World Postcard Day

The most obvious way to celebrate World Postcard Day is also the best one: send somebody a postcard. Find a card you like, write an actual message with an actual pen, add the address and correct postage, and drop it into a mailbox. It doesn't have to travel halfway around the world. Sending one across town counts, although admittedly it doesn't give the postcard much of an adventure.

Choose somebody who isn't expecting it. Send a postcard to a friend you haven't spoken with recently, a grandparent, grandchild, former coworker, neighbor, or family member living far away. Instead of sending the usual text message saying “Thinking of you,” write those same words on a postcard. A text will probably be read within seconds and forgotten before dinner. A postcard might spend several weeks stuck to the refrigerator.

You don't have to be traveling to send one, either. Send a postcard from your own hometown. Tourist information centers, museums, historic attractions, bookstores, gift shops, national and state parks, and local businesses may still sell postcards showing nearby scenery and landmarks. Sending someone a picture of where you live can be every bit as interesting as mailing one from a vacation destination — particularly to somebody who has never visited.

World Postcard Day is also a good excuse to start a postcard collection. Pick a subject that interests you and see what you can find. Your collection might feature your hometown, old hotels, railway stations, ships, automobiles, military history, national parks, holiday postcards, famous landmarks, or places you've visited. There are enough subjects available that practically everyone can find something worth collecting.

And before buying anything, investigate the family cupboards, drawers, photograph albums, old boxes, and other mysterious places where paperwork has been accumulating since approximately the invention of furniture. You may already own old family postcards without realizing it. Don't look only at the picture. Read the message, examine the postmark, check the address, identify the sender, and see whether you can work out the story behind it. What once looked like an ordinary old card may suddenly become a small piece of your family's history.

If you have children or grandchildren, involve them as well. Let them choose postcards, write messages, address the cards, select stamps, and put them into the mail. For a child accustomed to instant digital communication, discovering that a handwritten card can physically travel across the country — or around the world — and eventually appear in somebody else's mailbox is a wonderfully old-fashioned bit of magic.

Most importantly, write something personal. You don't need to compose great literature. Tell someone where you are, what you've been doing, share a joke, mention the weather, or simply say hello. World Postcard Day isn't really about cardboard, stamps, or postal regulations. It is about taking a few minutes to send somebody a message they can actually hold.

Just remember what we learned earlier: start writing small.

#### World Postcard Day FAQ

World Postcard Day may celebrate a very simple form of communication, but postcards have accumulated more than 150 years of history, traditions, terminology, and collecting along the way. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about World Postcard Day and postcards.

**When is World Postcard Day?**  
World Postcard Day is celebrated every year on October 1. The date recognizes an important moment in postcard history: the introduction of the Austrian Correspondenz-Karte, or correspondence card, on October 1, 1869.

**What is World Postcard Day?**  
World Postcard Day is an international celebration of postcards, handwritten correspondence, postal history, and postcard collecting. One of the easiest ways to participate is simply to choose a postcard, write a personal message, add the correct postage, and send it to someone.

**When did World Postcard Day begin?**  
World Postcard Day was launched in 2020, following celebrations in 2019 marking the 150th anniversary of the postcard. It has since been observed annually on October 1.

**Who invented the postcard?**  
There isn't a completely simple answer because several people contributed ideas that led to the postcard. However, Emanuel Herrmann, an Austrian economics professor, played an important role in promoting the practical use of inexpensive correspondence cards. Austria-Hungary introduced its Correspondenz-Karte in 1869, helping establish the postal card as a popular form of communication.

**When was the first postal card introduced?**  
Austria-Hungary introduced the Correspondenz-Karte on October 1, 1869. It allowed people to send short messages inexpensively without using an envelope and quickly proved popular.

**What is postcard collecting called?**  
Postcard collecting and the study of postcards are known as deltiology. A person who collects or studies postcards may be called a deltiologist. Collectors may specialize in particular locations, subjects, publishers, artists, historical periods, or types of postcards.

**Are old postcards valuable?**  
Some old postcards can be valuable, but age alone does not determine value. Rarity, condition, subject matter, photographer or publisher, historical importance, postmarks, stamps, and collector demand can all affect what a postcard is worth. Many common vintage postcards remain inexpensive, while particularly rare or historically interesting examples may command much higher prices.

**Can you still send postcards internationally?**  
Yes. Postcards can still be mailed internationally through postal services around the world. International postage rates and mailing requirements vary by country and destination, so senders should check the current requirements of their postal service before mailing.

**Do postcards need envelopes?**  
Normally, no. One of the defining features of a traditional postcard is that it is mailed without an envelope, with the message and recipient's address written directly on the card. Certain unusual sizes, shapes, decorations, or materials may require different postage or handling.

**What should I write on a postcard?**  
Anything that fits — and therein lies the challenge. Tell the recipient where you are, what you've been doing, mention something amusing that happened, share a brief personal message, or simply say that you were thinking about them. Just remember that postcards are not private correspondence, so perhaps save the family secrets, bank details, and your opinion of Aunt Margaret's cooking for something with an envelope.

**How can I celebrate World Postcard Day?**  
The simplest way to celebrate is to send a postcard on October 1. You can also start a postcard collection, look through old family postcards, visit a postal museum, learn about postal history, collect postcards from your hometown, or introduce a child to the almost forgotten excitement of receiving personal mail addressed specifically to them.

**Why are postcards still important?**  
Postcards combine personal communication with a physical record of a particular place and time. Old postcards can preserve photographs of communities, buildings, transportation, fashions, businesses, and everyday life while handwritten messages provide glimpses into the people who sent and received them. A postcard sent today may be an inexpensive greeting; decades from now, somebody may regard it as a piece of family or local history.

And unlike a text message, nobody has ever lost a 100-year-old postcard because they forgot their cloud password.

#### One Last Note Before We Drop It in the Mail

For more than 150 years, postcards have been carrying little pieces of people's lives from one place to another. They have crossed oceans aboard ships, rattled across countries on trains, traveled by airplane, passed through countless post offices, and eventually landed in mailboxes carrying everything from important family news to the immortal words, “Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.”

Technology has given us faster ways to communicate, and few people would seriously suggest abandoning text messages, email, or video calls in favor of waiting several days for a piece of cardboard to arrive. But speed isn't everything. There is something wonderfully personal about choosing a postcard, writing someone's name and address by hand, adding a message, sticking a stamp in the corner, and sending something tangible on its way.

That may be why postcards have survived. They aren't simply messages. They can become souvenirs, photographs, family records, historical documents, and reminders of people and places we once knew. The postcard you send on World Postcard Day might spend a month on someone's refrigerator, several years tucked inside a drawer, and several decades forgotten in a box before somebody discovers it again and wonders about the person who wrote it.

So, on October 1, celebrate World Postcard Day the traditional way. Buy a postcard, find a pen, write to somebody you care about, and drop it in the mail. You don't need a special occasion, an exotic vacation, or anything particularly profound to say.

Just remember to leave enough room at the bottom for “Love, Paul.”

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