I’ve been looking for the perfect postcards all week. Yesterday, I stumbled across a collection of colorful postcards featuring landmarks from Antigua that I immediately fell in love with: the yellow Santa Catalina Arch, the intricate facade of La Merced Church, and the towering silhouette of Volcan de Agua. I spent nearly ten minutes deciding which ones felt right for each person.

This morning, I tracked down everyone’s addresses and wrote the postcards over an iced mocha latte. Then came the part I had been dreading—actually mailing them. Thanks to GPS, finding the post office wasn’t difficult. The challenge began once we walked through the door.

We were the only customers inside. The lone postal worker patiently worked through our limited Spanish as we tried to explain that we wanted to mail five postcards to the United States. One simple request somehow turned into fifteen stamps, three forms, countless signatures, and 155 quetzals in postage—about four dollars per postcard.

At one point we all started laughing as we tried to figure out exactly where all fifteen stamps belonged. Let me just say, it takes a while to affix fifteen stamps. Thirty minutes later, we walked out victorious.

If you’ve ever received a postcard from another country, know that someone loves you deeply. Those things don’t send themselves.

Mailing postcards is one of my favorite things to do while traveling. I’ve found that souvenirs rarely mean as much to the recipient as they do to me. I’ve spent hours searching for the perfect gift, carefully packing it in my luggage, and wondering if the person would even like it. It rarely lands the way I hope it will.

At some point, something clicked. I realized I could let go of the obligation to bring everyone home a souvenir and choose a different way to remember them while I was away. I’d always mailed postcards.

My grandma still has every postcard I’ve ever sent her. They started on her refrigerator, and when she ran out of room, they spread onto the kitchen wall. My mom keeps hers pinned to a corkboard. I love knowing that little pieces of my travels are still hanging in the homes of the people I love.

There’s something magical about a postcard. It feels timeless. In a world of instant messages and text notifications, someone still has to pick it out, write it by hand, find a post office, and trust it to make its way across the world.

Maybe that’s why I love them so much. They’re slow. They’re imperfect. They take the scenic route. And somehow, that makes them feel a little more human.