I saw a TV commercial last week for the postcard app Touchnote.

I didn’t even know postcard apps were a thing until now.

I’ve always made a point of sending postcards to family and friends back home — starting in 2001 with my first trip abroad.

I did it the conventional way each time: Buy postcards from a shop, find a local post office, buy the stamps and drop the postcards in a mailbox.

Until this past June where I led a group on a volunteering trip to Guatemala.

While in in the town of Quetzeltenango in Guatemala, I bought five (5) postcards from a small tourist shop. The kind old man behind the counter then told me where the post office was located.

I then talked to my local coordinator who told me, “Actually, the post office doesn’t work anymore in Guatemala.”

As in, literally — you cannot send mail there. Ugh.

So I put my postcards in my folder and forgot about it.

Until — the commercial for Touchnote. It looked like a useful thing, so I looked it up.

The New York Times said last year:

Select any picture from your camera roll, and Touchnote will turn it into a postcard and mail it to any location in the world with a working postal service. You can add a personalized message on the back, just as you would on an actual postcard.

Josh Root reviewed five photo postcard apps in Digital Photography Review and named Touchnote his co-winner in the category. He likes that:

“[Touchnote is] easy to use, their cards have clean and understated graphic designs and the image quality is, to my eye, the best balance of color, exposure and sharpness.”

The price is $1.50 to $2.99 per card.

So, although I will continue to send real postcards by hand on my trips abroad, it’s nice to know that apps like Touchnote can help you when that’s not possible.

(Disclosure: This post does NOT contain affiliate links)