CNN Postcards are concise, vivid travel stories that capture the wonder, joy, humor, and drama of our adventures. Submit your own postcard-sized travel story below.
Welcome to the first roundup of CNN Postcards. A short first-person travel story that captures the best and sometimes the worst of travel. We’re kicking off this new series with contributions from CNN Travel staff, but we’d love to hear your stories and see your photos and videos for potential inclusion in the series. There is a submission form below the story, so please share!
It was a chilly April day, but the midday sun was warm enough to sit on the balcony and eat prosciutto, local arugula, and a delicious jar of homemade tomato sauce sold by a woman on the street corner. Since it was an off-season visit, we could afford to rent a cliff-top house in Peschici and drink with endless views of the cold sea. There was only one restaurant open in the evening and we had the waiter to ourselves. He held our little girl so we could enjoy our meals and laughed heartily with joy when she peed on him. (Barry Nield)
A few months after I finished my cancer treatment, and still in the midst of a pandemic, Sri Lanka reopened to travel. Without consulting my doctor, I booked a five-week itinerary around the islands, thinking it was worth the quarantine period awaiting me back in Hong Kong.
It was an incredible series of firsts. My first visit to South Asia, my first trip since getting sick, and my first time seeing an elephant. There were very few tourists in many of the country’s most popular tourist spots. In this photo from Dambulla Cave, he is wearing a mask, but you can see that he has a big smile behind it. (Lilit Marcus)
Exposed wires fell from the steering wheel. My girlfriend Kate noticed too, but said nothing to the kind man who drove us across what looked like a hot-wired vehicle and across the Underground to the outskirts of London. He took us to different places.
Two Americans traveling abroad come up with the novel idea of buying a used car and driving around Europe. This was the most desolate thing we had seen. The radio was broken and the upholstery was torn. When we politely told him we weren’t interested, he suddenly drove off.
we laughed. “Now, how do we get back?” (David G. Allan)
Maybe I should call a taxi and eat some tacos.
When we visited Mexico with a toddler, we took a taxi ride around Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Cancun. One night, when I hailed a taxi, there were already other passengers in it. But they didn’t say anything, so we piled into the car and my son balanced on my lap.
We got used to sharing taxis. One day, a driver arrived with his family. I had a pile of tortillas on the dashboard and my wife made beef tacos for me. She gave the tacos to her husband and assembled one for her son.
I can still see the boy’s big sleepy eyes and the tacos made from the dashboard of his father’s cab. (Jeanne Bonner)
They flew into the jungle gym next to me – first one kid, then two kids. We hung silently, like crows flocking to the “birds.”
On my first camping trip in France, I faced challenges, but I coped with them with the best of my seven years of courage. As an explorer in a strange land, I pegged the tent and said “mercy” to the ice cream man.
An alien sound came from the boy’s mouth. The girl stared at me, waiting for my answer. I jumped and ran back to the safety of my family. My cheeks burned with a deep, unbearable embarrassment. I wasn’t international yet. (Maureen O’Hare)
Do you have a simple story that only happened far from home? Did you fall in love with the place you visited? Have you ever had a captivating moment or a magical encounter while traveling? Send a postcard to the address below.
