Website offers free postcards online

Two dotcom companies have joined forces to offer travellers the chance to send postcards free of charge from anywhere in the world.

Two dotcom companies have joined forces to offer travellers the chance to send postcards free of charge from anywhere in the world.

The postcards are available from Keekaboo.com, an online business partner to established travel site Expedia.co.uk. Users log on, choose a card from an "online card rack" in the website's travel section, write a message and send it electronically to the site's local headquarters in your home country.

Once the e-card has been received, Keekaboo prints it out, franks it and sends it on to the recipient. It claims that cards are easier to send by this method and get there much quicker than through the usual postal services.

"We aim to get it delivered the next working day, though we are saying it will take four days to be on the safe side," said Paul Edney of Keekaboo.

At present, the traveller has to gain access to a PC, but Edney hopes that the rise of mobile devices will soon enable cards to be sent from anywhere.

However, the cards are in handwriting-style type, so they lack the personal touch of the sender. And there are only about 30 cards to choose from, some of which are travel clichés such as sandy beaches, while others are straightforward images of major destinations such as Paris, Venice, the leaning tower of Pisa and the top Greek islands.

It might also bother the sensitive that the cards are low-key advertisements, as they are paid for by sponsors including tourist offices of various countries. "We hope to keep the advertising unobtrusive," says Edney.