I made a postcards club and you should join it!

“Where you travel to, I would love to receive a beautiful postcard.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

“My mother is a great artist, but she always treated her paintings like minor postcards. Had she pursued it, she would have been a great artist. Instead, she looked down on her art.” ― Isabel Allende

My journey is long. What I try to do is live in the most frugal and stoic way possible. My daily budget is well below 3/5 € per day. Most days you do not spend more than $ 1 / day, perhaps I will explain how I manage to do this in a future blog.

However, there are unexpected expenses, like medical bills (currently stuck in Cuenca in Ecuador for the last 5 weeks, due to a herniated disc), expenses for the ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of the bicycle, and equipment that breaks or wears out.

I have already been traveling for nearly 16 months and I think it will take another three years to finish this round the world expedition.

Many people live on my trip vicariously and feel part of it, reading my blog, looking at the photos I place in Instagram or Facebook, commenting, sending messages and email. Some people have made monetary donations to support my trip and certainly the more the journey continues the more these donations are welcome and blessed. In order to make my supporters even more involved in the trip I decided to create a club of postcards where each month in exchange for a subscription of 10€ I will send a postcard completely designed by me: handmade and unique. There aren’t two identical cards. On the back I will write a custom message. There will also be stamps of the exotic country where I find myself in.

How I got this idea? It is very easy, being a creative thought its not my own work! I made many special encounters on this trip and thanks to Jaryd Clifford Adair, a Canadian biketourer that I met in passing in Cartagena, I had the chance to stay a couple of weeks in Palomino with a group of artists who had been working on a project to build an art centre in the famous Colombian Caribbean coast’s village.

Jaryd (instagram: playersgoplaces) mainly supports his journey doing murals and graffiti but also drawing postcards, maps and many other things. Jaryd is a talent artist and has been practising art since he was a teenager. It was he who suggested to found the club to support my trip and to make sure that people can feel even more involved and have something tangible in return; something unique hand-made with great passion from me.

Clearly, I’m no artist and I’m not very good at drawing but I’ll put some effort and heart in it. With a little luck, I will be able to have collaborations with local artists around the world. With practice, I hope to improve as well I hope that the commitment is appreciated.

In recent days, I managed to complete the first batch of postcards, with the help of the Ecuadorian artist: Budoka (instagram: budo.ka – sito web: budokastudio.com) who helped me by providing the study, the material and left her art in most of the postcards.  If you want a card for you or for your friends go to this page (Postcards Club page) for details on what to do. There you can also join the club and receive a postcard every month.

I hope you like the idea and I hope to be sending you a postcard shortly!