This is one of the coolest uses of modern technology I’ve seen in a while. Postcardly lets you use email to send a real, “snail-mail” postcard!

You simply set up, in your Postcardly account, email addresses to correspond to the postal addresses you want to use.  For instance, you might create the address myhubby@postcardly.com.  (In actuality, I suspect that one’s taken!)  You would set this up to match the physical address at which you want your husband to receive postcards.

Then, when you want to send a postcard, all you have to do is send an email to that address, with a photo attached.  Postcardly will print a postcard with your email text as the message and your attached photo as the postcard image, and mail it to the address associated with myhubby@postcardly.com.

This is really handy when you’re going on vacation!  In fact, I tested it when I went to Relevant with my sister.  (I sent the silly Smilebooth photo you see below.)  Just be sure that you set up your addresses ahead of time, and you don’t even need to bring an address book – just your laptop or smartphone.  When you take a great pictures of a landmark, you can go ahead and email that picture with your  “wish you were here” message and automatically send a postcard!

Another great thing about this is that you can merge the tech-savvy with the not-so-tech-savvy.  Say, for instance, that you periodically email baby photos to family members, but your great-aunt Susie doesn’t have email.  You can set up a postcardly address for Aunt Susie, and when you send that baby picture email, you can include that address in the “to:” list.  Everyone else gets an email; Aunt Susie gets a postcard – and you have to take any extra steps.  (At the time of sending the picture.  You did have to set up the email address one time beforehand.)

One thing I have noticed is that the text on these postcards is really small.  I’m not sure if that’s inherent to the system – if there’s a default font size – or if that has to do with the font settings in my email.  Also, these postcards are not the same quality you’d buy at a gift shop or something.  Still, since we’re talking about sending photos you already have elsewhere, the print quality doesn’t have to be archival photo-quality.  I still find the service to be a great tool.

You can sign up for a free 3-card trial at Postcardly, to check it out.  Two of you, though, will win 10-postcard trials.  Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below.

Disclosure: Postcardly provided me with a 10-card trial of the service so I could check it out and write this review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.  Postcardly is also providing the trials for the winners.