“In those years before mobile phones, email and Skype, travelers depended on the rudimentary communications system known as the postcard. Other methods–the long-distance phone call, the telegram–were marked “For Emergency Use Only.” So my parents waved me off into the unknown, and their news bulletins about me would have been restricted to “Yes, he’s arrived […]

“He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself” – Julian Barnes