Nowadays we think of travel posters as a piece of nostalgia or a pretty print to put on the wall, 100 years ago travel posters played a key role in luring the traveller with their dreamy views that made travel seem like an adventure, impossible to resist.

There was the famous English travel poster 'It's SO bracing at Skegness' which was an ad for the Great Northern Railway Company. It was designed by John Hassall and if you could find an original 1908 poster you would need to pay in the region of £2,000 - £3,000. It depicts a cheerful fisherman walking along the beach, but it is remembered for its strapline which is still quoted today. This poster encouraged more than 300,000 per year to visit 'bracing' Skegness.

During the interwar years (1918 - 38) travel to remote destinations became a lot easier, by road, rail and sea and networks expanded across the globe. As transport companies competed with each other travel posters became a vital way for them to publicise their services. This was the golden age of the travel poster and the designs became more stylised, influenced by Art Deco and Modernism. Rather than portraying old ports and smoky steam engines there were images of streamlined ocean liners and sleek locomotives. These were quality posters by big name artists such as Ben Nicolson, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Adolphe Mouron (better known as A.M. Cassandre), Graham Sutherland, Picasso and Matisse, who all produced a number of sought after designs.

If you want to collect works from this period you will need a large budget, as prices for Art Deco posters have increased four-fold in the past ten years and range between £1,000 to £10,000. At Christie's Travel Sale in 2007 a new world record was set by 'Keeps London Going', a poster advertising the London Underground and designed by the American Surrealist artist, Man Ray in 1938 - it sold for £50,400.

Collectors who don't have quite that much money but would like to collect a big name should look at post-war travel posters. One of the finest examples is a promotional poster by Henri Matisse, designed to lure tourists to Nice in 1947, it is currently worth around £630.

The railway enthusiasts might want to consider posters produced by the newly nationalised railways in Britain, from 1947. You should look out for the distinctive round British Railways logo with a rearing red lion above a crown. In 1965 a re-branding brought the introduction of a new double arrow BR logo in red and white, this can be had for £50 or less.

Famous artists were still used in the 1950s and 1960s including Salvador Dali, who produces surreal images of Normandy, Paris and Roussillon for French Railways in 1969 which can be had for around £100 each.

If you want to establish the age of a poster you should look at the printing method. Stone lithography was used until the post-war era, when offset lithography took over. Tavel posters from the 'golden age' would have been made using stone lithography and they have large areas of flat colour and you can see real depth in the design. Offset lithography is a photgraphic method of printing. If you look closely you can see the tiny dots that make up the image. The feel of the paper is another clue - pre-1960 matt paper was the norm. You should also look at the small print running along the bottom of the poster. This may contain the printer's details, a code or a date and print-run number.