Travel-related photo postcards have been close to my heart ever since I took a three-week bus trip when I was 14 years old. As a member of the Royal Cavaliers Marching Band from Van Nuys, California, I had the opportunity to go on a cross-country tour to compete with other marching bands from all over the US and Canada.

You would think my writing about being a teenager in a marching band would set off the HubPages dork alarm, but the experience was actually quite cool.That was partially due to the fact that the band, the majorette corps and the banner corps (I was one of six "banner girls") were comprised of the most boisterous group of teenagers ever. To round out the entertainment, we also had a musician who was studying to be an entomologist. He was a strange-looking guy who probably didn't have much luck with the girls, so he used to chew live bugs and open his mouth to show the still-wiggling results to anyone who dared to look.

But I digress.

In search of vintage photo postcards

As we traveled, we had opportunities to stop at kitschy souvenir stands. Because of my limited budget, more often than not I picked up travel postcards in lieu of more substantive souvenirs (translation: anything over $2). Being a teenager, I naturally gravitated toward vacation postcards of the weird variety. It's funny to think that postcards that were so contemporary then are called vintage now! Time marches on.

Because a good deal of our trip covered the Midwest United States, many of the postcard images that didn't feature pictures of tourist sites were related to either animals and Native Americans. Because of this, I managed to secure a photo postcard of a jackalope, which was supposed to be a cross between an antelope and a jack rabbit. We didn't have any alcohol on the trip, so I don't think I imagined/hallucinated the existence of that postcard, which I don't have any more. But I can't quite get my mind around how such a being could be spawned. Perhaps it's better not to think too hard about how a jack rabbit and an antelope might accomplish such a task together.

I'm sure I gathered many other vacation postcards during my travels, but the only other one that sticks in my all these years later is so disgusting, I can't even describe it. (I actually had described it here but thought better of it and removed it, given its subject.) Instead, I've provided a link to Flickr so you can see some non-controversial blast-from-the-past travel-related photo postcards.

To see a complete range of other types of vintage postcards, visit VintageHolidayCrafts.com.