A postcard from home for someone living abroad

Most postcards travel from somewhere exciting to somewhere ordinary. A postcard from home goes the other way. It travels from the ordinary place to the person who’s off somewhere new, and it says: we’re still here, the kettle’s still on, the bins still go out on a Tuesday.

That sounds small, but for anyone living abroad it can be the best message they get all month. This guide is for families and friends sending a bit of home to expats, students overseas, partners on secondment and grandchildren on a gap year. It covers what to put in it, when to send it and how to make a playable “Greetings from” game starring everyone back home.

Why a postcard from home hits harder than you’d think

When people move away, they rarely miss the famous bits of their hometown. They miss the texture. The way the corner shop owner says their name. The particular smell of the high street after rain. The exact bus that’s always 10 minutes late.

A postcard from home works because it hands them that texture back. It isn’t trying to impress anyone. It’s a little reminder that home carries on, that they’re part of it, and that the people there are thinking about them.

A playable postcard adds something a photo can’t: the people back home are in it, doing something daft. Mum dodging seagulls. Dad as the end boss. The dog, inexplicably, flying. It turns “we miss you” into something they can play on the bus to work, wherever in the world that bus happens to be.

The details that make it land

The best postcards from home are almost aggressively local. Before you write a word, make a list of the small things only your person would recognise.

• The weather. Always the weather. “Still raining. Has been since you left. Possibly your fault.” Whether it’s a postcard from Glasgow or Cornwall, drizzle is a love language.
• The local chippy. Name it in your message. Say what you ordered. Say they put too much vinegar on, like always.
• The football. Whatever the team did this weekend, they need to know, ideally with a bit of commentary from the sofa.
• The bus route. “The 42 still doesn’t exist after 8pm” is somehow more moving than a sunset.
• The changes. The new café, the roadworks that have now been there longer than they’ve been away, the neighbour’s suspicious new hot tub.
• The things that never change. Grandad’s chair. The cupboard that sticks. The family argument about whether it’s tea or dinner.

Put these into the jokes and the message. The Postcard look gives the game a vintage seaside-postcard feel, with pastel houses, bunting and far-off landmark silhouettes, but those landmarks are generic cartoon ones, not your actual town hall or clock tower. So it’s the words that carry the local flavour. That’s a feature, honestly: “Greetings from Leeds” with a joke about the queue at your usual bakery does more than any photo of a famous building could.

For more lines to borrow, our guide on what to write on a postcard is packed with them.

Postcard from home ideas by situation

Different people miss home in different ways. Here’s a starting point.

Who’s away	Look	Game style	Message idea
Student in their first term overseas	Postcard	Platformer	“Your room is exactly as you left it. Except the dog sleeps in it now.”
Expat who’s been away for years	Postcard	Story climber	One milestone per year abroad, with the family waiting at the top.
Partner on secondment	Any	Flappy flyer	“Day 64. Still taking up your half of the bed. Come back soon.”
Sibling with a long commute in a new city	Postcard	Endless runner	“Run home. We’ll be at the finish with a brew.”
Grandchild on a gap year	Postcard or Summer	Flappy flyer	“Gran’s high score is 3. She would like you to know it’s rigged.”
First winter somewhere cold	Winter	Platformer	“Hat, scarf, gloves. Your mum has asked me to check.”
First Christmas apart	Christmas	Flappy flyer	“We’ve saved you a mince pie. Well, we did.”
Birthday away from home	Birthday	Platformer	“The cake is in the fridge. It won’t be by the time you’re back.”

The Postcard look is the natural default for a “Greetings from” game, with chip-thieving seagulls and runaway suitcases to dodge and stamps to collect. But any look works with the Postcard occasion, so if the date matters more than the place, pick the look that fits the date.

Students overseas

They’re busy, skint and pretending they don’t miss anyone. Keep it light. A Platformer where Mum is the end boss asking if they’ve eaten a vegetable this week will get a reply, even if the reply is “lol”.

Expats

Someone who has lived abroad for years doesn’t need reminding that they left. They need reminding that home still counts them in. The Story climber is perfect here: up to 12 milestones, each with a year and a caption, so you can mark every year since they moved, with the family waiting at the top.

Partners on secondment

This is long distance with an end date, which is its own particular ache. Our guide to long-distance relationship gift ideas goes deeper, but a postcard from the home you share, full of domestic detail, is hard to beat.

Grandchildren on a gap year

Turn it round: let the grandparents send the postcard. They star, they write the message, and the grandchild discovers Grandad has been practising. There’s more on this in our guide to keeping in touch with grandparents.

Timing: time zones and the big days

A postcard from home lands best when it arrives at the right moment, in their day, not yours.

• Send it for their morning. A link that pops up while they’re having breakfast gets played. One that arrives at 3am their time gets buried. Check the time difference before you hit send.
• The first month away. The first few weeks somewhere new are often the hardest, once the excitement wears off and the admin kicks in. A postcard in week 3 or 4 is perfectly timed.
• Birthdays. Being away on your birthday can feel odd. Send it the evening before, their time, so it’s waiting when they wake up.
• The first Christmas apart. Send it a few days early so it doesn’t get lost among the video calls, then update the message on the day. Editing is free and instant, and the link stays the same.
• Big days at home. A new baby in the family, a wedding they couldn’t fly back for, the local team getting promoted. Send it while it’s still news.

Pro tip: If they’re in a very different time zone, send the link and a one-line text together: “No rush, play it with your coffee.” It takes the pressure off and makes it feel like a treat, not a notification.

Practical notes: playing it abroad

The practical side is pleasingly boring, which is exactly what you want.

• It’s a link, not an app. It opens in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer, so there’s no app store, no regional version and no “not available in your country”.
• It needs a connection to open. Like any web page, they’ll want data or Wi-Fi. If they’re watching their roaming, they can open it on the café Wi-Fi.
• They can keep it. If they love it, they can add it to their home screen so it sits there like an app, a little bit of home among the banking apps and the transport passes.
• Everyone gets a leaderboard. Every game has one, so the family back home and the person abroad can compete. Nothing says “I’m fine, honestly” like getting a higher score than your brother from 5,000 miles away.
• It’s private. Games are unlisted, so only people with the link can play, and they aren’t indexed by search engines. The original photo is deleted once the characters are made. The details are on our privacy page.

Playable postcard vs posting a real one

There’s nothing wrong with a paper postcard. A real card on a fridge in another country is a lovely thing. But it’s worth being honest about what each does well.

A paper postcard sent internationally can take days or longer to arrive, depending on where it’s going, and Royal Mail has guidance on international delivery if you want to plan ahead. It’s physical, it can be kept forever, and it doesn’t need a phone. On the other hand, it can arrive after the moment has passed, and you’re limited to what fits on the back.

A playable postcard arrives the second you send it, it can be changed if you spot a typo, it stars the actual people they miss, and it gives them something to do rather than just read. It even ends on a postcard of sorts: a vintage card flies in with “Greetings from” your town on the front and your message, a stamp and your signature on the back. What it isn’t is physical: nothing is printed or posted.

The best answer is often both. Send the playable one on the day, and post a paper card with the game’s QR code printed inside (or, if you have a plan, a short custom link like yourname.become.games written under your message), so it arrives later as a keepsake that sends them back to the game.

How to make a “Greetings from” your hometown game

It takes a couple of minutes, and you can build and preview it free with demo characters.

1. Pick the Postcard occasion. This gives you postcard-flavoured jokes, the Postcard look and the Postcard ending.
2. Choose a game style. Flappy flyer for quick laughs, Endless runner for the commute, Platformer for adventure, Arena battle for chaos, Kart racer for a family race, Story climber for the soppy one.
3. Fill in “Where’s it from?” It takes up to 24 characters, and whatever you type becomes the title. “Swansea” gives you “Greetings from Swansea”. Use the name they’d use, even if it’s a village nobody else has heard of.
4. Keep the Postcard look, or pick another. The Postcard look is made for this, but Winter, Christmas, Birthday or any of the other looks work too. The look sets the obstacles and collectibles.
5. Edit the jokes. Swap in the chippy, the bus route, the weather and the football. Two or three personal lines change the whole feel.
6. Write the message for the back. At the end, a vintage postcard flies in reading “Greetings from Swansea” in big retro letters, with your message on the back, a stamp and your signature.
7. Add the people back home. Sign in with Google, choose a plan and upload a photo. We draw everyone (pets included) as cartoon characters in a minute or two, and players pick who to play on a character select screen.
8. Publish and share it. Publishing is free, and every game gets its own permanent link to send by WhatsApp, a copied link or a QR code. With a plan you can also give it a custom link like yourname.become.games. The pricing page explains exactly what a plan adds.

Sending to someone near the sea? A postcard from Aberdeen with the Postcard look’s chip-thieving seagulls will make sense to anyone who’s ever eaten chips on a harbour wall. Missing the big city? Try a postcard from Manchester with a joke about the rain that nobody can argue with.

Making one together as a family

A postcard from home is at its best when it comes from everyone. Treat it as a little family project for a Sunday afternoon.

• Take the photo together. Get everyone in one shot, facing the camera, in decent light. The dog counts. Everyone in the photo needs to agree to being turned into a character.
• Give everyone a joke. Each person writes one game-over roast. Little brother’s will be about farts. That’s fine.
• Let the kids choose the look. It gives them ownership. Under-13s can’t make an account themselves, so a parent or guardian makes the game, and games with characters made from photos of children are always in family mode.
• Write the message as a group. One line each, signed by everyone.
• Hold a family high score. Before you send it, everyone has a go. Then challenge the person abroad to beat it.

If you’re near the coast, it could be a postcard from Belfast or a postcard from Cardiff with the whole street’s gossip in the jokes. Inland, a postcard from Leeds or from Inverness works just as well. What matters is that it sounds like your family.

Sending a little piece of home

You don’t need a reason to send one. That’s rather the point. Pick a quiet Tuesday, take a photo, write about the weather and the chippy and the bus, and send it so it lands with their morning coffee. Somewhere far away, someone will dodge a seagull, laugh at Gran’s high score and feel, for a minute, like they’ve popped home.

For more ideas, browse the digital postcards hub, see our holiday postcard guide for the opposite direction, or read our miss you gift ideas for other small gestures across the miles. Planning something for Derry or Newcastle? The same rules apply: be specific, be daft, be home.