Postcards to Iowa

The idea for Postcards to Iowa started…

…when I returned from my first solo trip to Belize. Friends asked about my trip, but I struggled to remember the details. I had completely unplugged while I was there, and beyond a handful of photos, all I had left was the feeling of the experience—and even that began to fade.

The same thing happened a few months later after my first trip outside North America to the Philippines.

Two years later, as I prepared for another solo adventure, I decided I didn’t want those memories to disappear. So while wandering the streets of Paris, I started keeping a travel journal.

Later that week, over dinner with fellow travelers at the Moulin Rouge, I explained why I was writing everything down. They loved the idea and asked what I planned to call it.

I told them I’d spent the first thirty years of my life in rural Iowa before moving, sight unseen, to Seattle. Before that move, I never would have gone out to dinner alone. I certainly never would have imagined traveling solo across Europe. Yet there I was—sharing a table with strangers in Paris, discovering that the world was much bigger than I’d allowed myself to believe.

By intermission, someone smiled and said, “What about Postcards to Iowa?”

The name stuck.

Today, Postcards to Iowa is more than a collection of travel journals. It’s a place to share the stories, itineraries, and observations that make a destination memorable—not just where to go, but how a place can change the way you see the world.

If these stories inspire you to book a flight, take a detour, or simply look a little closer at the place you’re standing, then this little corner of the internet has done exactly what I hoped it would.

Happy adventures,

Rachel

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