What you get: This image (drop shadow is included), about twice the size, without the text, on a transparent background, in both PNG and layered PSP formats.
On the layered PSP, you can easily insert the image of your choice over the black area.
I have used this image previously, on blogs, as the default thumbnail in a popular or recent post list, for posts that do not have a featured image associated with them. If I had a travel blog, I’d probably use this as the template for all featured images, placing actual photos of various locations over the dark layer, and captioning them with the location in a handwriting font, similar to the example shown here. I think that would look fantastic on the front page, with a masonry layout.
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license, suitable for personal, non-commercial, and commercial use. All you have to do is give credit by linking back to this site wherever you use it.