With the opportunity of Black Friday / Cyber Monday and the Christmas holidays coming up, I thought it would be a good occasion to write an article about gift ideas; presents you can buy for those loved ones who are passionate about travelling. Or if YOU are the one who loves travelling, you could casually share this article with your loved ones, so they can get ideas for your presen. 🙂 Or just buy a present to yourself if you love travelling.
Personally, I don’t like buying random gifts that I don’t know if the other person needs, wants or likes. Receiving a gift is always nice, but I also don’t like receiving generic gifts that mean nothing to me. So, I wanted to make a list with ideas that I think every traveller would like. If they don’t already have them, that is.
I’m pretty sure, no avid traveller would say no to free flight tickets to a new or favourite destination. I know; I wouldn’t. My favourite flight search engine is Skyscanner, which I always use first to look for the best routes, dates and prices. I love their interface, which is very easy to use and not confusing.
I also love the feature where you can search for ‘Whole month’. This way you can find the day with the cheapest price to a specific destination. (I want to thank @travelgoexplore for this tip!) Another loved feature is the search to ‘Everywhere’, which I use when I am not sure where I want to go, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money. When you search like this, it shows the cheapest destinations from your departure place first. You can also use Skyscanner to look for hotels and car rentals.
One of the best gift ideas is also to buy your favourite person the accommodation for their upcoming trip or for a place they were thinking of going. Or just book a surprise trip for both of you!
My go-to platforms to look for accommodation are Booking.com and Airbnb. I looked for gift vouchers from Booking.com, but they are only available through physical retail stores in the Netherlands. Why? The other thing you can do is book the accommodation yourself and send your loved ones the email confirmation.
But don’t worry. The good news is that Airbnb has gift vouchers and they never expire! If you have never used Airbnb before, you can use my referal link to to get £25 free credit. Click here to get it!
There are also plenty of other companies to buy gift vouchers from, like the ones mentioned in this article from The Guardian. Now the question is, how to give that as a gift? I know, it is not pretty. If it is just a voucher or a code or an email confirmation, it seems like they won’t have anything tangible to put under the Christmas tree. Well, you could put it in a nice envelope with a card or you could combine it with one of the other gift ideas below, so they have something to unwrap.
My boyfriend introduced me to this backpack, because he has one, and I love it. It’s called Bobby Backpack by XD Design and its main feature is that the zip is hidden on the side of your back, so you can only unzip it if you take it off, making it theft-proof.
It is very practical for a weekend away, or for everyday use, especially if you are visiting a busy city where you have to use public transport and you want to protect yourself from pickpockets.
From a designer’s perspective, it is very well made, with good quality and durable materials. It is also ergonomic, with wide and padded shoulder straps and a design that helps lift the weight off the shoulders. It is loaded with extra features like a cut-proof layer, hidden pockets, water repellent coating and illuminating safety strips to make you visible at night. In terms of volume, it is a bit small, but it’s enough if you want to carry it around with you all day.
They have made many different designs since their original one, and you can find one that fits your loved one’s style and purpose. You can see all of them in their Amazon store. I’m sure this will make an awesome and very useful gift that will last.
I love my Ultimate Ears Wonderboom speaker. It is so cute, convenient and powerful. I have to thank my boyfriend for that as well, as this was his Christmas gift to me last year. This guy knows his stuff!
It is small, so I can carry it everywhere with me. It connects with Bluetooth to either my phone or laptop and I can play my favourite music anywhere. I believe this would be a great gift for digital nomads or people who travel often. It is also waterproof, it floats and it is rugged-has been drop tested from 1.7 metres-you can’t break it! What more can you ask from a speaker?
They also come in numerous colour combinations, so another way to personalise your gift is by choosing the favourite colour of the person you are buying it for. It is a bit expensive, so definitely take advantage of the Black Friday offers for that. I just checked on Amazon and it is -35% than the original price right now, which is great value for money! Click the image below to see the offer.
Now here’s an insider’s tip: it is cheaper if you buy a set of two. So, you can give one to two different people and save time with Christmas shopping. What is more, the speakers work together! You can connect 150+ Wonderboom speakers and have a huge party if you want to. This product is the best value for money and I would buy it again and again.
Having a convenient suitcase that is easy to carry and use is very important to help you enjoy your trip and go through everything with ease. I have two suggestions for a hand luggage.
Firstly, the new Tripp suitcases with hard shell. I recently saw they have a yellow colour that they call ‘banana’. You can imagine my excitement when I found it! Could anything fit my brand better? We are Travel Bananas! 🙂 Now seriously, I have an older, blue Tripp suitcase and I love it. It’s perfect size and the colours are fresh and brilliant.
I also recommend the Travel Hack Pro Cabin Case, which was designed by the owner of The Travel Hack, one of the biggest travel blogs in the UK. It has many unique features, which make it easy to use while on the road. The feature I love the most is the separate top compartment, which opens with a zip on the top. You can put your toiletries and anything you have to take out or put in before your flight. It also has a convenient laptop pocket, so you can use it without having to open the whole bag. Isn’t that awesome?
Remember last time you came back from a trip? I do. And this is what happens every time: I keep most of the tickets, leaflets, postcards and other ‘props’ from the places I visited during my trip. I bring them all back and don’t want to throw them away. But I also don’t know where to put them, so usually they end up in a box, dossier or drawer, never to be seen again.
Now there is a creative way to keep them and even increase their value to you. They are kind if diaries or ‘scrap books’ that help you document your trip. During your trip, you can write about where you are and when, the places you visited, things that happened, food you ate, etc. You can also stick tickets of museums or other places, photos or make drawings.
In the end you have a pretty journal filled with memories from your trip. You also get the satisfaction that you made something yourself! There are some ready with questions to help you, like the ones from Bear InMind Logbooks, or you can just buy a nice notebook. Here are some that I like. You can click the images to see more details.
A book or travel guide for a destination they want to go, is also a great gift idea. I sometimes buy a pocket size guide to have with me during the trip. I love them because they have everything you need to know about a place, including recommendations about what to see, eat, the history and where to sleep.
Even though I usually do more research on the internet or through friends, it’s nice to have a guide with you all the time and not be dependent on your phone’s battery or internet access. Once I didn’t have time to prepare for a trip to Andalucia and I just went into a bookshop the day before, bought a guide and read it in the airplane.
The ones I have are from Lonely Planet, Marco Polo and National Geographic Traveler and they are all very good. You might not have any travelling planned at the moment, but it’s never too early to start preparing for a trip!
Wouldn’t it be great to have the highlights of your trip in a printed photo book? Now you can have one quickly and easily with a service called Blurb. You select your photos, upload them and design the book in your preferred style with their easy-to-use online tool.
But it gets better! If you want to fully customize your own photo book, you can design it yourself in Adobe’s InDesign or Lightroom with Blurb’s plugins. You never have to live the program, since you can upload your final design directly from there. You can also upload a PDF book or use photos from your facebook and Instagram accounts with their online tool. It’s that easy.
I am sure it would be a great gift to give to someone from a trip you went together or a collection of the best moments of your friendship, etc. There many similar services you can find online, but this is the one I have tried, and I love the quality of the books.
I always wanted one of these paper world maps that you can scratch to reveal the places you’ve been. My boyfriend has one (again) and it’s fun to scratch it. You can put it on the wall to remind you about your past trips and make you dream of those to come. Or use it as inspiration for your next trip. This is one of the most affordable gift ideas for a travel lover!
The post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you follow one of my lins and purchase something, I might make a small commision, without any extra cost to you. All of my recommendations are based on products that I own and use. None of the products or services were gifted nor sponsored.
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