When the world is open to travelling, it is one of the most popular activities that people undertake. The tourism industry is one that emerged only in the last century or so, but has proved one of the best to ever appear. Those who frequently travel often find themselves in need of certain materials or products. These might make the journey a little bit easier or just make it that much more memorable.
But what are these gifts for travel enthusiasts? Is there a difference between the gifts for solo travellers and gifts for first-time travellers? That’s what we’re going to look through today. With this list, you should be able to come up with a list of the best gifts for travel lovers the next time a birthday or giving holiday happens to come around.
Great Travel Gift Ideas For Any Budget
Carry-Ons and Suitcases
Regardless of where you are going and for what reason, you’ll probably need to take some equipment with you. Carry-on luggage and suitcases are how most people do that, which makes them one of the best gifts you can give to those who frequently travel.
There are all sorts of travel bags these days, so you’ll certainly have some options when picking. There are hard polycarbonate-bound ones, soft leather ones, those with 4 wheels that go in any direction and those with only 2 that can travel back and forth. With a wide price range as well, this makes for a great gift for anyone who travels.
Travel Backpacks
Similar to our first pick, our second comes in the form of travel backpacks. These are packs that are designed to look like regular backpacks, but are made of more durable material and help travellers organize themselves more easily.
These backpacks can be a fairly large or medium size in order to accommodate the various needs of the travellers. Once again, they have a large range of prices to pick from here, so anyone looking for practical gifts for travelers can pick out one that would fit their budget.
Packing Cubes
Coming in third on our list is a gift that doesn’t really stand on its own, but would be useful to those who already have travel backpacks or suitcases. These are known as packing cubes and can make all the difference for a traveller who might not be the most organized when they do.
These packing cubes are actually a rather basic idea. They are small bags that are supposed to go inside the suitcase. Whoever is using these cubes is supposed to use them for different categories. So in one cube, toiletries would be squeezed in and put in one part of the suitcase. In another, perhaps the pants and undergarments, with socks if space allows. Really the possibilities are up to whoever is using them and that’s what makes these so great as a gift. Considering they also don’t cost a ton, this could easily make them worth the consideration for a gift.
Portable Travel Blender
For those who like to have some smoothies or protein shakes regularly, periods of travel can be a rough patch due to the lack of equipment wherever they are going. Fortunately, travel blenders solve this situation.
These are small, portable blenders that will allow anyone to blend up some fruit or other appropriate ingredients so long as they have access to some form of charge. Many of these run on lithium batteries that merely need USB charging akin to a phone, so it doesn’t mean that people will have to go searching for their own batteries. Once again, you won’t find yourself dropping a fortune on them (or even close) so it makes for a good gift for anyone who enjoys a good smoothie now and then.
Collapsible Water Bottle
One of the best gifts for travel lovers is a collapsible water bottle. It seems so simple, but this can actually turn out to be a brilliant and useful gift for any sort of long-distance travel that one might be undertaking. It is a practical gift, as these water bottles can be scrunched up into a tiny size when not in use, which can be extremely handy when the traveller is running out of space.
It’s certainly not one of the most grand gifts that you will be giving out. However, it can most certainly turn out to be one of the most useful gifts for people who love to travel. Long hikes, long flights and other travel types can most certainly take a lot of energy out of people who go on them. That’s why they need some hydration to keep up. With these collapsible water bottles, it can fulfill that need for water without taking up a massive amount of space in the packing.
Travel Bottles & Cosmetics Containers
A gift for those who are concerned with keeping up their appearance during their travels. Perhaps a gift for female travellers, or those men who equally like to keep up the appearance as they go. These are travel bottles or other containers for cosmetics. Once again, it might not be the prettiest or most grand gift that you could get for travellers, but it is certainly one of the most useful.
Nobody wants to have their luggage stuffed with all their cosmetics, especially when they could put other clothing or souvenirs in there. These containers allow for that space to be used in a much more effective manner by all travellers. Considering they are also fairly cheap to buy, it allows for friends or family of the travellers to get it for them without worrying about breaking the bank.
Garment Bags For Suits and Dresses
For those who need gift ideas for frequent travellers who do business all over the world, there are few better options than garment bags. Nobody wants to travel in their expensive suits or dresses, but rather the casual clothing that will get them to their destination in one piece. However, they also don’t want to arrive with those same clothes mashed and crinkled all to bits as a result of being in a regular travel bag.
Garment bags are the solution to this conundrum. They are one of the best gift ideas for business travellers because they allow them to travel out of the fancy clothing, while still keeping that clothing nice-looking over long journeys. If you know a friend or family member who happens to make frequent business trips to the United Nations, Volkswagen HQ or other huge international deals, getting them a garment bag could really show you know what they need for travel.
Digital Luggage Scale For Travel
One of the worst surprises that can pop up during a vacation or other form of travel is the expensive charge at the airport if your bags are too heavy. But most people can’t simply know how much their bag weighs by picking them up. That’s why a digital luggage scale can be another of the coolest gadgets for travellers and for sure one of the most practical gift ideas for someone going travelling abroad. This tiny device allows users to gauge how much their bag weighs before getting to the airport, thus allowing them to make any adjustments that will save them money.
All that the travellers need to do in order to use one of these devices is to put it around the handle of whatever bag they are weighing, pick it up and then see what the number is that pops up. It’s extremely simple and extremely useful. Thus, it’s a cheap gift for travellers and one of the best ones.
Laptops For Travel And Work
Technology has come a long way. In the past, the idea of bringing a computer on a long journey might have seemed insane. But considering now everyone carries a miniature version in their pocket (in the form of a smartphone), laptops have become a perfectly reasonable gift idea for world travellers. These devices allow for business travellers to get work done while they are moving around the world, while they allow users who are travelling for fun to document their experience and retain a connection to home.
While these aren’t the cheapest gifts available on this list, they are one of the most long-term ones. If you get them one of these babies, they’re sure to be using them for a while thanks to their usefulness. Not to mention, there’s so much variety with Macs, Dell, Microsoft and others all challenging for the title of “best travel laptop”. This means that you can pick out whichever one you think would best fit that traveller.
Camera For Travel
What would a trip be without pictures? While it’s true that we can take many high-quality pictures thanks to our phones these days, sometimes a dedicated camera for these memories can be just what is needed. These cameras have had to become quite creative in their methods as to how they can beat out smartphones, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.
You have now got travel cameras that have become smaller than some of the smartphones out there, yet offer cameras just as good. Then you’ve got cameras that are waterproof and can capture the underwater scenes that can so often amaze anyone who looks at them. Travellers who also vlog or otherwise like to put their journeys out to the world can find that these cameras are crucial to their experience. That’s why these can make such good gifts for those friends who are going abroad.
A Trip or Organised Tour
This gift is more for those who are travelling for the first time or are taking a vacation for fun, as it is unlikely that business travellers will have time for such adventures. When going to a new and unknown land, it can sometimes be intimidating to wander around without any sort of guidance. That’s why a paid trip or tour can help ease that worry, allowing travellers to feel more secure that they know more about the area that they are in.
Whether it is a tour to Europe, a guided trip to Italy, a wine tour in the hills of Tuscany, a riverboat guide through Canadian Montreal, an escorted tour to Greece, or street tours through Hong Kong, these trips can give a wider view of what is around them. With travel guides who are charming and highly familiar with the area, these trips can deliver so much more to the trip than might otherwise have been experienced. That’s why it’s one of the most fun gifts for travellers.
Power Bank For Travel
We’ve mentioned smartphones a couple of times now, which leads us to our eighth pick for the best travel gifts. What does a smartphone need to function? Power, of course. Yet, this can be hard to find on long hikes or during those day-long travel sessions. That’s why power banks can turn out to be key to keeping these devices alive in between those hotel rooms that you can freely recharge at.
These devices are great tech gifts for travelers, as they are small and can deliver quite a bit of life to those who are running low after a long day. An end of the day call home or scroll through Twitter might be all that’s needed to just give that brief “at-home” feel. These devices don’t tend to be too expensive either, so it makes for an easy choice to pick up as a gift for any traveller.
Compression Socks
One of the plain truths about travel is that there is a lot of movement. In many cases, the walking can almost match up to any other type of travel in terms of time, if not distance. This can take a serious toll on the legs, especially if that traveller (or those travellers) aren’t used to such movement. That’s why compression socks can be another excellent gift for those who travel frequently. It’s an especially good gift for those who prefer journeys with long hikes or intend to be on their feet for the majority of the time.
These socks have to be snug, and help dampen any pain or swelling in the calves. This allows them to support more healthy circulation in those legs and make it less likely that the traveller feels too exhausted to do any more of the activity that they are there to do. Nobody wants to spend their trip in pain or on the bed, so that’s why compression socks are one of the more unique travel gifts.
Toiletry Bags (Including Hanging Toiletry Bags)
Keeping the toiletries organized can be one of the biggest headaches that people can have while they travel. Nobody wants to reach their next destination only to realize that they left their toothbrush at their last hotel. That’s why having a hanging toiletry bag that does all the organization for you can turn out to be one of the best travel gifts you can distribute.
These bags also have a wide variety of designs, giving them an extra element that you can consider when looking at them. Whether it is one of the bags that hangs in the closet or simply one that unzips and is carried along, they all share the same purpose – keep the toiletries in one, concentrated position for easy access. These can range in price, being both quite cheap with a few on the expensive side. While these might seem perfect travel gift ideas for her, they are all most certainly useful for anyone who decides to travel far and wide.
Travel Neck Pillow
If you are still looking for the best gift for a friend going abroad, here we have a true classic; the travel pillow. You will see these on the necks of many people who are getting on long flights, train or bus rides. They allow the user to simply tilt their head back and have some healthy support on their neck while they nap in between destinations. Thus, a nice mobile pillow for the times when you can’t bring a regular one with you.
It most certainly might not be the most unique gift you could give to a traveller, but that doesn’t mean it would go unappreciated. So many times after sleeping on a flight or other journey, people wake up with a sore neck due to their sleeping position. These pillows remove that pain and can be used repeatedly, lasting multiple trips (as long as it is not forgotten in the seat of a cab or some other regrettable occurrence like that).
That concludes our list of the best travel gifts. You would be hard-pressed to find one of these gifts that weren’t considered useful by at least some travellers. Some might be geared more towards newer travellers and some towards those who travel for business reasons, but they all serve some sort of purpose. However, for their universal usefulness, we’ve got to give the top award to the collapsible water bottles. Everyone needs water, whether you are a businessperson in Thailand or taking a beach vacation in Hawaii. But as always, try to measure out what you think would fit the one you are giving a gift to the best and go for that one.
