‘Tis the season to find your travel obsessed loved one the best gift! Whether for the holiday season or another exciting occasion, this list includes 15 gift ideas perfect for every type of traveler.
You’ll find our favorite books, accessories, travel gear, and overall travel themed gifts that will be sure to put a smile on your recipient’s face. We will also share price point ranges so you know exactly how each gift will fit into your budget.
$ – Under $30
$$ – Under $60
$$$ – Under 100
$$$$ – Over $100
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The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves Experiences
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The best gift for a travel who loves experiences is an experience on Viator.com or a similar site.
Viator is a hub for travel experiences across the globe. This is a great idea if you know of a specific trip your recipient is planning.
For example, if you know your family member is visiting New York City, you could plan a specific tour as a surprise!
Or maybe your traveler loves a good food tour, you could book a tour for a future trip.
If you are unsure of the dates of their upcoming travels, you could simply create a homemade “voucher” and purchase the excursion together once they share more details.
Prices range considerably on Viator so this gift can fit any budget.
Read More: Unique Travel Destinations in the US and Canada
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves Surprises
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The best gift for the traveler who loves surprises is trip with Pack Up and Go.
Pack Up and Go is a surprise online travel agency. You don’t know where you’re going until you get to the airport!
I’ve done two Pack Up and Go trips and have loved each experience! It’s so thrilling packing your bags and not knowing where you’re going until you get to the airport.
- Step One: Fill out a survey of what travel experiences you like the best and book your trip!
- Step Two: Receive a package in the mail with all your details – don’t look inside yet!
- Step Three: Wait until you get to the airport and open your package to see where you’re going.
You could approach this gift two ways. Either plan a super surprise trip for your loved one OR you could simply give a gift card for a future trip.
Read More: Travel Season Recap: Out Top Picks of the Year
The Best Gift for the Travel Who Loves to Talk About Her Travels
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It’s so fun to remember your travels by purchasing a small souvenir like a mug or sweatshirt. But perhaps your loved one is trying to save their money or forget to grab one…
If your loved one won’t stop talking about their recent trip, it’s a good indication they would love this idea.
It’s less important what you find and more important that it shows how much you appreciate what brings them joy.
Here are a few small business examples:
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves to Read
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Travelers love books! They especially love travel books!
I love books that inspire new ideas and adventures like the classic, 100 Places to See Before You Die or Journeys of a Lifetime. But really, there are so many travel books, it’s hard to go wrong!
Where Should We Camp Next: National Parks
National Geographic Guide to State Parks of the United States
The Best Gift for Travelers Who Love National Parks
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Is your loved one obsessed with visiting national parks? Then this is a great gift!
At around $80 for an entire year, this annual National Park pass could be a great bargain for a travel who loves cross country road trips or camping.
There are also discounts available to military families, seniors, 4th graders, volunteers, and for people with disabilities.
Read More: 11 Photos of the Great Smoky Mountains
The Best Gift for Travelers Who Love to RV
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RV Trip Wizard has become one of my favorite road trip planning tools.
It’s perfect for those planning road trips because it has the distances that you can travel and you can plan your route as specifically as you want. You can even plan future routes.
The Best Gift for Travelers Who Love to Track Where They’ve Been
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I absolutely LOVE scratch off maps. I love maps in general because I love to find all of the hidden gems, but a scratch off map? That is even more exciting!
I love when we get to come home and we get to scratch off our recent travel destinations.
Check out these scratch off map options. There’s also a ton on Etsy by local designers.
In the same theme as scratch off maps, you could also consider scratch off travel bucket lists!
These are a few scratch off bucket lists we love!
Local Hiking Bucket Lists like this New Hampshire 4000 footer list
World Bucket List Scratch Off Poster
Travelers love trip planning so anything they can get their hands on that gives them motivation or inspiration to keep traveling is a great idea.
The Best Gift for the Sentimental Traveler
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A quick search on Etsy will show a plethora of specific city and country maps.
If you were feeling extra generous, you could have the map framed as well!
This is the Etsy site we used to purchase our Puerto Rico and Spain maps – they turned out great!
And finally, this is a great option for the Bucket List enthusiast.
It’s a personalized bucket list scratch off map! How cool is that! This only kicker is you’d have to know what is on your loved one’s bucket list. If they don’t already have one you could ask them to make a list and you make yours and you can play it off like you’re just curious. But really, you’re planning the BEST GIFT EVER!
The Best Gift for the Budget Traveler
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Creating a DIY Travel Piggy Bank is a great gift idea for anyone on a limited budget.
Grab a spare mason jar or purchase an inexpensive jar at a craft store, along with some stickers and create yourself an adorable, personalized gift.
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who is Always Flying
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Every traveler appreciates new luggage. And for travelers who fly often, this is definitely the case!
There are SO many luggage options available but I’ve found that some of the best options are at my local home goods store like TJMax. You don’t need to spend a ton to get a great option.
You can also update their packing cubes or toiletry storage. Travelers are always looking for ways to maximize their packing equipment.
Check out these reviewed and tested luggage options!
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves Road Trips
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You may not naturally think of a AAA membership as a nice gift, but it’s super useful and practical.
It’s the perfect option for someone who loves road trips or car camping.
AAA offers three levels of membership with varying benefits and features including battery services and vehicle lockouts as well as emergency fuel!
That emergency fuel came in so handy one time when we ran out of gas on our drive back from North Carolina. We felt completely saved by having someone we could call!
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves Personalized Gifts
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Snapfish is a great place to find gifts for any occasion. I love using Snapfish to capture all my travel memories. l do this by printing out a large photo that we’ve taken during our trip and creating little photo books of the photos during our trips. Thanks to Snapfish we’ve created a whole travel wall full of our past trips!
To make a great gift you could save one of your loved one’s photos from Instagram or Facebook to your device and create a memorable gift with it.
I once had a friend who created an adorable mug for me with three of my photos from Facebook. It was such a cute gift idea!
Alternatively, you could enlarge a photo that they recently took on a trip and have it framed!
The Best Gift for the Traveler Who Loves to Write
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I also love gifting travel journals because it’s a great way to capture your thoughts while you’re traveling.
This is another easy DIY idea you could create with a regular notebook by applying personalized stickers.
A travel journal is super thoughtful because it shows you’ve thought about something that they’re interested in and you’ve made it with your own personal touch.
The Best Gift for the Practical Traveler
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Another great gift is a simple gas gift card. And if you want to make this more personal you could pair this with the personalized travel journal.
You could do the same thing with an Uber gift card or something similar. Even if you don’t know exactly where they’re going on their next trip you can help fund it in a small way.
Final Thoughts
As you’ll see, as with any gift, it’s more important to show you were thinking about your loved one and what’s important to them than what you actually get them.
These gift ideas come in all sorts of types and budgets. But this should give you a great basis for what kind of gift to give this holiday season or for any occasion.
We hope this list of gifts for every traveler you know will inspire you to think of different ways to make them happy in between their travels.
Happy gifting!
