The team at Gadling has put together a holiday gift guide aimed squarely at people who love to travel — and pointedly avoided the usual filler of passport covers and yoga mat bags. The picks came from the editor's wife, whose gifting credentials include whisking him off to Tokyo for his 30th birthday, and they range from nine-dollar stocking fillers to gift boxes costing a few hundred euros.
For stockings, the list leans into small, characterful items. A month of Dave Romanelli's "Meditate On" subscription costs $9.95 and offers short, surf-flavoured meditations for the stressed-out flyer. Food maps from All You Can Eat Press — the New York Doughnut, Oyster and Ramen maps at $8 each — work as inspiration even for people who've never set foot in the city. Flight 001's cheeky pouches (one reads "Heavily Medicated for Takeoff") and single-use Aromatherapy Associates bath and shower oil vials round out the low-cost tier, the latter useful for pretending your bathroom is a Four Seasons even when no trip is planned.
Food, unsurprisingly, features heavily. Try the World subscription boxes deliver monthly selections from cities like Paris and Istanbul, with a holiday box holding eight full-size items including Urbani white truffle oil and Swedish gingerbread thins. There's also a signed copy of Edward Lee's cookbook Smoke and Pickles for $29.95, and a World Spice gift set pairing a cookbook with 13 custom blends. For bookish types, Juniper Books sells visually striking boxed sets — Hemingway, Italian and French cookbooks, and a children's travel collection.
Kids get their own section: Around the World with Mouk, about a French bear travelling from Greece to Madagascar, plus Kiki and Coco in Paris with the matching handmade Jess Brown rag doll, and a play tent with a double sleeping bag for backyard expeditions.
At the pricier end, Delta fills the gap left by JetBlue's discontinued gift cards with physical and e-gift cards for flights, while Royal Caribbean cruise gift cards run from $25 to $500 — the writer recalls a standout breakfast at Quantum of the Seas' healthy eatery by Biggest Loser chef Devin Alexander. The splurge option is a Relais & Chateaux gift box: 249 euros buys a three- or four-course dinner with wine or champagne for two at 196 restaurants worldwide, and 389 euros gets an overnight stay with dinner and breakfast at 159 properties. The caveat: most participating properties are outside the US (only one, the White Barn Inn, is American), so check the fine print before buying for someone who holiday domestically.
Small extras include Globee's mini city globes — Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Berlin, even light-up First and Second World War editions that double as night lights — and Paul Smith laptop sleeves, flight bags and wash bags, the last doubling as a clutch.
It's a genuinely useful list for anyone shopping for a frequent flyer, whether the budget is $8 or 389 euros — and most of it can be ordered online for last-minute givers.