Choosing the perfect holiday gift for a travel-addict can be a difficult process. Travelers have a completely different set of needs than others.
The fact is, backpacks and suitcases aren’t very accommodating when it comes to what a traveler can or can’t take with them on their travels. That’s why we’ve come up with some great suggestions to help you make you the perfect gift choice.
Tinggly experience gifts
Imagine being able to give a travel-addict not just one gift but a choice from hundreds of amazing worldwide experiences. That’s exactly what Tinggly lets you do.
A Tinggly gift box comes packed with literally hundreds of incredible experiences.
From swimming with great white sharks in South Africa, taking a balloon flight over the Sonoran desert, enjoying a spa treatment in Thailand, or chasing the Northern Lights in Iceland. Every Tinggly gift box comes stuffed with a host of some of the world’s most awesome and hand-picked experiences.
When you give a Tinggly gift – the process is online and only takes a couple of minutes – the gift is delivered physically or electronically to the recipient. Once the recipient receives their gift they can then choose the experience they want to have, anywhere in the world. They can choose the experience to match their travel plans, and what’s more, there’s no time-limit on the gift’s expiry.
And one last amazing thing, while the recipient is enjoying their experience – even if that means flying a helicopter, or having a couple of racetrack laps in a high-performance car – they’re helping to clean the planet. Every Tinggly experience CO2 footprint is offset by a huge 200%. Plus for every Tinggly experience redeemed Tinggly promise to remove 33lbs (15kg, or approx 660 plastic bottles from the environment). And even one more thing, Tinggly is installing trash-traps in the rivers of Bali to stop polluting plastics from entering the oceans.
What’s not to love?
Airline vouchers
Travelers have to get from A to B, and that usually means air travel for at least some part of the journey. Airline gift cards are a really super gift for travelers, and it’s as simple as loading a card with the value you want. Then, whenever the recipient wants to take off on yet another trip, the card is ready and waiting to do its job.
OK, so not every airline offers travel gift cards, you can be sure that most of the major airlines do. But as a note of caution, be sure to read the terms and conditions as to just what the card will allow and what they won’t allow.
Some may have time-limits, an expiry date, flight date limitations may exclude holiday or busy periods, inflight services, or they may exclude baggage charges or upgrades, plus, they may also be subject to extra taxes or surcharges, or even the possibility of additional fees on certain popular routes.
However, the best cards are usually quite transparent, work across airline networks and/or partner networks. And, if you really care about the planet, many even let you offset the journey’s carbon footprint.
Hard Cash
There are some people who think that giving cold hard cash as a gift is an inappropriate thing to do. They may think it’s a vulgar thing to do or that giving cash as a gift lacks imagination. And they may be right.
However, as a seasoned traveler, I have never thought the give of cash before a period of travel to be either vulgar or lacking in imagination.
Travelers know best how and where they want to spend their money. They also know that there will be times when they feel like splurging a little on a comfortable hotel with a hot shower, a slap-up dinner in a fancy restaurant or even just a change of itinerary or a chance to visit some amazing off-the-beaten-track experience. Money makes all of these things possible.
Perhaps socially-conscious travelers may even wish to spend a little extra money on the local cultures they meet along the way or donate their windfall to some worthwhile community project or charitable foundation.
When talking about packing for a long journey, there’s an old saying that goes, ‘pack half the clothes and twice the money’. This simple adage explains all too well why a gift of money is never vulgar of lacking in imagination.
Language courses
Travelers find themselves in a whole host of situations where accurate communication skills are vital. Booking rooms, checking travel timetables, medical emergencies, buying basics, and lots more.
Of course, nobody will ever know all the languages in the world, but giving the gift of a language course could be the difference between a successful trip and a trip full of pitfalls. This is especially true if the traveler is relocating permanently, or even for a long-term fixed period of time.
There are thousands of language schools to choose from who offer both in-house, or online classes – via Skype or some other software option. The real benefit of online classes is that there’s no need for the traveler to postpone their travels until their language skills are proficient, classes can be taken anytime, anywhere – even while waiting for a flight in an airport, or in the comfort of a hostel bedroom.
If language courses don’t sound exciting enough, there are thousands of alternative courses available on websites like Udemy – not just languages, but courses that may help lead to employment, self-development, or preparation for the future.
Offsetting a travel carbon footprint
Travelers love to go where others fear to venture, but most hate leaving a footprint behind them, especially if that footprint happens to be a carbon footprint.
By giving a gift of carbon offset credits travelers can ditch the guilt and travel with a clean conscience. Carbon offsets can address the problems associated with polluting greenhouse gases caused by plane, car, bus, train, or ferry journeys. These credits let travelers minimize their carbon footprint at the same time as promoting a viable future for travel, and for the planet.
Along with negating the polluting factors associated with modern transport, offset credits can help to stimulate the economies of impoverished communities by providing employment in environmental projects through water pollution projects, plastic recycling projects, tree planting, and other planet-friendly programs.
There are many organizations on the market where you can easily calculate the carbon footprint generated by a particular journey, or set of journeys. Most travelers live by the motto ‘take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints’. By gifting carbon credits travelers can now travel in peace and safe in the knowledge that not even their carbon footprint will be left behind.