Home > Travel Guides > This year’s top Christmas gifts for travellers
When all someone wants in life is to wander the world, buying them gifts for Christmas can be something of a nightmare (unless you have the cash for a one-way ticket that is). However, if you delve a little deeper, there are plenty of great things you can get a travel lover. The trick is to break it down into two key areas: gifts to inspire and gifts that are useful. Here are some of our top presents to give the traveller in your life this year.
Gifts to inspire
Travel planner: This is such a useful gift for someone who loves travel but isn’t necessarily going to go ‘travelling’ for a few months. In the planner you can put all of the places you’ve been, all the places you want to go and all the things you want to see. Essentially, it’s a way to organise your travel throughout your life, allowing you to tick things off as you see them and prioritise where you want to go. The best planners will also have category breakdowns, so you can select holidays based on what you’re looking for at any given time, such as European city breaks for example.
Scratch map: If your travel lover is also partial to some travel-inspired interior design, you can’t go far wrong with a scratch map. Invented in 2009 by Luckies of London, they have a gold foil layer that can be scratched off once the country has been visited. Underneath the foil is the nation in colour and its capital. Pop these in a glass-less frame to make a really beautiful and unique gift.
Travel guides: Part of the joy of travelling is learning about new cultures and countries, but this has to start before you begin your travels. Travel guides are brilliant for inspiring people, helping to plan a trip and learning important information about a given country. There are loads out there too, covering everything from standard tourist stuff to information about going off the beaten track.
Useful gifts
High quality camera: A more expensive gift, a high quality camera is often the tool a traveller needs to inspire them to take their next trip. Once you’re able to capture the places you visit and the experiences you have in high quality technicolour, suddenly your desire to explore the world becomes a mandate to record and communicate to others through visuals. After all, it is through powerful images that we get an understanding of cultures and events.
Care package: When you’re travelling, it’s often the comforts of home that you miss and need the most. If you have a loved one who’s currently wandering the world, send them a care package with all of their favourite things they can’t get overseas. This might be Yorkshire Tea, Cadbury’s chocolate, a certain hair product or perfume, or a good book (finding a decent book in a hostel book exchange can be a nightmare).
Trek towel: You can’t travel without trekking and trekking is hard work. Consequently, you sweat. However, lugging around a normal towel isn’t practical. A trek towel is lightweight, antibacterial and can be folded up and put in a rucksack.
Tablet: A tablet can be really useful for a traveller, especially if they go away for short periods of time. They’re more lightweight than laptops and easier to use than smartphones but still allow you to surf the net, use apps, take images, email and read. It also means you can better track your travel and keep in touch with life back home.
Subscription to online streaming services: Netflix (or Prime – whatever you choose) is the dream when you’re on the road but it’s an unnecessary expense for many cash-strapped travellers. Consequently, giving this as a gift would be very much appreciated, as it means people can still kick back and watch movies and shows on the other side of the world – a welcome break from trekking, night buses and lugging your luggage around everywhere.
Nadine is one of the directors of eShores. She left school at 16 and went straight in to a travel agency. Over the 28 years she has worked her way up in various sectors of the industry and also as an overseas representative in both summer and ski resorts. She has travelled to many countries from Europe to the Far East, USA to Lapland. Her extensive knowledge and experience has helped build eShores and the best team around! As a mother of 2 girls she is just as busy out of the office as he is in, but she always makes time to chat and being an ex rep she knows how to put on a good staff party!
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PamelaHenderson
Third time using eSHORES holidays for long haul. Experienced agents, every transfer ran smoothly, private cars at every airport, spotlessly clean and on time. Hotels where beyond fabulous, Singapore, Koh Samui, Bangkok. Previously India, and Thailand. Every holiday has been spectacular. This Holiday i sadly lost my father and brother, Andy (eshores) emailed me several times to get flights home and constantly checking i was ok. I have nothing but praise for this company.
Posted 19 hours ago
Helenbown
Excellent service with booking holiday with Andy. No problems at all. He found us a fabulous place to stay in Menorca. Would highly recommend Eshores.
Posted 1 day ago
Holly
professional and helpful timely delivery
Posted 3 days ago
Linda
Fabulous service. I rang to ask about our short break to Istanbul and it was booked for us within the hour. You can’t get better service than that. Thank you Dave Felton
Posted 4 days ago
Stephen
Kelly arranged my recently booked multi centre holiday, having used eShores on a couple of occasions previous the usual high standards remain! They get an understanding of you requirements, pull together a proposed itinerary, and then happily amend/ provide alternative costings for different hotels/ flights as required once you get in to the detail of what you want (easier to do with their proposed itinerary!). Great service, and at a good cost!
Posted 5 days ago
TinaSmyth
Just returned from a trip to Singapore and Bali arranged by Andy had a brilliant time, couldn’t fault the service I had he arranged everything from flights accommodation and transfers. I would highly recommend eShores and would definitely use them again. ThankYou Andy
Posted 5 days ago
Stephen
Kelly from eshores listened and understood what we wanted from our holiday of which she was fantastic,very patient and set the whole holiday up. Very professional. Thank you.. Ste Leather
Posted 1 week ago
SarahC
Used eShores to book a multi destination holiday for 4 days in Miami then 10 days Jamaica. Really pleased with the hotels chosen especially Shelbourne in Miami and the service received especially follow up call to check everything was ok. Whole trip when smoothly
Posted 1 week ago
Stephen
We are looking forward to our 3 centre holiday in November to the USA, everything has been set up for us Chris was excellent in giving us all the details. We changed a few things after the first quote like you do but sorted it straight away. Excellent service, reasonable price and quick response just looking forward to the trip
Posted 1 week ago
ANDREWand Caroline McKie
We recently travelled to Bali much delayed by covid restrictions but found eshores very good with excellent communication keeping us up to date with advice on travell restrictions as circumstances changed. Our holiday when we were able to travel was fantastic exceeding our expectations ,and we feel certain that we will be using eShores for our next trip .