Gifts for Someone Going Traveling: What Fits in a Bag

Buying a gift for someone about to go traveling is an odd exercise, because you are giving an object to a person whose entire project is owning fewer of them. Everything in the bag has been weighed, argued over and probably taken out again twice.

So there is one test, and it decides almost everything on this list: will they use it more than once a week, and would they carry it up a hill?

I write these guides for Ditty City, where we make personalized songs. One of ours turns up near the end, clearly flagged. Everything before it stands on its own.

Small, dull, used daily

These are the gifts that get thanked for from six countries away.

A power bank. The single most used item on any long trip. Twenty thousand milliamp hours or so, with a socket that matches their phone. Buy a decent one, not the cheapest.

Packing cubes. They will roll their eyes and then use them for the entire trip. A set of three or four is enough.

A fast-drying microfiber towel. Hostel towels are either absent or terrible.

A padlock and a rubber doorstop. Small, cheap, quietly reassuring. The doorstop is a hostel trick that people who have traveled will recognize and people who have not will find out about.

A universal adapter with USB ports built in. One plug, several devices, no extra bricks.

A filter water bottle. Saves money every day and stops them buying a plastic bottle every afternoon.

A dry bag. For boats, rain, laundry, and keeping a passport away from a leaking shampoo.

Two pairs of proper merino socks. Ridiculous as a gift and universally beloved on the road.

An eye mask and earplugs. Night buses, dorms, airport floors.

An e-reader. The one bulky-ish item worth the weight, because paperbacks accumulate and are heavy.

The gifts that are not objects at all

This is where the genuinely useful money goes, and almost nobody thinks of it.

• Travel insurance, paid for. Unglamorous and the single most valuable thing on this page. A lot of young travelers skip it or buy the cheapest tier.
• Vaccinations or antimalarials. Expensive, unavoidable, and a horrible thing to pay for out of a savings pot you were hoping to spend on the trip.
• A visa fee.
• The first two nights' accommodation, booked. Arriving at four in the morning somewhere unfamiliar with nowhere to go is the worst part of any trip.
• A year of a good VPN, which matters more than people expect for banking on public wifi.
• Cash in the local currency for day one, in a sensible amount, so they are not hunting for a working ATM at an airport.

Weightless

• An offline maps subscription, a language app, an audiobook membership.
• Credit on whichever money transfer app they use.
• A shared photo album set up before they go, so the pictures land somewhere the family can see them.
• A photo book made afterwards, promised in the card. The gift arrives a year later and is the one they keep.

The sentimental one that packs flat

A sealed letter, to be opened on a date or at an event: the first night, their birthday abroad, the day they run out of money, the flight home. It weighs nothing, and letters from home are worth an unreasonable amount by month three.

A laminated photograph of the people they are leaving behind, small enough to live in a passport wallet, does the same job.

So does a contact card: your address, phone, and the number of somebody who is definitely reachable, printed and put in a different pocket from the phone. It is a practical gift disguised as a sentimental one.

What to send while they are gone

The going-away gift is the easy half. The harder and better half is what arrives at week twelve, when the novelty has worn off, the money is tighter than planned, and everyone at home has stopped asking.

• Voice notes rather than texts. Ten seconds of your actual voice is worth a paragraph.
• A photo of something unremarkable from home: the dog, the kitchen, the weather.
• Money for a specific thing, sent without ceremony: "this is for a proper meal, not for a bus".
• A parcel to a fixed address if they have one, timed for a birthday or a holiday.

There are more distance-friendly options in what to gift when you cannot be there in person and in e-gifts that do not feel lazy. If it is a partner going rather than a friend, the ideas in long-distance gift ideas for couples are the closer fit, and the version for a military posting is in deployment gifts for a spouse.

Matching the gift to the trip

A gap year or a long backpacking trip. Weight is everything. Stick to the small useful list, plus insurance.

A few weeks of holiday travel. More room for comfort: a good neck pillow, a nice wash bag, a book they would not buy.

Moving abroad for work or study. This is a different occasion. They will have shipping or a hold bag, so bigger and more sentimental works: a framed photograph, a proper coat for the climate, kitchen things from home, the specific food they will not be able to buy there.

Traveling to see family or to return somewhere. Gifts for the people at the other end are often more welcome than gifts for the traveler.

What to skip

• Anything heavy or breakable. Mugs, framed glass, hardback books, candles.
• A printed guidebook, unless they asked. It is out of date and it weighs the same as three days of clothes.
• Branded travel accessories with a logo, which mark someone out as new.
• Anything they have to bring back. That is a chore wearing a bow.
• Miniature gadgets, most of which are used once and posted home.
• A journal, unless you know they write. A blank notebook can turn into a small guilt.

The send-off

If there is a leaving do, keep it a few days before the flight rather than the night before. The last evening usually needs to be family and packing, not a hangover.

What to write matters more than what you buy. Say the thing you would not normally say out loud, then keep it short.

"Go and be completely unreachable for a bit. We will be here, the kettle will be on, and I want a photo of every terrible bus. Take the insurance out."

There are more worked examples in what to write in a going away card.

One that weighs nothing

Here is the Ditty City part, once. If you want to send something with their name in it and no weight at all, a personalized song is one option. You type in their name, where they are going, who is being left behind and a detail or two, and it comes back written and sung in a few minutes inside a digital card. It is AI written and AI sung. Prices start at $9 for about a minute.

It works two ways: played at the leaving do so a room hears it at once, or saved and sent at week twelve when the messages have thinned out. The longer write-up is in custom going away songs.

Whichever you choose, the most useful thing on this page is still the boring one. Pay for the insurance. Everything else is a bonus. More ideas for other occasions are collected in the gifts by occasion hub.