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Do you have a family member or friend that loves to travel? If so, it can be difficult to think of gift ideas for them. After all, most travelers can’t afford to take bulky items with them.
The fact that many travelers have different interests from your average folks can make things even more difficult. After all, a digital nomad living in Vietnam probably doesn’t have much use for an Amazon Prime membership.
That’s not to say all is lost. While there are many gifts travelers and digital nomads (long-term travelers that fund their lifestyle by working online) will find difficult to appreciate, there are also many unique gifts you can give them.
As a US expat that has been on the road for the last three or four years, I have no shortage of ideas for what you can give to your traveling friends.
Whether you’re shopping for Black Friday, Christmas, a birthday, or just a surprise, here are X gifts travelers and digital nomads will love.
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#1 Audible Membership
(A beach in Penang, Malaysia where I listened to the audiobook Smart Cuts.)
Digital nomads and travelers are curious souls. That’s what drives them to travel in the first place. Yet, there aren’t exactly an abundance of good public libraries in most developing world countries.
Plus, even if you’re traveling around Europe, it’s not practical to sign up for a new library membership in every country you visit. For that reason, one of the best gifts for backpackers is an Audible membership.
Audible is a monthly subscription that provides you with 3 audiobooks each month. For the first audiobook, you can select any audiobook that Amazon has available.
There are tons of great choices from Harry Potter, to Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.
For the 2nd and 3rd book you can select a book from the more limited Audible Originals library. This is a more limited pool of books, but hey, they’re free.
In the past an Audible membership only got you one book a month. Now they’ve sweetened up the deal making an Audible membership totally worth it.
This is an especially great gift if the person you care about is a digital nomad or long-term expat that doesn’t often visit home or have a mailing address where you can send them their gift.
#2 Laptop Sleeve
As a traveler, you’re going to get in lots of sticky situations. Literally.
From the torrential downpour of the Southeast Asian rainy season to the server accidentally bumping into your table and spilling your drink.
While there’s little you can do to prevent these occurrences, you do need to prepare for them. You can do so by purchasing a laptop sleeve to protect your computer.
While a laptop sleeve won’t protect against theft, it will help buffer your laptop against liquids and drops. At least to some extent.
If purchasing a shiny brand new macbook is out of the question, you can gift the person you care about a new laptop sleeve.
#3 Earmuffs
When you’re always moving from place to place, it can be difficult to control your environment. Living or traveling in a noisy place can make it difficult to focus and produce good work.
Heck, staying in a noisy area can even make it difficult just to relax and get a good night’s sleep!
From crying babies on flights, to construction, to developing world idiots that need to “flex” their motorbike’s powerful engine at midnight, life on the road can be LOUD.
Unless you’re a master Buddhist monk, all this noise can wear on you after a while.
When I first got on the road I would simply play music to drown out the noise. Of course, jamming to your favorite tunes all day isn’t good for your ear drums.
Listening to white noise can be a decent solution, but point you’re still technically adding to the noise your ears have to deal with each day. Hearing loss is serious stuff. You don’t want to mess around with that.
The solution? A pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs.
I’ll be blunt, they do look a little ridiculous.
With that being said, they work perfectly. Plus, they’re cheap. If you want to purchase your traveler a gift that screams thoughtful without requiring a significant time or money investment from you, this is an awesome gift.
#4 Tortuga Outbreaker Backpack
This is the perfect all-purpose backpack. Let’s face it, nobody likes lugging a suitcase everywhere. While suitcases make packing and storing all your stuff easy, it’s just not practical to take a suitcase with you each time you head around town.
There’s a better solution.
A Tortuga Outbreaker Backpack is the perfect compromise between storage space, and portability. With 45L of space, you can fit just about everything you could ever need in this bag.
Even better yet, this bag somehow manages to still be small enough for you to use it as a carry-on for all but the strictest airlines. *Cough* Spirit Airlines *Cough*
If you want to help your loved one save on constant baggage fees, the Tortuga Outbreaker is your best option. This bag is durable, carries a whole lot of stuff, and is fashionable enough that you’ll still look decent while lugging a MASSIVE backpack around.
Let’s be honest though.
This backpack isn’t ideal for quick day-trips, or a day at the beach. While it can be used for those purposes without looking too ridiculous, it does feel a bit oversized to be used in those ways.
That isn’t too bad a compromise to make, however. If you’re looking to travel the world with only a single bag, a Tortuga Outbreaker is the way to go.
#5 Packing Cubes
Packing cubes are small cubes made with synthetic fabrics to help you organize the things before you pack them into your luggage.
This organizing can be great for your girl with a go-go-go attitude that’s always on the road, but can never seem to find the thing she needs when she needs it.
Even better yet, as a man I’ve found these packing cubes to have an even better purpose…
They can be used to separate my clean laundry from my dirty laundry.
It’s nice to finally be able to travel from one country to another, and still have all my clean clothes smell fresh when I arrive.
My girlfriend says dollar for dollar, this is the best investment I’ve ever made in our relationship 😉
#6 Reef Leather Fanning Sandals
Do you love the beach?
Is that even a question?
Everyone loves the beach! But… it can get annoying always having to clean the sand out of your tennis shoes. Stop being a travel rookie.
The Reef men’s (or click here for women’s) leather fanning sandals are the premium sandals on the market today. They just do everything right:
— 87% of people say they fit as expected.
— They are incredibly comfortable.
— They are durable, lasting for about a year with consistent use.
— They are fashionable.
Best of all, these sandals even have a bottle opener on the bottom!
#7 Nexstand/Roost Laptop Stand
This is probably the most popular digital nomad gift recommendation out there. The Roost laptop stand makes it easy to adjust the height of your laptop.
This allows your digital nomad friends to stand while working, improve their posture, focus for longer periods of time… you get the deal.
Having a laptop stand is a MUST for any digital nomad or person working online for long periods of time each day.
Just because the Roost stand is the most popular gift idea for digital nomads doesn’t mean it’s the best laptop stand out there.
Alright, let me rephrase that.
If you’re not on any budget, the Roost laptop stand is probably the best laptop stand you could purchase for the digital nomad in your life.
I’d say that the Roost laptop stand is quite expensive for the function it serves, however.
If you’re looking to get the best value for your money, however, check out my full review on the Nexstand and why it is the best value for your money laptop stand out there.
#8 Selfie Stick/Tripod Combo
This selfie stick/tripod combo product is the most ideal travel gift I’ve ever seen for digital nomads or travelers that love to take selfies and record videos.
Designed for ANY iPhone, GoPro, Android phone, or small DSLR camera, this product can be used as both a selfie stick or a tripod. Plus, you can quickly transition from one mode to another in less than 15 seconds.
Talk about #coolsauce #cool #cool #cool
Conclusion
As you can see, there are TONS of great gifts for travelers and digital nomads out there. While these are a few of my best ideas, you can also head on over to Amazon and browse their site for more ideas.