To me, an ideal Christmas gift for a traveler focuses on travel and is an extravagance that the traveler would enjoy but is not apt to arrange for him or herself. Giving something the traveler has already asked for is easy: If your traveler already has a destination and dates firmed up, you could easily arrange dinner at a top restaurant, attraction tickets, and such.
Gifting travel not already scheduled is tougher because travel is inherently tied to specific times and destinations. That’s why my top choices remain, as they have been for a while now, travel extravagances not tied to any specific planned trip.
The best way to give an actual trip with open dates is old tech: Buy a hotel or resort package coupon from Groupon (Groupon.com). Those deals usually include two- or three-day stays at leisure-oriented hotels or resorts as well as extended tour packages. You can find lots of options starting below $100 per night for a couple.
The big advantage to these coupons as gifts is that they’re typically valid for a period of several months, so your traveler can set his or her own schedule. You can almost always find something within easy one-day driving range from about anywhere in the United States, or you can concentrate on one of the popular destinations such as Las Vegas or Orlando. Log onto the site for the traveler’s nearest big city to find easily accessible options. Just avoid hotel deals that carry a stiff resort fee that the user has to pay. From Chicago, for example, you can find packages ranging from two days in nearby Gurnee and Lake Geneva to Las Vegas, Florida, and even extended tours to Europe and cruises, or to a top downtown Chicago hotel weekend for suburbanites.
My perennial favorite travel extravagance is access to an airport lounge—a great gift for any traveler who doesn’t already have access. Priority Pass (PriorityPass.com) provides access to more than 1,200 lounges worldwide—a mix of airline and independent. Annual membership costs $429, with unlimited no-charge visits. It sometimes even offers promotional or coupon deals. If that’s overkill, you can use LoungeBuddy (LoungeBuddy.com) to arrange one-time lounge entry at an airport your traveler is likely to use, starting at $25 for a visit. For Europe, a new player, ParkVia (ParkVia.com) arranges access both to lounges and to fast-track airport screening. A lounge program is most useful if either your traveler’s home airport has a lounge location or he or she frequents large hubs with plenty of lounges. If not, look for another gift.
If your traveler likes to finagle their way out of cattle-car economy or “main cabin” air trips without paying the outrageous premium cabin fares, consider an annual-subscription service specializing in ferreting out premium-cabin flash sales and promotions: First Class Flyer (FirstClassFlyer.com), with three service levels starting at $97 per year; Mighty Travels Premium (MightyTravels.com), $7.99 per month or $59.04 per year; Notiflyr Supreme (Notiflyr.com), $49 per year. All three would keep your traveler alerted to flash sales and buy-miles offers that bring the price for business and first-class tickets down to reasonable levels.
I’m not big on travel gadget gifts: luggage tags, travel clothes, money belts, passport and credit-card wallets, USB chargers, foreign plug adapters, and such. Most travelers either already have the gadgets and accessories they really want or have very specific requirements for the gadgets and accessories they want to take on their trips. Either way, all too many such “stocking stuffer” travel gifts quickly become “drawer stuffers.” But one gadget might be welcomed: a second Roku device along with necessary connection stuff that would allow your traveler to access the streaming services he or she uses at home while staying in hotels, anywhere in the world—most flat TVs in hotels have HDMI inputs. But buy a gadget only if you’re sure you found the right gadget or accessory—and even then, try to focus on something you know the traveler wants but wouldn’t buy him or herself.
