50 Gifts Under $50 for Travelers
The observation that opened this was sound: people who travel and spend time outdoors tend to like gear, which makes them easy to buy for and easy to buy badly for. The specific fifty items are all long out of production, so here is the version that does not date.
The things that are reliably welcome, whatever year it is:
- A headlamp. The most useful few ounces anyone can carry, and most people own a bad one or none.
- Packing cubes, which converts the sceptical within one trip.
- A microfibre towel, one size up from whatever seems sensible.
- Merino socks. Expensive for socks, transformative on foot, and nobody buys them for themselves.
- A high-wattage USB-C charger, which replaces a bag of bricks and is the most-used gift on this list.
- A Bluetooth tracker for a checked bag, which has genuinely changed how lost-luggage conversations go.
- A silk sleeping-bag liner, the right answer for hostel travel where a sleeping bag is not.
- A proper water bottle, and nothing collapsible.
What to avoid, learned from decades of these lists: novelty gadgets that do one thing, anything requiring a proprietary battery, travel-sized versions of things that come in travel sizes anyway, and the universal plug adapter with sliding pins, which falls out of loose sockets.
The two best gifts in the category are not objects. A year of a decent maps or hiking subscription, and a gift voucher at a shop that will fit a pack properly. Fit cannot be bought by proxy, and a voucher plus an afternoon in a good shop beats guessing a size.
Part of the guide to trekking and outdoor kit.