Five gift ideas for the independent traveler – Yahoo! News

If you’re an independent traveler, packing light is essential — not only to reduce weight, but also to make sure that no clutter gets between you and the experience of your journey.  Indeed, less gear means more freedom on the road, and the only downside to this principle is that it can be hard this time of year to shop for indie travelers on your gift list. 

Granted, equipment companies invent all manner of boutique travel gifts each year, but rarely have I found that these items actually improve the experience of travel. In fact, some of them are more remarkable for their James Bond-style inventiveness than their actual utility on the road. 

For example, I once received a press release touting a brand of travel sandal that boasted a secret compartment inside the arch, where one could hide valuables.  This was no doubt a clever idea in principle, but anyone who’s traveled much knows that (in addition to the fact that sandals can get stolen) you can accumulate a lot of grime on your sandals in the course of a regular day on the road.  I, for one, would not look forward to fetching my valuables from a “secret compartment” in a pair of sandals smeared with an afternoon’s worth of Gambian mud or Alaskan silt or Indian cow dung. 

Thus, my advice in shopping for the traveler on your list is to keep things basic.  Here are five strategies to consider when buying holiday gifts for someone who is committed to traveling light:

1) Sturdy footwear.

The first instinct many folks have in buying travel footwear is to find a sturdy pair of hiking boots.  This isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but it’s not always a good one, either. Unless you are committed to a significant amount of backcountry backpacking in your travels, boots only add weight and take up space.  Consider getting running shoes or walking shoes instead — or better yet, a sturdy pair of travel sandals.  Teva and Chaco offer a nice variety of lightweight, road-tested sandals that are useful in a broad variety of travel situations.

As a side note, I’ll add that half the people living in the tropical world walk around each day in flip-flop sandals.  Thus, if the traveler on your list is mainly interested in hitting the beach circuit, save the money on fancy sandals and get an inexpensive pair of foam flip-flops as a stocking stuffer.

2) A small and lockable backpack.

Any decent outdoor store in America will have a good variety of backpack options, but many backpacks are designed more for backwoods camping than for a journey that includes urban travel.  Choose a backpack that isn’t too flashy-looking (bright, expensive gear makes an easy target for theft), and make sure its straps and belts can be adjusted to the body proportions of whoever’s going to carry it.  Zippered compartments are better than clips and drawstrings, since zippers can be padlocked to discourage opportunistic pickpockets.  Eagle Creek has a variety of sturdy and functional (and expensive) travel packs to choose form.

In choosing a pack-size, err on the side of simplicity.  All too often, it’s assumed that a bigger pack is a bigger value — and this in turn tempts the traveler to pack too much.  Buy a small pack (preferably something that can fit in an overhead airline bin). That will force your traveler to pack light.

3) A small, inexpensive digital camera.

Different travelers have different photographic needs, so I won’t presume to give advice about digital camera brands, lenses, or pixel-quality.  Instead, I’ll just offer a couple pointers.  First, a digital camera that is small enough to fit into a pants-pocket is ideal for most travelers, since it requires less storage space, and is convenient to bring and use in most any situation.  Second, the rigors of travel mean that a digital camera is more likely to be lost, stolen, or knocked into the mud than one being used at home. Thus, don’t spent exorbitant amounts on a travel camera; just get a quality, inexpensive digital model that is (comparatively) painless to replace in the event of a mishap.

4) A good guidebook or two.

Not only are travel guidebooks useful once your traveler arrives at his destination, they’re also a great way to whet one’s travel appetite and plan for the journey.  Guidebook companies such as Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Moon Handbooks, Footprint Handbooks, Bradt Travel Guides, and Let’s Go specialize in independent and shoestring travel.  Keep in mind that guidebooks vary in quality from title to title, so comparison-shop several different guidebooks to a given destination before choosing one. 

If the traveler on your list is interested in traveling for months at a time (instead of a standard one-week vacation), my own book, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, offers inspiration and practical advice.

5) Pack even lighter and help the world: Give an alternative gift.

Independent travelers have always been great about spending money at a person-to-person level on the road, ensuring that local economies benefit.  Another way to help needy economies and humanitarian concerns is to honor someone with a gift from Alternative Gifts International, which offers gift-givers the opportunity to aid environmental and anti-poverty projects around the globe.

For the price of a video game, for example, you can provide a wheelchair and give mobility to persons with disabilities in Cambodia; for the price of a necktie, you can provide medicine and therapy to a child in the Republic of Georgia suffering from cystic fibrosis.  More information is online here.

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