Fun and thoughtful gift ideas for travel-loving families

gifts with toy plane

Perfect Christmas gifts for traveling families: useful, beautiful presents for parents and kids who love to travel | Updated November 2021

I adore giving and receiving travel gifts.

Love for travel is one of the defining features of our family and travel-inspired gifts are a fantastic way to get our friends involved in the excitement, whether they can travel with us or not!

I love the most practical gifts, those I can bring with me and make me think of you while I am gone; but also the funny, travel-themed ones, that add a touch of fun and a travel twist to my days at home.

In this list, you will find gifts for families who love travel: many are versatile purchases that parents and kids can start using straight away at home, but will make them feel their travel days a little closer!

Buying for kids? Then check out our list of travel gifts for kids instead.

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Fun and useful, travel inspired gift ideas for families that travel

Color-in map mug

I love this creative take on the travel scratch map! With this color-in mug, you can keep track of your travel and reminisce about them every time you take a sip of your tea.

A fun travel present for the home that is fun for kids and adults! You can get it on UncommonGoods here where you also find price and specs

Color in mug with maps for the world

Costumized travel photo coaster

Another fun way to inject a bit of the travel spirit to your daily ritual are these fun coasters that you can personalise with your favourite travel photos.

I love this present as it puts together functionality and fun: you can pick photos of places your loved ones know or plan to visit or, if you can get hold of some of their photos, even make coasters with memorable moments from family trips!

You can find it on UncommonGoods clicking here

Fun map engraved glasses

Families who love travel often also love maps. In that case, that may like these super fun glasses with engraved city maps!

These are an unusual gift for travel lovers that adds a touch of fun and sophistication to nights at home. I have found them on UncommonGoods: get specs and prices here.

Drinking glasses with maps of cities engraved on the side
Drinking glasses with maps of cities engraved on the side

Kindle and Kindle Fire – perfect travel gift for book lovers

A wonderful gift for parents who travel is a kindle, the one object that allows to carry your personal library with you no matter where you go.

A kindle is invaluable on travel as it takes away the stress of having to lug around paper books and even travel guide books without having to give up your reading pleasure.

I adore the Kindle paper white for parents and find the Kindle Fire tablet great for kids too – a perfect gift for a traveling family, across all ages!

When buying a kindle, I love to accompany it with a kindle cover: it doesn’t cost much, it looks lovely and make the kindle look cuter!

Map our hearts wall art

Maybe because we are an international family by cannot get over this idea of wall art made with the maps of the places that matter most to you. You can find several color schemes and available cities/destinations here.

Handmade solid lotion bars

Lotion bars and excellent on travel as they take away the problem of carrying liquids with you, but they are perfect at home too.

You can carry them in your purse or you can even have them around the house, they are so pretty. Find price and specs here.

World map coloring table cloth

This is a super fun gift idea that kids and adults can enjoy together: a colouring tablecloth map of the world! You can find size and specs here

Low maintenance house plants

A house plant may not come to mind as the best gift for travelers; however, there are many beautiful and easy-to-care for plants you can safely give as a present to people who are often away from home.

The key when choosing the best house plant gift for frequent travelers is to pick one that can stay a long time without water, doesn’t need special plant feed too often or needs to be repotted often.

This will guarantee that you don’t burden your friends with an extra chore for the person looking after their house and that they won’t come home from a sad looking thing they’ll feel guilty about!

Pick a pretty vase too, so they can display it proudly in their home and think of you. The one in the image below is from Amazon: click here for price and delivery options.

3D cork globe

A cool way to keep track of travels and a fun, cool decor item for house is this cork globe. I love its look and that is it cool for kids and adults alike. You can find specs and price here

Family charades game

This is super fun family game your travel loving friends can do absolutely anywhere, including their home! Portable and suitable for kids and adults, it works at home, camping, in a hotel room and it is always fun. Find price and specs here

Pocket blanket

Whether they are on their balcony, backyard or stargazing in faraway places, your travel loving friends can stay warm with this pocket blanket.

It takes very little space so it is easy to carry or store at home and a perfect gift for camping enthusiasts too! You can find price and specs here

Go pro camera – the perfect gift for traveling families who are into outdoor adventures

GoPro cameras grew in popularity a few years ago and they are now almosy a travel must have, especially if the traveling family you are buying for loves outdoors activities.

GoPros are small action cameras, super rugged (they even go underwater) and super portable: easy to use, they are a great gift for traveling families that they can also use on hikes near home

If you are not sure what Go Pro is most suitable for kids, you can check our guide to our favourite action cameras for kids or look directly at specs here (several models and price points avaiable).

Portable speaker – a great travel gift for musical families

Travels are better with a soundtrack and a small and cute Bluetooth speaker is a great way to listen to music on the go.

I love the look and size of the Mizen audio speaker which have a wonderful vintage look.

Spotify gift certificate

A bluetooth speaker is more fun if you have a great playlist to go with it!

The Spotify gift cards are perfect for all ages and are a great complement to the portable speaker above: gift them together and make your own music kit for travel lovers.

This is a great gift for traveling familes with teenagers especially, who can bring their own music taste to the whole family.

Don’t think they will love that? The get them kids headphones too!

Travel books

Travel lovers are sure to adore a travel book that will transport them to faraway places, even if from their couch!

Lonely Planet still wins for me, I love their guides and this world book looks amazing too

Cord organizer

A travel cord organizer is perfect for your tech when traveling but I am sure I am not the only one with random cables scattered arond the house so it also gets my vote as a home item! I find it useful and cute: find specs and price here

Travel size bottles

A small gift but really cute and useful: travel size bottles!

They are the perfect stocking filler and they are super handy and a great eco-friendly travel gift too, heliping reducing the amount plastic bought and thrown out on the road.

They are also very useful in the house when you find a good offer on big bottles of products that are kind on the wallet but bulky to handle.

Trunki ride on suitcase – the travel gift that doubles up as toy storage at home!

You may have seen this around airports: Trunki rolling suitcase is one of the most popular kids’ suitcases no the market and with good reason.

As well as being super cute, this is kids’ rolling luggage with a difference: instead of just pulling it around, the kids can ride on it, meaning daddy’s shoulder can occasionally have a bit of a rest.

The wonderful thing about Trunki is tha it is not just useful on travel but at home too: this spacious bag makes and excellent toy storage box!

You can read my full review here to check why I love it so much and if it may suit your friends.

Kikki Deuter Backpack – perfect toddler backpack for travel and playschool

My kids are in love with the Kikki backpack and have used them almost every day since the day we bought them.

During the year, they are excellent school bags (they are suitable for pre-schoolers and young kids) and we have used them as backpacks for hikes and holidays too.

The are very cute and very comfortable and they have a super handy chest strap that allows them so sit properly on the kids’ backs without falling off. You can read my full review here

A Nat Geo Kids subscription (paper or digital)

A great educational and fun present for kids s a subscription to the excellent National Geographic kids magazines.

They are a great way to foster kids curiosity about the world even when theyt cannot leave the house

Get your subscription here

I hope you enjoyed this list of gifts for traveling families and it gave you ideas for the travel lovers in your life. Happy holidays!

This post was originally published in 2015 and has now been fully updated (2020)

Gifts for traveling family image for pinterest with gifts and text: useful and cool travel gifts for families

2 thoughts on “Fun and thoughtful gift ideas for travel-loving families

  1. Sally@Toddlers on Tour says:

    Great ideas. We don’t have a trunkie but my son has his own light weight hand luggage trolley bag, which when stored at home contains his special travel Lego kit, colouring pencils, playing cards. The added bonus when it’s time to pack all I have to add is the snuggle friend and a new colouring/activity book. Will check out those cool looking scratch maps and kids travel journal.

    • Marta says:

      It’s such a great idea to have a bag ready with travel toys: I have noticed kids tend to forget about what’s in it so every time is almost as if the toy was new! The scratch maps are my favourite, i am actually hoping to get one for Christmas myself…

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