Great Gift for a Travellin' Girl

January 15, 2007 10:35 AM

I need a great gift for my most excellent friend, who travels five days a week as a consultant.

I've searched the AskMeFi archives, but all of the other gift threads seem to be as specific as my question is, but about something else! A little more detail: she doesn't read MeFi, so no worries there. She has a nice red leather tote for her laptop and gadgets, and she likes it. She has a Nintendo DS Lite and loves Tetris and Mario Kart. I'm not 100% sure what games her husband has (but it would be little trouble to find out). I want to give her a thoughtful gift that she can use while she's away from home that will make her life better/easier/funnier on the road. I've already started her on David Sedaris, as she didn't know of him prior to Christmas. She loves Eddie Izzard and Dylan Moran, and she's my age (25-30). So, Hive Mind, what thinkest you?

posted by Medieval Maven to shopping (23 comments total)

Hm...comfy eye shades, travel pillow, luggage tags (seriously, my brother gave me really nice ones when I was travelling and I used them all the time), DVDs to watch on the plane, if you've started her on David Sedaris, what about also introducing her to Sarah Vowell? Does she have good headphones (noise cancelling or whatever)?
posted by echo0720 at 10:39 AM on January 15, 2007

On comedians, try checking out Chris Addison (the BBC have released a version of his radio series, Civilisation) or Bill Bailey.

For the DS, Animal Crossing has been a real boon for me when I've been travelling. You can get absorbed in it for hours or you can fill 10 minutes while waiting for a connection at the station. It is also a game that never really "runs out": it's not based on a series of levels or puzzles, it's just about doing stuff really. Before I played it I could never have imagined myself getting into it: now I'm hooked.

And finally, as someone who also travels a lot for work, if someone presented me with one of those all-in-one suitcase and detachable suit carrier things, preferably in a smart and small size, I would be overjoyed. Yes, very sad I know, but it would make things slightly less painful when it came to travelling.
posted by greycap at 10:49 AM on January 15, 2007

Audiobooks would be my suggestion. They're great in terms of introducing someone to new authors (love the readings on the Jasper Fforde books, for example), but also wonderful for planes, since you can put the headphones on and tune out all the other plane noises.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:52 AM on January 15, 2007

Audiobooks get SUPER expensive. Does she have an ipod or mp3 player? A gift certificate for audible.com would be cheaper & give her a choice of practically anything she wants!
posted by miss lynnster at 11:06 AM on January 15, 2007

Does she have a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones for use on the plane? I don't have them, but I know people who travel a lot who really love them.
posted by Mid at 11:08 AM on January 15, 2007

Great headphones, either in-canal phones or some active noise-cancelling phones. You could spend $100-$500 on a great pair. Then she can use them with her computer, DS, iPod, etc. Most come with a good carrying case as well (i.e., they're made to travel).
posted by zpousman at 11:10 AM on January 15, 2007

when my boyfriend drives home for the holidays, he has to be on the road alone for 4 hours each way, so i burn or buy him comedy CDs. i've found that comedy is the best antidote to drowsy driving. popular choices in the past have been classic bill cosby, eddie murphy, richard pryor, and also dane cook, david cross, and mitch hedburg.

maybe noise-isolating headphones?
if you're feeling really nice, maybe an ipod?

does she make lots of long distance calls from hotel rooms on her own dime?
if so, maybe phone cards? or download her some skype and get her a laptop microphone?
or a wireless signal booster to compensate for crappy hotel wifi, or a webcam?

i have a geek traveller friend who loses a charger in every hotel. i bought him this eagle creek two-sided packing cube, because it is large enough to hold all 8 of his gadgets (chargers for laptop, cel, ipod, & camera, plus camera connect cable, belkin adaptor, and his noise-cancelling headphones in an altoids tin).
the double-sided design is key because it holds about 4 gadgets per side, nicely spaced out--
so it lets you see *when someting is missing* so you know immediately that you forgot something.
when i bought him the case he was like, "meh", but then he emailed me after his next roadtrip and said
it was the first trip where he didn't lose a single charger.
posted by twistofrhyme at 11:11 AM on January 15, 2007

Travel as a consultant myself. Seconding *nice* luggage tags she can slide her biz-card into, and some high quality headphones.

I love my Shure's E4Cs - passive noise canceling but because of the in-ear-canal seal its more than enough, and you get great sound quality. You can find them for under $200 online.

On the cheaper end of the spectrum, a nice, small wireless USB mouse is a welcome thing for consultants, but she may already have one.
posted by allkindsoftime at 11:16 AM on January 15, 2007

Second Animal Crossing. I played that for an hour on the plane this morning.
posted by MarkAnd at 11:22 AM on January 15, 2007

Banking, based in London, responsible for EMEA (Europe, The Middle East and Africa) so I travel a lot on biz. I really appreciate DVDs, especially collections like South Park, Futurama, The Simpsons, Tom & Jerry, pretty much any anime, etc.

Even though clients pay expenses I don't like to sit in a hotel room and watch TV or pay per view movies on my downtime. And often they just don't speak English or even have English language TV. A cartoon episode is fast and funny and works for me.
posted by Mutant at 11:35 AM on January 15, 2007

How about a wireless travel router? Linksys makes a nice one, reviewed here. Half the hotels I stay in have wired Internet access instead of wi-fi, so I'm stuck sitting at the desk with my notebook, instead of on the bed or in a comfy chair. Plug the hotel's ethernet cable into this, then plug this into the wall, and you have wireless in your room.
posted by bigmuffindaddy at 11:39 AM on January 15, 2007

twistofrhyme, that packing cube ROCKS! I bought one last year.

For skype, for privacy's sake a headset with mic works better than just a laptop microphone. (Nobody wants to be sitting in a coffee shop next to someone whose phone calls are blaring away.) Up until January 31st, a year's worth of unlimited US & Canada skype calls only costs $15.00 so maybe you could buy that for her. The price doubles after 1/31.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:50 AM on January 15, 2007

What kind of travel does she do? And, what's your price range? Victorinox makes luggage tags with built in GPS that are great for lost luggage. Or, if she's an international traveller, I've seen snarky, funny foreign language phrase books.
posted by B-squared at 11:58 AM on January 15, 2007

Second the noise cancelling headphones! I have a pair of Sennheisers which are pretty reasonably priced.
posted by reformedjerk at 12:01 PM on January 15, 2007

At the moment it's all domestic, with a little bit of Britain thrown in for (infrequent) variety. I'm going to be spending no more than $100, but even the high-end suggestions are really cool. I might have to send her husband to see this thread!
posted by grabbingsand at 12:08 PM on January 15, 2007

Arugh, that's what happens when you have two MeFi users in your house - that grabbingsand comment there is me.
posted by Medieval Maven at 12:17 PM on January 15, 2007

A couple of day passes to the club for the airline she uses would be a good gift. She can save them for a day her travel is disrupted, where the extra personal attention from their agents might come in useful in getting home.
posted by grouse at 12:24 PM on January 15, 2007

Animal Crossing again, or possibly Electroplankton.

John Hodgman's audiobook transcends the genre. With music and improvised parts, it's really more like a 6-hour comedy act than an audiobook.

One other idea, buy an iPod Shuffle and fill it with good traveling stuff. Audiobooks, comedy/spokenword/poetry, live concerts. All things you can get lots of online through legal and pseudolegal means.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:25 PM on January 15, 2007

I asked a similar question a while back, in case you haven't seen it yet.
posted by sid at 12:29 PM on January 15, 2007

Having been one of those consultants myself once upon a time, I would have wanted one of these, the Creative Xmod. It's a usb gadget that amplifies mp3 sound quality, especially using headphones.
posted by jeremias at 1:18 PM on January 15, 2007

Maybe take a browse through Flight 001, for all the travel accessories she never knew she needed.
posted by CiaoMela at 2:42 PM on January 15, 2007

As a former road warrior (travel schedule much more manageable these days, thank God) I have to say that either the noise-cancelling headphones/earbuds or the travel-sized wireless router would have gone over big with me.
posted by enrevanche at 2:51 PM on January 15, 2007

I got to briefly try out a pair of 3rd-gen Bose noise-canceling headphones over Christmas (my sister got them) and they were truly incredible. I've got a far cheaper pair of Sony NC headphones but they didn't work nearly as well as the Bose pair. So there's NC headphones for every price point, up to the $350 Bose models ...
posted by intermod at 7:07 PM on January 15, 2007