This may or may not be the most wonderful time of the year. But it is certainly a time when people give each other presents. How does that work when you don’t have anywhere to keep your stuff? In the spirit of the season, we offer a minimalist gift guide for your travel-happy loved ones. But really – you don’t have to get us anything at all!
Site-Specific Gifts
Lots of research shows that experiences bring greater joy than gifts. So, if you know where your minimalists will be, you can arrange an experience for them. A million years ago, when we got married, one of our favorite wedding presents – from an out of town guest, no less – was a gift certificate to a fancy local restaurant. The world has gotten smaller; you can easily do the research for such a present on-line.
This kind of gift is even better if you have a story attached. For example, that you went to this restaurant yourself, or a local friend recommended it. But don’t be intimidated if you aren’t a traveller: this is still a great present! A Danish friend got us a gift card to a great restaurant in Copenhagen, which we still have, and plan to use soon. And it doesn’t have to be food: another recent present was a gift certificate to an Oxford theatre company. We used it to see something we really enjoyed when we were living there. The only caveat with these is to check for expiration dates – sometimes plans change.
Virtual Gifts
More and more things fall into this category. But probably the most common is a subscription to something. Knowing that we are anglophiles, one friend recently got us a subscription to BritBox, which we are still enjoying! There are also e-books, audio books, listening services, and apps of all kinds. We love our (gifted) NY Times games subscription (we’ve played Wordle now in 15 different countries!), and also a language app. Make sure your minimalists can arrange for a VPN, so they can use the service if it is country-specific. We’ve also been given subscriptions to MasterClass, which was great fun!
Travel Gifts
There are a very small number of travel-related objects that might be appropriate. Small being the operative word. These gifts will probably be most valuable if you yourself are an experienced traveler. There’s a lot of stuff out there pretending to be suitable for the road that is not worth its weight (literally). That said, we would seriously consider giving a portable luggage scale (we use ours every time we relocate) or, for music-lovers, a portable speaker (a bit on the heavy side, but a game-changer!).
Charity Gifts
We like the increasing trend to make a donation in someone’s name rather than exchanging presents. These can also be site specific, or not. Perhaps your minimalist has been going on about a particular place, or a particular hobby, and you can connect those two. We have given, and received, donations to charities that provide art supplies to impoverished children, that care for abandoned animals, that offer micro-loans to women in developing countries. Any of these, and hundreds of others, could make a difference without adding weight to anyone’s backpack.
What Do We Give?
It depends a lot on the recipient: we use Amazon to send traditional kinds of presents to people who have attics and basements. We’ve also been giving subscriptions a lot, and we love donating to charities that suit people’s interests.
We hope you enjoy our minimalist gift guide, and use it to give thoughtful presents (which won’t need to be dusted!) to your loved ones, now or at any time of the year.
To make sure you don’t miss a single moment of meandering, minimal, magic, why not sign up for our fortnightly newsletter?
