Gift Ideas for Holiday Travel

You’ve booked a luxury trip, but your holiday is ruined by sleepless nights and poor dining choices. Even the most upscale resorts won’t be fun if your family is tired and cranky. Here are some ideas to help ease your travel and let your Christmas vacation be as easy and relaxing as you deserve.

Travel gift ideas for the well-rested holiday, be it Christmas, a romantic Valentine’s weekend, and any other vacation getaway:

Like many coffee aficionados, I don’t merely dislike a bad cup of coffee, I’m practically insulted by it. This “Joe to Go” coffee tote is a good solution. The tweedy tote has room for a thermos, two insulated mugs, two spoons and a napkin, not to mention a little cream or milk container. Prepare a pot of your favorite quality roast, and voila! Coffee with no complaints. It looks handsome, too. Hmm, handsome, and holding a great cup of coffee? I may have met the perfect guy. Too bad he’s wearing tweed!

With Zagat To Go, you download the trusted Zagat Guide into your handheld PDA: It is compatible with Blackberrys, Palm Pilots, and mobile phones with text capability. I know I always wondered, while toting around a years-old Zagat’s Guide, whether the information was up-to-date. This Zagat To Go electronic guide is updated automatically with each new content update. For upscale golf trips, Zagats To Go now has user reviews of the best golf courses – along with the usual shopping and restaurant reviews and ratings. Pretty handy way to make your vacation restaurant choices more wisely.

The DreamSack Airline Comfort Set includes a silk blanket, silk pillowcase, and silk eyeshades to help make travel feel like the luxury it’s meant to be. The pillowcase is large enough to fit over any hotel pillow, and silky enough to help that hotel pillow be more comfortable. The eyeshades are much more comfy than the ones handed out by some flight attendants for air travel, with the added benefit of having only been on your (and no stranger’s) face. It is incredibly lightweight and compactible. Frankly, I’ll try anything to be able to relax on a plane and add to the comfort of my hotel pillow – and these do the trick.

So you have the promise of good coffee in the morning, eyeshades and your own pillowcase, but you still can’t sleep? Sometimes the background noise of hotels, like honeymooners staying up late, doors slamming and whatnot, keeps me up too. Don’t let a restless night’s sleep ruin the ease of your luxury vacation. Marsona Sound Machines are small enough to travel easily, and offer several different ambient sounds to mask distracting hotel noises. I like “rainfall,” myself, although someone else complained of it making him feel like he needed to go to the bathroom! There are plenty of ambient, “white noise” sound machines out there, of course, but this one is travel-sized, at only 6 inches by 4 inches.