Gifts You Never Knew You Wanted
1) Breast Milk Lollipops (4 for $8)
2) Snail secretion face mask
3) Home genetic engineering kit
4) Golf club urinal
5) Fish training kit
I have never been given or have given anything on this list, but now my brain is starting to percolate. Perusing gift sites on the Internet is especially inspirational during these Covid-19 days, when creativity is in short supply.
Some creative folks may be happily painting, writing, and knitting. Others are not-so-happily watching repeats of game shows, binging, or festering.
Planning a gift and the act of giving a gift involve an active imagination and a dollop of a different kind of creativity. We travel-obsessed folks may find gifting travel (or being gifted with travel) just the ticket for parched minds and soul.
Buying Gifts for Friends and Family Abroad
I’ve certainly given scores of gifts to friends and family through the years. When I traveled in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s I always brought gifts home for my parents, my brother, and many others.
Now when I visit my brother, an old hippie living on Cape Cod, I can revisit all the detritus of my travels, undusted for decades: a finjon Turkish coffee pot from Israel, a marble lion from Hong Kong, a mosaic liquor holder from Madrid, prayer bells from Nepal, and more.
One of the best gifts I gave my family was a monkey carved from one piece of wood and colorfully painted by an artist whose studio I visited in Oaxaca. My daughter also loved my gift of a hand-loomed carpet with Mexican birds that still graces her apartment in London some 20 years later. More recently she loved the avarcas (leather sandals made in Menorca, Spain) that I treated her (and myself) to in Menorca. That’s the great thing about buying gifts abroad: you can gift yourself so you don’t feel left out.
Gifts That No One Wanted
My gift for my dad from Morocco was a djellaba (a long, gown-like garment worn by North African men), which I am certain was never worn. On the other hand, he loved the liquor-filled golf balls I got him in Scotland and was tickled by (so he said) the nightshirt I got him in France. I know that my mother did not wear an engraved silver bracelet I bought in a town in the Galilee in Israel because I reclaimed it when I saw how lonely it was in her jewelry box.
I have delivered many many t-shirts to my husband, from all over the world (but none as popular as the White Castle T-shirt I got for him in New Jersey). However, he was not too excited by my gift of canned sardines I brought back from Lisbon right before lockdown in 2020. They are still unopened, so that’s how I know.
The more that I travel, the fewer gifts I buy. Perhaps it is because I have come to realize that 1) many of my gifts are not as adored as I had hoped, 2) they are a pain to carry around while traveling, 3) I am inept—and dislike—bargaining in the marketplace, and 3) getting gifts is a distraction from true travel.
Receiving Gifts from Strangers and Family
People have given me some lovely—and some not so lovely—surprises along the way.
What exactly is a gift? One of several definitions by Merriam-Webster says that it is “something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation.” That covers a wide range of objects and experiences for me. Anything given with a generous spirit can be deemed a gift.
For example: the following was a gift, although unwanted. Someone I did not know very well gave me a black wax candle in Paris, with two nude lovers kissing (a la Rodin) that, when lit, melted into a gooey flesh tone. I left it in a youth hostel, hoping that someone would adopt it.
Another gift: before I took my first trip to India in the 1970s, a work colleague insisted that I look up his family in New Delhi. He wrote to them to tell them I was coming, and he told me that they would help me get my footing in a new country.
Imagine my surprise when, ensconced in the local YMCA near Connaught Circle in Delhi, I was summoned to the front desk to see a group of about ten people carrying a large, plug-in facsimile of the Qutb Minar tower in Delhi. It was impossible to refuse, and so I ferried it around India over the next month. I hoped that it would provide some light if I were in a place without lamps but with lots of electricity. Somehow along the way it conveniently disappeared.
Sometimes things were not designed as offerings, but were: a swap of my jeans (which were on my body when first sighted) in exchange for a thangka painting in Nepal, a bagful of laundry done by a b&b owner on the isle of Mull in Scotland while I was out hiking, a free ride (and lunch) from France to Zurich provided by some well-behaved Italian gentlemen.
Gifts You Did Not Want to Give or be Given
Some young folks staying in my hostel in a convent in Jerusalem perhaps thought that the earrings I left on the bedside table were really generous donations, so they pinched them. The same for $10 I had in my pocket while I slept on the deck of a ship in Greece.
But I rejected an offering by a young Greek guy who approached my friend and I and said, “I give myself to you.”
Gifts That Will Stay With You Forever
I think that the best gift I ever received while traveling was on a train in northern India many years ago. I was adopted by an Indian family, who I think were worried that I was traveling alone. They insisted that I sit with them in their compartment, and they shared their meal with me. My heart and stomach were both full, I remember.
Another lovely piece was an 8th –century stone head from Uttar Pradesh, India, brought back from there by a dear friend for my wedding. She put it in a shopping bag for me to take on the subway home. Years later she passed away, and her sons invited scores of friends to her apartment to choose pieces gathered on her world travels. Every time I look at what I selected I know that they are gifts that will never stop giving, draped in memories and love.
Gifting Travel to Loved Ones
My offerings to my family often included travel abroad in the years before Covid (I am no dummy; I got loved ones to accompany me to places I wanted to go).
Many years ago my holiday offerings included t-shirts with the words Puerto Rico, spelled out in flowers, on the front. We left for the island several weeks later. My daughter’s college graduation gift was a trip to Turkey. A non-graduation gift was to Menorca to revisit my late friend’s house and the fabulous island I had last visited 40 years previously.
Generosity from the Over 60 Travel Group
I recently posted a question on one of my Facebook travel group pages about people who gift travel, and there were numerous examples of generosity. Several women paid for a loved one to be a travel mate or received travel from someone else. Others gifted (or were gifted) travel to individuals, families, and couples and bid them bon voyage on their own.
Here are some examples:
“I was on the receiving end. A family trip for two weeks to Kenya paid for by my cousin: life changing, life bonding. He wanted everyone to have the experience together. So grateful for the amazing generosity.”
“I always celebrate my son’s milestones with travel to far flung destinations: high school graduation had us on a 18 day safari to Tanzania, Kenya and a few days of recovery in Zanzibar; undergrad graduation we went to the Galapagos; graduate studies completed and we went to Japan…”
“When my oldest granddaughter was 16, I gifted her a Mediterranean cruise – with G’ma of course. Best two weeks of my life…Now I have SEVEN more grands! Next June I’m taking two to England and France. I just hope I am healthy and alive for the other five! The youngest is four….”
But giving travel does not always work. One woman who responded to my query wrote about surprising her partner with a trip to the Azores. Unfortunately, her mate didn’t appreciate the generous gift and said that she would rather have gotten a new deck for their house. That spelled doom for their relationship.
Travel Companies Can Do the Heavy Lifting
I have often arranged my family’s travels, but if someone is more comfortable relying on an experienced company to do the grunt work, there are many.
Some travel companies offer solo journeys so that you can gift yourself. Some provide everything you need for friends and loved ones—whether you participate or not. There are gift trips for grandparents and grandkids. I’ve read that many older travelers are waiting for the industry to again promote what they call “Skip-Gen” trips after the Covid-19 epidemic ends, in which all arrangements and programs will be planned for grandparents and grandkids to travel to places all over the world.
One Boston-based company, Road Scholar, besides offering trips to solo travelers and couples, also offers trips for families and grandparents/grandchildren. These range from horseback riding in Zion Park to rafting in the Grand Canyon, and from exploring the cities and countryside in Ireland to hiking in Iceland.
Gifts like these will be remembered for a lifetime…..better by far than 100 T-shirts. And perhaps someday some of these recipients may pay their journeys forward so that others will become travelers. The world needs all of us.