15 Awesome Travel Gifts for Men (That He Will Actually Use)
Do you struggle with gift ideas for the dad who has everything? Well, help is at hand if said dad is a travel lover! We have 15 great ideas for travel gifts for men to cover birthdays, Christmas and Father’s Day.
In today’s environment of reducing waste and sustainable travel, we feel that gifts for travel lovers or gifts in general should have a more practical focus.
These travel gifts for men are practical and are things that he will actually use. They’re based on products that we use ourselves on our travels and love.
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Here are our top recommendations for travel gifts for men…
Swiss Army Knife
A Swiss Army Knife is probably the most practical of all gifts for people who travel. It doesn’t have to be all-singing, all-dancing.
We find that the knife, tin opener, bottle opener, scissors and of course the all-important corkscrew are the essentials.
We took this one away on a 12-month round the world trip and surprisingly didn’t lose it. It has come in handy on so many occasions; cutting up fresh fruits from the market, opening bottles of beer and giving our hair a trim! Always remember to put it in your checked luggage though!
This is a great one if you’re looking for personalised travel gifts because you can have these engraved with a personal message.
Osprey Day Bag
We love the Osprey brand for backpacks, using them for both our main luggage and also our day bags.
We find that the 20L Daylite Plus is just the right size to fit in a couple of water bottles, snacks for the kids and some lightweight waterproofs, as well as phones, small cameras, sunscreen and guide book.
We also use the Osprey Hikelite 26 if we need 2 daybags which is the perfect size for a couple of water bottles, a few snacks and room for our packable jackets (see below).
There is a smaller 13L version of the Daylite if you tend not to need to carry enough snacks for a small army! We also use Osprey backpacks for the kids now which they love.
Check out our helpful guide to the best kids backpacks here.
They pretend they are hikers which is great because it means we don’t have to carry their hand luggage now!
Tog 24 packable jacket
We try to pack light as much as we can on our travels. Did you know that by packing light you are doing a little bit towards offsetting your carbon footprint and help towards more eco-friendly travel?
See more of our holiday packing tips here.
The Tog 24 packable waterproof jacket is a great gift, especially when space is also an issue. We highly recommend this jacket as a gift for campervan owners or campers.
They make them for the whole family so we each have one.
This is one of the best travel gifts for men who love the outdoors.
Check here for the best deals on TOG24 Craven Men’s Waterproof Packaway Jacket.
You can also read our review of the TOG24 Craven packable jacket here.

Tog 24 packable waterproof jacket
Travel wallet
We find this essential for keeping all the passports and other travel-related documents in and it avoids the last-minute panic at check-in, security, immigration, duty-free and boarding to find them!
We like this one because it has room for 5 passports, credit cards, cash, and tickets. It’s also waterproof.
GoPro Hero10
The GoPro Hero10 is probably on quite a few wish lists of travel enthusiasts, especially if they are into action photography.
The GoPro Hero10 has great image stabilisation, waterproof to 10m with a case and voice control. We have seen problems reported with the battery life though.
If you can’t justify the price, you can also look at the GoPro Hero8 or one of the cheaper competitor models that get great reviews.
We currently have a Akaso Brave 7 that does a great job (and is a lot cheaper) so I am not sure whether we will bother upgrading now.
Travel washbag
We prefer the roll-up washbags because they are compact and also have a hanger to hang up in the bathroom.
Most of the travel toiletries seem to end up in my washbag so even though the Osprey washbag is small, it seems to cope well with the small amount of dad-toiletries.
Good quality flip flops
Every traveller should have a favourite pair of flips flops. They are great for the beach or just general wear and are so small and light to pack.
For years our favourite brand has been Havaianas as they are so comfortable and they have a huge range to suit any taste.
They are also long lasting which is important because so many cheaper flip flops get discarded all too easily and add to the global waste problem.
See our post on how to be a more eco-friendly traveller.
You can buy men’s Havaianas on Amazon here.
Weekend bag
Maybe weekend trips are few and far between now that the kids are here but on the off-chance that you can sneak away for a weekend, we love our Barbour Waxed Cotton holdall.
It is the perfect size for a weekend,stylish and gets better with age. It’s not as expensive as leather and not as cheap as nylon/canvas – something in-between.
It doesn’t seem to be sold any more but it looked like this one. There are lots of great alternatives to suit the type of travel you normally do.
If you prefer a wheeled case, we also use a Level8 luggage set and can recommend it.
Scratch off world map
Do you ever sometimes sit and try to remember how many countries you have actually visited? We found a fun way to keep track of the countries was to get this scratch off travel map.
You scratch the countries off like the numbers on a lotto card.
This makes a great Father’s Day gift because the kids can get involved with the scratching off countries. This is also a fun gift for kids and it’s educational for them too!
Microfibre towel
When you stay in a hotel, you generally get given a towel in your room and possibly towels by the pool.
More often than not when travelling, you may be given a towel in your room but you won’t be given towels to take to the beach.
We find the Dock & Bay microfibre towels great because they are compact and fold away into their own little bag. Read what we love about Dock and Bay towels here.
They’re very quick drying which is so important and best of all, they are sand resistant so you won’t be bringing half the beach back with you in your towel.
You may find sand in every other little nook and cranny, but not on your towel! There are a range of lovely bright colours too.

Dock & Bay Towels
USB Rechargeable Headtorch
Having a headtorch with us has come in handy on many occasions. Power cuts in remote places are not uncommon.
If you don’t need it to get yourself to the toilet block situated miles away, then the kids will probably find a use for it if you are visiting caves or old castles where it’s great for making animal shadows.
We like it because it has different light settings – but the best part is that it is rechargeable via USB (see below!).
We actually bought the kids their own ones too so there was no fighting and they love using them at home to read books in bed under their covers.
We use this one. Petzl is a great brand and we have been using it for year.
Multi-port USB charger
I know this sounds like a really boring gift, but it is probably the most useful of all the travel gifts for men!
Dad will be very grateful to be able to charge all the gadgets at the same time without having to unplug someone’s iPad, tablet, phone or headtorch and thereby avoiding any kind of family dispute.
It means you only need to travel with 4 USB cables and not the associated plugs. Genius!
The question is – is 3 ports enough? If you are a gadget-heavy family, you may need to consider more ports!
Aeropress coffee filter
Sometimes it’s hard to find a good cup of coffee when travelling which is why we were happy when someone recommended the Aeropress to us.
This is a great travel gift for men who love coffee.
It is small and lightweight and makes a great cup of coffee and really handy if you tend to stay in homestays/airbnbs or self-catering properties.
More recently, it has become an essential item on our campervan packing list. When travelling with kids, you sometimes just need that extra boost from your caffeine in the morning (or lunchtime or evening)!
We love that it is environmentally friendly as there is no need to use coffee pods.
If you are a fan of campervanning, we have a lot more posts that you might find helpful. The aeropress makes it onto our must have campervan accessory list. We also have tips on buying a VW campervan as well as tips on campervanning with kids and much more. See our van life section for more.

Aeropress
Sawyer Water Filter
A water filter is one of the best gifts for travel lovers who are keen on looking after the planet. We strongly believe that we need to do our bit to try to offset our carbon footprint and one of the ways we try to do this is to not buy plastic bottled water when we travel.
Portable water filters are great for filtering tap water that you otherwise wouldn’t drink (see this great guide to water filtration when travelling).
We wouldn’t use it for scooping water out of a stagnant puddle, but it is pretty effective at filtering the nasties out of most water sources.
Sawyer claim it gives you 100,000 litres of filtered water and removes 99.99999% of all bacteria, such as salmonella, cholera, and E.coli.
It also claims to remove 99.9999% of all protozoa (such as giardia and cryptosporidium), and 100% of microplastics.
I don’t know how many bottles of water that equates to, but not only are you helping to save the planet, you will save a lot of money in the long run! If this seems like a bit too much faff, you can also check out these water filter bottles.
We hope you’ve seen something on this list of travel gifts for men that will fit the bill for your travel-loving dad.If you do go for one of these travel gifts for men, we’d love to know whether it was a hit or not!
Happy travels!
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Some great ideas here- been thinking about trying a dock and bay towel for a while so just ordered one!
Hi Jude – great! I hope you like it. The funny thing is they are a company very local to us and I had an interview for their social media manager – but this was before I set our instagram account up and I hadn’t even heard of Instagram – so I didn’t get the job :) – but I still checked their towels out because I had a boring old travel towel that needed upgrading and I loved the look of them. They are really great. Let us know what you think!
Great list!! Totally stealing an idea for this year ;)
Great! I’m still debating! Still have 5 days :)