Gift Ideas for Travelers

Peter and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary together back in June. Traditionally the anniversary gift should be something with wood, according to things like “what to get for a 5 year anniversary?”

However, after about 3 months of searching for the “perfect” gift, I honestly was about to give up. 

Because Peter has a unique taste it can make it difficult to purchase him gifts, but it makes it even harder when there is a traditional theme to it.

So I had to think outside of the box. 

That is when I came up with the idea of experiences over things.

First Let Me Explain Our Love Language

Peter’s love language is time & experience. If you don’t know what love languages are check out the book “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” by Gary Chapman.

You can also take an online quiz for this, but I definitely found the book helpful for understanding more about how to love a different love language than my own. 

Here are my results…

Here are Peter’s results…

I personally love when I find the dishwasher loaded or laundry folded, but I also love spending time with Peter.

Love languages can fluctuate, which is why when I’m stressed, acts of service are more my love language.

However, for Peter, his main love language is quality time together. But when you are juggling a 9-5, plus everyday life quality time gets shuffled around between throwing a load of laundry in the wash, taking the dog for a walk, and the millions of emails we sift through each day. 

This is where active quality time really starts to play a major role in our relationship.

With this is in mind I realized I needed to do something better than a wooden watch band, phone case, plaque, etc. 

How The Gift Idea Started

I started by taking the word of the traditional gift for this years anniversary – WOOD- and researched things to do and date night experiences that start with the letter w, o, or d. 

What I found was there aren’t exactly a lot of great options based on his interest, but that is ok. Using words like “one”, “doing”, “watching” etc. I was able to stretch out the experiences.

You can view a copy of the gift here.

How I Designed The Gift

Using Canva, I choose a booklet template. From there I utilized the many stock images available within the platform to represent each activity that I was adding to the book of coupons. 

Once I was done, I printed it out & stapled it together. There was no fancy binding, unfortunately. 

To wrap the booklet I did head over to the local craft store and picked up a wooden photo box and some wood stain. Once the box was ready I put the booklet in the box and presented the gift on our anniversary.

The memory box was the clincher for Peter, see I have used my old memory box from my travels prior to being with Peter to hold all of our ticket stubs, post cards, and other trinkets. But Peter has always wanted one that was just for us and this was the perfect time to get a higher quality verson of the cardboard ones.

Experiences Over Things

I will say when presenting Peter with the gift I really worried he would think it was stupid or cheap.

It is a wooden box with a booklet in it, nothing fancy like a watch, airline tickets, or a weekend away.

But when he opened the gift and started reading, I could see the twinkle in his eye grow brighter.

From a trip to Orlando, where I pay for all the items listed in the Book Of Mormon song he loves, to eating out at a new restaurant or even doing things he has said he wanted to try such as canoeing and kayaking. 

He was over the moon, because instead of just talking about it, he was actually going to have a chance to do it. And he wouldn’t have to pay for it (I think that was the best part lol).

The next week we did 3 of the items listed within the book, such as getting donuts, renting a canoe, and the one thing he has been asking me to do for the longest time, go to a shooting range (not my thing, but I supported him from a distance). 

But this also spurred a much larger discussion about gift giving moving forward.

Because we both hope to travel full-time someday, we realize that constantly wanting to purchase things like trinkets and jewelry or even furniture doesn’t really help us with moving closer towards that goal.

That does however make gift giving even more difficult. But this booklet made it so much easier.

It was things we wanted to do, things we had hoped our partner would be ok with, but never really found the courage to ask about or bring to the table beyond mentioning it casually in a conversation.

On our way home from one of the experiences, I told him the back story to why he now has 30+ experiences planned for the next year that I can’t say no too. This definitely got the wheels turning for him as he struggled to come up with birthday gifts for me. 

Making it a Habit

For most of my adult life when asked what I want for birthdays, Christmas, etc I usually tell them things I have pushed off purchasing for myself. 

Like the one year, I needed new riding boots (I use to compete in show jumping until I broke my back at 21) or when I needed a new computer for grad school.

This made it much easier to help pay towards a larger purchase of something I was pushing off.

But as I grow older I’m starting to realize how much “stuff” I don’t need or even want. However, breaking the habit of asking for these things can be pretty difficult.

So when Peter asked me what things I wish I could do for my birthday vs. what I wanted, my answers took on a much more drastic change.

At first it was difficult to ask for experiences I wanted mostly because we both have very different likes and interests that can make it difficult to plan many things. But the rule was the other can’t say no. 

That was when I started listing off ideas.

To his surprise, he realized there were so many things I wanted to do beyond working on the blog or my YouTube channel that he didn’t know where to begin.

I didn’t really expect any of these activities to be part of my gift, mostly a habit of others in my life disappointing me when they say they want to go places and do things. But a week before my birthday Peter told me I needed to be in the car with sneakers on by 9AM on the morning of my birthday.

That is when I knew we were both changing our habits on what we gifted each other.

Birthday Surprise

The list of experiences I asked for included:

• Feeding Giraffes
• Seeing a broadway show
• Parasailing

I have wanted to feed Giraffes since I was a little kid & saw it on the travel channel. As an animal lover, any opportunity to experience something different when it comes to animals and interacting humanly with them makes my heart skip a beat.

With the pandemic I really missed seeing broadway shows, so despite Peter not enjoying them as much as me, I knew there were a few shows he would be able to sit through. So I threw a few names out there hoping one would stick in his mind.

Lastly, I’ve wanted to go parasailing since moving to New Jersey 5 years ago. It is one of those things where I’m not entirely sure if I will love it or hate it, but feel like I need to experience it.

What he got me:

The 9AM timeline… was to make sure I was the first person in line to feed Giraffes at the local zoo. 

I was over the moon with excitement, although the blazing heat doesn’t really let me show that. 

I also received a box with two tickets inside for a broadway show this week!

Because my birthday lands on the first of the month, I have never had an “its my birthday month” kind of celebration like many of my fellow July birthday friends. This is mostly because the build-up of my birthday is a whole other month. 

I’m not sure why this has irked me so much, but for this millennial it has. 

So when I read the date of the tickets he simply said, we are celebrating all month!

And we have!