Student Travel Gift Guide (or: What Santa asks Let’s Go for Christmas)

Now that the holidays are here, what do you get that friend taking a semester abroad, an impromptu backpacking trip, or just a weekend stumbling through airports, train stations, and heavy rickshaw traffic? While they’re vagabonding around during those precious weeks of freedom, what will they want more than another ugly sweater from Aunt Mildred? We can’t cut down their travel time (see Let’s Go’s 2087 Gift Guide, which will surely include a teleportation device), but we can promise more enjoyable travel with these nifty conveniences.

NOOK Color (Barnes & Noble, $199). Every hostel usually has some sort of book exchange. However, it’s usually a collection of travel series from when Yugoslavia was a country and German dime novels. Why not carry infinite books (okay, maybe not infinite, but definitely more than you could read in ten years) on this virtual library?

V-Dimension Helius Solar Powered Backpack (Staples.com, $109). Finding an outlet? Impossible. Finding your adapter? Even harder. This solar powered backpack comes with iPod/Phone, mini-USB, and LG charging adapters, along with headphones to listen while charging. You’ll never be shackled next to the outlet in the airport again.

Pentax Optio WG-1 (Pentax, $299). Freeze it, sink it, throw it, crush it, shake it. Eat your heart out, Daft Punk. This camera can survive it all, and still deliver 14 megapixel photos and 720p HD video. Just like your childhood idea of Santa, this camera will never die.

Copag Playing Cards (Copag, $8.99). Let’s be real: cards are what you bring to teach the global community how to play King’s Cup. When you do inevitably spill (beer, wine, bodily fluid, or maybe it just started to rain?) these all-plastic cards will live to entertain again. Just be sure to hose them down before they get too sticky.

Mobal GSM World Phone (mobal.com, $29). You’ve just bought a phone with a SIM card. Whoops, you switched countries. Time to buy another. Crossed the border by accident. Another SIM card. What’s that? The feds want to know why you have 9 different disposable phones? Okay, Osama. Mobal GSM World Phone will give you one (British) number that will never expire, works in more countries than the UN recognizes, and is linked to your parents’ credit card so that they will be able to contact you (or you them) without fear of running out of credit. Think of it as the ultimate phone-a-friend.

Global Entry Pass (US Customs and Border Protection, $100). For US citizens who find themselves dealing with US Customs in person a little too often (and wish they didn’t, but unfortunately they are the gatekeepers to your travel freedom), this program offered for frequent, low-risk travelers will allow you to skip the lines at customs in most major US airports. It’s good for 5 years, subject to a background check and fingerprint submission. You’ll never feel more like a secret agent. Unless you become a secret agent. Don’t tell us—you’ll blow your cover.

MSR Ultralite Packtowel (Cascade Designs $13-16). Resist using your dirty t-shirt as a towel (yes, we’ve done that; no, it doesn’t count as “doing laundry”) and try this 3.1 oz. quick-dry chamois/poly-nylon combo that soaks up twice its weight in water and wrings instantly dry. And when you actually do laundry, you can toss it in with the rest of your clothes as well.

STA Round-the-World Ticket ($2199-4899). Most people don’t know how cheap these tickets are, especially for students or those under 26. Choose from a variety of trips: whether you want tropical hopscotching in the South Pacific and South America or a Siberian trek from Moscow to Beijng, there is certainly some destination that STA has kindly pre-packaged for you. 

Grid-it! Organizer (Travel Smith, $20). We weren’t sure what this was until we looked closer, and then we decided it was awesome. This 8x12” square has layers of elastic woven grids that stretch out and can hold electronics, papers, pens, gum—anything that fits, really—on one side, and a zippered pouch on the other, enabling all those important and easily lost items to be quickly found when rummaging through your backpack.

Pic Translator (Fotozio, $4). Okay, we’re sorry. You need an iPhone or Droid for this one. We promise this is cool enough to encourage you to go and dump your flip phone. With this app, take a picture of any sign, menu, short written text and have the app instantly translate it for you, while it pronounces the words for you. The best part is that it works offline, and comes with 9 different languages loaded.