Coming back home to a barren house can be kind of depressing. One of the best ways to brighten up any surroundings is to add some life – literally. Just make sure that it’s low maintenance, especially if it’s for a frequent traveller. Air plants are as low maintenance as a brick wall (almost), needing no soil and only once-a-week watering, so just about anyone can manage not to kill one of these.
Many recreational travelers have an insatiable desire to collect experiences like badges of honor. Areas of the map that remain unvisited often haunt them like an ill-advised twitter rant. This personalized travel map lets them mark off the corners of the earth they’ve already conquered, as well as letting them keep tabs on the territory that yet whispers to them in their dreams. The ultimate visual representation of wanderlust.
Soup is perhaps the ultimate comfort food. It’s warm, delicious, and satisfying to all the senses. But great soup is hard to come by, and chicken noodle out of a can just isn’t going to cut it for someone you really care about. Luckily, there are kind people out there who have dedicated themselves to taking care of this problem. Soup kitchens for the needy are a staple of societal goodwill, and they still have their place. But thanks to the Internet, you can now feed gourmet soup to someone you love, and neither one of you even has to get off your tuchus.
You could argue that being on top of the food chain for hundreds of thousands of years has made us jaded. After all that time, we’ve gotten to the point where we expect to be able to eat everything. In this sense, a bouquet of flowers just isn’t going to cut it. It’s a nice sentimental gesture, which earns you some points for sure. But what the recipient will never tell you is that they are secretly resentful for being given something inedible. Stop giving gifts that only check some of the “great gift” boxes. Go all the way with Edible Arrangements.
The last thing anyone wants to do upon arriving home after a long time away is go to the grocery store. It’s enough to push anyone over the edge. So instead of letting them sit there and starve, get them a gift card to Instacart. Instacart is like having a personal grocery butler, or something like that. The gift card recipient just has to tell the little digital grocery elves what they want, and the next thing they know, it’s at their front door. Then all they have to do is chow down and reflect on what great friends they have.
This one is an old classic, and it’s a classic for a reason. If they’ve been roughing it for a while, this will be better than a basket full of gold (and cheaper, too). Gift Tree offers a huge range of choices, so whether they would prefer a basket of fruit, meat and cheese, chocolate, bath and body care products, or other personal favorites, you can put together something that they’ll not only love, but that will prove that there’s someone waiting back home who really knows them.
Finding good food while on the road can be difficult, but there is also a big convenience factor in having someone else cook every meal for you. If they’ve been away for a long time, it may be hard to adjust to the conventional home routine of buying and preparing their own food. Meal delivery services like Blue Apron are a nice midway point: you prepare the food yourself, but you have high-quality ingredients delivered right to your door, and detailed, easy-to-follow directions (even for someone who doesn’t cook) on how to turn them into something delicious. This is an especially great choice for someone who lives alone or is returning to a home without a resident chef.
This one is very DIY, but it’s also the most personalized. If someone very important to you (like a significant other) has been away for a long time, you’ve probably been corresponding through letters, emails, texts, or some other indirect means. If you really want to show them how much they’re missed, put together a scrapbook of your long-distance conversations in a way that reads like a story. Pepper it with some photos of yourselves or of things that were happening in your lives at specific points along the way to make it even more poignant. Companies like Smilebox and Mixbook offer online digital scrapbooking services, and allow you to create professionally bound hard copies as well. This is a great way to chronicle all of the time, sacrifice, and faith that you’ve invested in a relationship that’s important enough to both of you to survive a long separation.
Nothing screams “My life is better than yours!” more than riding around in a limo. It is one of the truly elite representations of material wealth and luxury. But what most people don’t realize is that it’s not that expensive if you only do it every once in a while. It’s all about the image. So roll out the red carpet for that special person who’s been away for too long, and let them see how the other side lives for a change. Then you can go back to treating them like you normally do so their head doesn’t get too big.
Technology may be shockingly smart these days, but unfortunately your computer is still too dumb to stand up when you do. Though on that note, when it does become smart enough to stand up with you, you should probably run. On second thought, once the machines are that smart it’s already too late. Just sit back down and wait for the computer to tell you what to do next. If you don’t make any abrupt movements, it might spare you. In the meantime, buy this adjustable standing desk for someone you care about so they don’t ruin their posture.
The dual computer screen is one of today’s uber-nerd status symbols. Let the investment bankers have their Rolls Royces and the pimps their gold plated canes. The pinnacle of luxury living for a gamer is a super high resolution dual screen, so they can engage in some next level merkage (gamer slang). But it’s not just for video game junkies. Plenty of professionals have sworn off the single screen setup for good, pledging their allegiance to the gods of multi-tasking.
They say change always starts with the person in the mirror. But when you look into this mirror, you actually see two people. There’s you, and then there’s someone else in way better shape who’s trying to get you to do things you might not really feel like doing. And that’s not just any old fit person who’s goading you on — it’s an elite personal trainer from a top gym. So you better listen. This is the perfect workout gift for someone who needs that little bit of extrinsic motivation, but is narcissistic enough to kind of like staring at themselves while they work out. So, pretty much everybody.
A virtual cooking class with Gordon Ramsay is a chance to learn from a culinary master without the yelling and food punching you've seen on TV. His MasterClass lessons feature the seven-star Michelin chef in his home kitchen teaching everything from kitchen setup, buying ingredients, prepping, plating, and pairing restaurant quality recipes that wow guests. Crispy duck with red endive and spinach anyone?
Sleep Pod is a first-of-its-kind sleep solution designed around the science of Deep Touch Pressure Therapy that can help you fall asleep faster, and stay asleep longer. Sleep Pod applies a gentle, calming pressure to your entire body, much like a hug. This helps to reduce anxiety and gets you ready for sleep.
In classier quarters this might be called a “decanter.” But the built-in stupidity of a decanter is that it’s really just a big glass you’re not allowed to drink out of. You see, in the genteel world of wine, “classy” consists of adding unnecessary steps to what should be a simple process. Of course, bourgeois society has attached all kinds of stigma to drinking straight from the bottle, so some kind of compromise is necessary. And that compromise is right here.
Phones actually have more germs on them than a typical public restroom. This smart cleansing machine might not eliminate the dirty content sucking up the data on their phone, but it will be sure to return sterile swiping to their wired existence. Personal device hygiene should not be overlooked by today’s touch-screen fanatics. A high-tech disinfectant, this ingenuous accessory will decontaminate wireless communication and restore cleanliness to the digital age. Oh, and it also charges while it cleans!
So many of your household appliances would be better if they weren’t fixed in place. Wouldn’t you sometimes like to bake in the backyard? Do the laundry on your roof deck? And what about the toilet? Wouldn’t you like to…well, never mind. For now, we’ve got the inflatable hot tub. Move it, deflate and store it, set it back up and inflate it in three minutes whenever it’s needed.
