What do foot hammocks, translation earbuds, and a wine purifier have in common? They are things you’ll find in our travel bags! Yes, you’ll also find the basic toiletries and travel accessories packed and ready to go. But the basics just don’t cut it these days! These 22 unique travel items will be lifesavers for your future travels and become mainstays in your carry-on.
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Best Travel Accessories for Long Haul Flights
Flying in economy is no joke, especially during long-haul flights. It’s cramped, and you keep accidentally resting your head on your neighbor’s shoulder. These four plane accessories will help you feel like the passenger prince or princess you really are.
- Tray Table Cover – This item is a lifesaver for two reasons. It both keeps you from touching the tray table germs that somehow no amount of Purel can cure, and it holds all of your belongings, so you don’t forget anything in the backseat pocket.
- Foot Hammock – Short-legged people rejoice! Stretch out your legs with this foot hammock that wraps around your tray table to provide you with more comfort and better circulation.
- Stuffable Neck Pillow – This one’s so good it feels illegal! If you’re a chronic overpacker, you’ll want to consider this travel pillow. You can stuff it with a handful of clothing items to keep it soft enough to use as a pillow, yet functional enough to store the miscellaneous clothes that didn’t fit in your bags.
- Inflatable Foot Rest – Much like the foot hammock, this unique travel item keeps your legs elevated, which helps with comfort and circulation! It is a little awkward to blow it up in close quarters, though, so we recommend blowing it up at the gate.
Toiletries
You know all of the basics like travel toothbrushes, hair products, and medication. But it’s these unexpected travel items that will level up your toiletry game.
- Tower 28 Spray – This is our #1 holy grail product. We cannot travel without our Tower 28 spray. It’s made of hypochlorous acid, which helps to protect your skin barrier from bacteria. It also helps with allergic reactions, eczema, rosacea, and sunburns. It’s a cure-all!
- Sink Suds – If you’re traveling light, you might be rewearing some of the same items of clothes. But even after one or two wears, especially while traveling in the summer, your clothes might need a wash. Sink Suds is a travel-sized laundry detergent to help you freshen up your clothes on the go.
- Dossier Perfumes – We love wearing a new scent in every city, but fragrances can add up! Dossier is our favorite perfume company because they replicate iconic and designer scents but make them cleaner and more affordable. They even have a discovery kit, so you can try out a variety of scents in travel sizes. We highly recommend Ambery Saffron, which is a dupe for MFK’s Baccarat Rouge 540, Ambery Vanilla, a dupe for YSL’s Black Opium, and our personal favorite, Floral Lavender, a dupe for YSL Libre.
Unique Travel Gadgets
These high-tech, unique travel items add a level of convenience and fun to your trips.
- Larq Self-Cleaning Water Bottle – Have you ever opened a reusable water bottle and thought it smelled a little funky? It makes you immediately want to throw that bottle in the trash. Introducing Larq, the last water bottle you’ll ever need to buy. It’s a self-cleaning water bottle! Larq is a Shark Tank product that has taken our household by storm. Everyone in our family has one. While it might not take a lot of energy to clean a water bottle now and then, it’s a special luxury not to have to think about it. And these water bottles are tanks. I once dropped one from the top of a parking garage, and it somehow still works!
- Translation Earbuds – Language barriers can be a huge stressor when it comes to travel. While you always want to learn some of the basics of the language (it goes a long way with the locals!), translation earbuds can help to further bridge the gap, especially in a more dire situation.
- Portable Photo Printer – Why wait until you get back from a trip to print your photos when you can print on the go?! This Canon portable printer not only prints photos but can turn them into stickers. Now you can add your travel photos to your laptop, water bottle, or suitcase.
- UV Wand – While we all hope our hotel rooms are spick and span when we check in, they often need another pass to be truly clean. Using a UV wand in the room can give you peace of mind that there are no germs around.
Clothing
When it comes to our travel wardrobe, we like to prioritize comfort and safety without sacrificing style.
- Hidden Zipper Scarf – The fear of pickpockets is real while traveling. Keep your belongings safe with this hidden zipper scarf, where you can store your valuables in an unexpected place!
- Comfrt Sweat Set – You will never catch us at the airport without our Comfrt Travel Essentials sweat set on. These are the most comfortable sweat sets you’ll ever wear, and they have several hidden zippered pockets to keep your most valuable possessions close and safe at all times. Plus, Comfrt is unisex, making their sweats one of the most versatile and unique travel items for women and men.
Unique Gifts for Travel Lovers
From surprise trips to collectible travel tokens, these gifts are sure to delight the travel lovers in your life!
- Journee Mystery Trip Gift Card – Want to gift someone a trip but don’t feel like planning it? You can get them a gift card for a mystery trip with Journee. Journee is a company that specializes in planning mystery trips where you don’t know the destination until you arrive at the airport. This would be a dream gift for a travel lover. It’s a free trip that they don’t have to plan! You can read our in-depth Journee guide here.
- Universal Yums Snack Box – We’d be lying if we said the best part of traveling wasn’t the food. Now you can get food from around the world delivered right to your door! And if you purchase a subscription box, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
- Collectible Travel Tokens – Wander Club allows the travel lover in your life to track their adventures through tokens they can collect and add to keychains or jewelry. They have country, city, national parks, and sports team collections, just to name a few.
- Tinggly – Want something more personal than a gift card, but don’t know enough about the recipient to know what they’d like? Tinggly offers a solution through its activity booklets. You send someone a Tinggly booklet, and they can select from the hundreds of activities inside to find the experience that’s right for them. Who doesn’t secretly love to pick out their own gift?
Other Useful Travel Accessories
These cool travel items are the unexpected extras that don’t quite fit into a category, but deserve a spot in your travel bag.
- Platypus Foldable Water Bottle – This item single-handedly got us through a summer trip to Italy. No one wants to carry a water bottle around all day long while traveling. But a water bottle that can roll down into nothing and be stored in your crossbody is a much better alternative.
- Craftmix – Craftmix allows you to have your favorite mocktails or cocktails on the go. Their sugar-free powders can be added to sparkling water for a refreshing mocktail or a glass of alcohol for a classic cocktail. We recommend their variety pack, which includes a strawberry mule, passionfruit paloma, blood orange mai tai, and mango margarita.
- Travel Journal – Give yourself the gift of lifelong memories with a travel journal. We’re big fans of this one.
- Wine Purifier – We all indulge a bit more when we’re traveling, so it’s important to avoid the headaches and hangovers that can accompany a few glasses of wine. These wine purifying sticks take out the sulfites and histamines, leaving you with a smoother sip and fewer headaches.
- Moonjuice Magnesi-Om – The Magnesi-Om powder from Moonjuice is an excellent alternative to melatonin. While we do like to take melatonin at the beginning and end of a trip to reset our circadian rhythm, we think a more natural solution is healthier for consistent use. This powder can be mixed with water to provide a sense of calm right before bedtime. It’s a must after a long, exhausting day of travel!
No matter where your travels take you, these unique travel items will make your trips smoother and more interesting. And they’re sure to cause conversation with other travelers. We’re sure you’ll get asked about many of these, just like we have!
Do you have any other unique travel items you can’t part with? Let us know in the comments!
