Need suggestions for travel gift for student studying abroad
 

Hello! My daughter will be leaving in January to study in Vienna for the semester - she will be there from January to end of May. She's a college sophomore and will be taking classes in art history and architecture, along with German and a music class. I'm so jealous!

She has a birthday in a few weeks and of course Christmas is coming up. Obviously her main gift is paying the tuition for this program, but I'm looking for suggestions on gifts that could be especially useful while she is traveling and studying in Vienna.

She has good luggage and already has international power adapters/transformers, so those ideas are out. She's limiting what she's taking and doesn't need a lot of new clothes, but anything particularly useful would be good.

I'd welcome any suggestions for things you think might make a good gift for a student planning to be in Europe for a semester.

Thanks!

My daughter studied in Florence last semester. Her most prized possession, which we gave her for Christmas, was a little Canon Elph digital camera. It's small enough to fit into a little handbag, and it takes great pictures.

The other item she used daily was the cell phone we rented through PicCell Wireless (they are worldwide). It's a safety necessity, IMHO, for traveling students to have a phone and be able to keep in touch when going from place to place. Hopefully your daughter, too, will be able to travel weekends and see many, many places like my daughter did.

Will she be bringing a laptop computer? If so, another gift idea would be internet minutes. In Italy, at least, it was quite costly to go to internet cafes and buy time. But they like to e-mail their friends back home and keep in touch via IM, etc.

Study abroad is such a great opportunity for a student. Kudos for supporting it.
:)>-

My son studied in Rome last year and traveled all over Europe. It was an amazing experience. A digital camera is a must! We also gave him a Coolmax travel sheet, microfiber towel, and travel pillow from REI, which he used on trains and in hostels. The travel sheet can be used alone or with a sleeping bag, but is also useful in hostels where the bedding is "used" or not provided.

An English German computer translator that even pronounces the words.

Lina's gives a really good suggestion! We didn't know until after the fact, how yechy some of the cheap student hostels can be. At one my daughter said they were given only had a huge PAPER towel for showering. And the bedding... I don't even want to think about that! But, the good news is, the students can afford these places and the experiences they gain are priceless.

A microfiber travel blanket, towel and pillow would be a fantastic gift.
:)>-

I love my new deluxe Franklin French bilingual dictionary. It is the model that allows you to change a "bookman" card and change the dictionary. It is significantly better than the simpler, 5-language translator I was given - because it has a much larger dictionary. I see that Franklin offers a similar model, with a 5-language suite (plus Websters). It comes with a small bilingual German dictionary, but you can also buy a bookman chip and get the larger dictionary (which will be more useful to her if she's studying German). The other languages will be useful if she's travelling. The model I'm thinking of is SCD-1870-BL6.

Another gift might be a good passport/document holder (the kind that zips up and holds your passport, tickets, change and cards).

My problem with all-in-one passport/credit card holders is that if they are stolen or lost, everything gets stolen or lost.

For Vienna in January, I would head straight for the Winter Silks catalogue.

nessundoma:

That would be a problem if I didn't have copies of key documents. It's true that my passport is unique and it's in my travel wallet - but it has to go somewhere. And I keep several copies of it elsewhere. My "tickets" are actually copies of etickets, so theft isn't a problem. My "cards" are my frequent flyer/hotel cards, plus my secondary bank and credit cards. So, not everything is in one place - but all of the bits I need while actually in the process of travelling are easy to find and use.

KateW,

I wasn't questioning your decision to carry one. But were someone to give me such a wallet as a gift, I wouldn't use it. A student might not have a lot of need for it either since they really won't be traveling to a variety of countries in a short period of time.

Thanks for the great suggestions! I'm going to get the coolmax sheet and microfiber towel and a travel pillow for her. She already has a pretty good digital camera, but I think I'll get her an extra flashcard. I need to look into the translator - that could be pretty helpful because her German isn't very good at this point. I appreciate all the help.

Agree with Nessudorma, such a wallet wouldn't have worked for me in college.

I had a small inside pocket my grandma made that I pinned to the inside of jeans for my passport and most of my money. I only had what I needed for the day in an "ordinary" wallet or daypack. REI carries something better, Lewis and Clark's brand is kind of silky and not too bulky. It is one of several brands that go under your clothes.

I would lean toward the "travel sheet" rather than the "travel blanket." As I recall, it should be a sack shape so you would go inside it and not touch the blanket or whatever provided by the hostel. I took an actual sleeping bag instead.

I would add one thing that may seem obvious: A good, high quality larger backpack. I would shop for it with her to see about fit, and then she could bring a little shoulder tote or daypack in it for daily events. I wore my boyfriend's old Scout one and it didn't fit right (but free was good).

I would shop carefully for as few electronics as necessary when actually traveling (not in class), and consider size and weight.

The camera is always a good idea - but will she be doing some traveling on long weekends and holidays? My biggest expense in studying abroad was my "extra" travel. How about a gift certificate for an Eurailpass or airfare for spring breach?

Excuse me - spring break.

I got a silk sleepsack at Mountain Equipment Coop in Canada - you can probably find something similar at a camping equipment store in the US. Silk is lighter and packs down to a smaller size than the cotton sacks - and doesn't cost a lot more than cotton.

Another stocking stuffer-sized gift might be a motion detector alarm to hang on the doorknob of her room (you can also carry it in your hand when you're walking somewhere dodgy in the dark). I think it also incorporates a flashlight. My dad got me one at Eddie Bauer.

More about the travel sheet, etc: make sure you buy a Coolmax or silk. The cotton ones are cheaper but if it gets wet, it will never dry. Most sheets come in "mummy" or rectangular styles. If you don't use it in a sleeping bag, then rectangular is a little more comfortable. Some sheets have a pocket for a pillow, too.

My son's sheet squished into a tiny pouch which he hooked onto his backpack, along with his towel (it came in a mesh sack) and pillow (the down squishes into a tiny sack as well). Small is better because you don't want these things swinging and hitting you! You might buy some caribeners (hooks) for your daughter for this purpose.

My son also had a metal mesh backpack lock that fit over his entire pack and he could lock it to the hostel bed during the day. I'll have to find out how much he used it.

I made a book of "coupons". Each was in fact a money order BUT these were not to be used as a slush fund. They were marked "dinner", a play, weekend away and each was for an amount of money that would probably cover the event. My niece had to email me after it was redeemed to report the event. I was delighted to see these coupons in her scrap book with pictures(in some cases) of the events.

Cash. She'll probably need money to do stuff (going out especially. or extra travel) more than she needs things...

She'll need an International Student Identification Card (ISIC), to receive student discounts throughout Europe. Her school may be providing one. If not, they're just about $20 and you can get one on-line for her. They are self-laminating, so she'll add her own photo to it.

I'm a big fan of the men's Magellene Travel vest. Its very light weight, and has tons of pockets, easy to carry passports etc without worry and easy to get into them if you need cash etc.

I would give cash in some form, a preloaded travel card, or buy euro, whatever.

I'm not convinced about some of these suggestions & would want to check the ideas with real young people.

They sounds to me like what my family would thoughtfully buy for me, but what I would never use. Maybe read over on Lonely Planet's forum for more posters who actually do stay in hostels?

i think a pillow, blanket, sheet, and towel may or may not be practical in reality. i know the money belt and passport wallet MY mom gave me are still in the boxes, in my dresser drawer!