2012 Travel Gift Guide Slideshow

Designer Tracy Castro can't resist a pretty blank journal, so when she decided to make her own, she asked herself what she used blank notebooks for. The answer came to her immediately: daydreams and grocery lists! This little 4-by-5.5-inch notebook has a white linen card stock cover and includes 20 hand-cut white pages. The binding is hand-stitched with white linen bookbinder's thread. It's the perfect gift for the traveler who likes to write about their experiences abroad: the sights, the smells, the tastes, and especially what food they'd like to recreate and find when they get home!

Where to Buy: From Tracy Castro on Etsy.com.

These First Class Chef Tea Towels make a great small gift for the traveling chef in your life. The 100 percent cotton towels are printed with a British Royal Mail postage stamp, similar to those affixed to postcards, and they are small enough to bring along for your moveable feasts.

Novelty aprons are always a great moderately priced gift for amateur and professional cooks alike, and the First Class Chef Apron definitely fits that description. Made from 100 percent cotton, the apron is printed with a large British Royal Mail stamp, making it an excellent gift for the traveling chef.

Where to Buy: From Gift Republic (tea towel); Gift Republic (apron).

The stainless steel 600-milliliter water bottle inspired by American writer Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a book based on Kerouac's travels with his friends, is the perfect accessory to take on the road. Complete with a carabineer and leak-proof cap, the bright orange bottle is a sturdy companion no matter where your travels take you.

Where to Buy: From Wild & Wolf

For those who like to collect flasks or like a traveling tipple-to-go, the Travel Range hip flask is the perfect pocket-sized gift.

Where to Buy: From Wild & Wolf (hip flask) and Wild & Wolf (bottle)

For the globe-trotting traveler, the Travel Range Vacuum Bottle features a detailed map, a reminder of all the places you've traveled and all the places they still have to go.

Where to Buy:

This 240-page hardcover Moleskin Passions Restaurant Journal is an all-in-one dining journal. The book is divided into five themes with spaces to write about restaurants, bars, chefs' tips, and more. Plus, the book has three ribbon bookmarks, an expandable rear pocket, more than 200 labels, and an elastic closure.

Where to Buy: From Moleskin

New York Street Food presents a calendar of Amazing New York Food Trucks, a visual sampling of what can be found on the streets of New York, like the Mexicue truck, Wafels & Dinges, and the Cinnamon Snail. $1 from every sale is donated to the Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit organization that educates street vendors about their legal rights and responsibilities.

Where to Buy: From New York Street Food

Charles Baum and Barbara McMahon's Cool Culinaria is a nostalgic collection of fine prints, whimsical T-shirts, and household paraphernalia of vintage menus and dining and drinking illustrations, from haute cuisine restaurants of 19^th-century Paris to 1930s America. Prints are $16.95 to $95 (unframed) and $95 to $275 (framed) and T-shirts are $25 to $45.

Where to Buy: From CoolCulinaria.com 

Instead of tying a bow on your bottles of wine or placing them in wine gift bags, Box for a Bottle is a more elegant and personal approach. Box for a Bottle is an eco-friendly, engraved box with dimensions for a wine bottle. Personal messages can be engraved on the box to celebrate reasons to head home: the holidays, birthdays, weddings, or just because.

Where to Buy: From Box for a Bottle

Arianna Huffington has joined KIND Healthy Snacks' "Snack and Give Back" campaign, which encourages globe-trotters to regain balance with nourishment and provides the chance to give back, with the limited-edition GPS for the Soul Cube. The cube contains five of each of Huffington's favorite KIND bars: dark chocolate cherry cashew plus antioxidants, almonds and apricots in yogurt, dark chocolate nuts and sea salt, and pomegranate blueberry pistachio plus antioxidants. Sales from each cube support the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, which promotes press freedom worldwide.

Where to Buy: From Snack and Give Back

Traveling with hot beverages can sometimes be a hassle, especially on cold treks, but this 500-milliliter stainless steel vacuum bottle will remind intrepid travelers and hikers to "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Where to Buy: From Wild & Wolf

This cookbook by Carolyn Scott-Hamilton will help world travelers and home cooks alike explore a world of new flavors with 150 plant-based recipes from around the world. Recipes include churrasco mushrooms with chimichurri sauce from Argentina, potato and pea samosa with mint cilantro dipping sauce from India, and sinful sticky toffee pudding from the U.K.

Where to Buy: From Amazon.com

This is for all those times you've been on a great winery tour only to cross your fingers later that the wine bottle you wrapped in clothes and placed in your checked luggage will make it safely to its destination. The VinniBag is an inflatable, reusable bag with can be used to pack one wine bottle, other liquids like rum or beer, or fragile items. The bags can also be reused as ice packs or a bath pillow.

Where to Buy: From VinniBag

Alain Ducasse's J'Aime is a coffee table book that highlights the French chef's favorite spots in New York City's five boroughs.

Where to Buy: From Abrams Books.

The 27th Sandestin Wine Festival, April 18 to 21, 2013, offers participants the chance to purchase rare wines at an auction, learn cooking tips at culinary demonstrations, and the chance to meet celebrity chefs like Paula Deen.