Christmas is almost upon us and in the spirit of goodwill we’ll be hosting a month of Christmas giveaways donated by some of our favourite travel, food and publishing friends. I’m also doing some online shopping and compiling a guide to gifts that give.
I can’t believe it’s December already. I honestly don’t know where the year went. Do you? Our year has been punctuated by long periods of intensive travel – everywhere from Australia to Myanmar – with hectic periods in between working at home here in Cambodia. And short but sweet visits by dear friends.
Just a few days after we recently returned to Siem Reap, we both became ill. I was bedridden for a few weeks with a nasty virus, while poor Terence, who was fighting off the same bug, sustained injuries from a certain crazed cat we won’t name. Wounds healing and on the mend, we’re now scrambling to finish stories before the publishing industry shuts down for the holidays.
We’re both looking forward to a break at home. I’m determined to read some books on the balcony and do lots more cooking and cocktail making than we did last year. Well, I’ll be sipping the cocktails while Terence does the cooking. And we have more friends visiting, which will be fun.
So let’s get to the important stuff and talk Christmas gift giving.
Christmas Giveaways
Throughout the month of December and January we’ll be posting stories from our travels this year – and we have a huge backlog! – on everything from a fantastic new Chiang Mai food experience we tested out to a fun Mandalay teashop tour by rickshaw.
We’ll also continue to post the practical guides and round-ups that we know you find useful. We’ve scheduled culinary guides to some of our favourite foodie destinations, more weekend itineraries, and budget guides to (expensive) Australian cities.
And because high season has started here and we know many of you visit us for inspiration and information on Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia, we’ve got guides to Siem Reap covering everything from our favourite off the beaten track temples to the best village and countryside tours from Siem Reap.
The Christmas giveaways we’re offering will relate to each post. And we have so many giveaways that we’ll continue them into the new year. You’ll find details for giveaways at the end of posts.
We’ve got some wonderful gifts for you too!
We have fantastic tours in Asia and Australia, on foot and on bike, with Spice Roads, Beyond Unique Escapes, Hidden Secrets, and Context Travel; mouthwatering foodie experiences, such as cooking classes at Issaya Cooking Studio in Bangkok, food tours with Chiang Mai Food Tours, and in Mandalay a tea-shop tour with Grasshopper Adventures; and fun prizes, such as gift packs of beautiful travel toiletries, cookbooks, and indy guides and magazines.
How to go in the running for our Christmas Giveaways
To go in the draw for these fabulous giveaways, you’ll need to subscribe to our Grantourismo mailing list. We promise you that under no circumstances will we ever share your personal information and we will never spam you. If you’re already signed up, you’ll know we haven’t broken that promise. In fact, it’s been such a hectic year we haven’t even launched our regular newsletters that we hoped to kick off this year.
We’ll use that mailing list to randomly select the winners of giveaways using a random name generator. When your name is selected we’ll notify you directly and then publish the full list of winners (first names and surname initial only) in January.
Prizes are not transferable because we want to make sure they go to our readers. So if the first winners can’t accept them, then we’ll pop the mailing list through the random name generator again and select new recipients. It’s a lot of work but we think you’re worth it.
Online Shopping Bargains
I have a confession: I have friends who use online coupon sites to get discounts on almost every aspect of their daily life – eating out, buying groceries, weekend activities, theatre and concerts, sports, takeaway food, online shopping, you name it – but I have never ever used one. Have you?
Maybe because it’s that time of the year, I have no idea, but I’ve recently been invited to sign up to quite a few of these online coupon sites. From what I understand, you sign up and are then eligible to claim discount coupons, promotional codes and daily deals for a whole heap of online shopping sites.
Keep in mind these change regularly (daily deals change every day, obviously), but when I dropped by there were discounts on everything from Kohl’s beauty products (25% off) to Amazon purchases (free shipping if you spend $35 or more).
Then there is the seemingly neverending list of sites offering discount codes. And it’s not only daggy stores like Target and Walmart. There are cool brands too, from Anthropologie, Aveda and Apple to MUJI, Sephora, Urban Outfitters, and Victoria’s Secret. (I started at ‘A’, but there were so many pages (52!) I had to skim through after that.)
It’s not all retail either. In the area of travel, there are hotel booking sites (Hotels.com), holiday rental sites (VBRO.com), airlines (from Aer Lingus to Qatar Airways), car rental companies (Thrifty), tour sites (Viator), currency exchanges (Western Union), travel insurance companies (World Nomads), luggage stores (Samsonite), and travel adventure gear shops (Patagonia, The North Face). There are also online wine retailers and kitchen appliances stores.
Gifts That Give Back
Over the years I’ve occasionally ran posts on last minute ‘gifts that give’ and keep on giving – those wonderful altruistic presents that you can give loved-ones that in turn give something back to people who really need your help.
Most of these are offered by charities, NGOs and ethical retailers and are available in the form of a gift card that can be purchased online and is sent to the recipient to let them know that you’ve made a purchase in their name.
One example, and one of my favourites, is Oxfam Unwrapped, which enables you to spend as little as, say, $10 on a chicken for an impoverished family in South Africa or $135 which buys a well for a whole village in Sri Lanka.
This form of socially conscious shopping not only alleviates immediate problems, makes a difference to people’s lives, and helps lift people out of poverty, but there are great benefits to you too.
For starters: it’s convenient (you don’t have to leave your desk/phone), affordable (that chicken costs just $10), and its fantastic for last-minute shoppers like myself (in some cases gift cards are sent out immediately; in others they take a few days).
Other examples of ‘gifts that give back’ include brands, retailers, department stores, and shopping sites that make a donation when you buy something.
For instance, Body Shop has partnered with WaterAid, so when you buy a Moringa Festive Gift Pack they will provide one day of safe drinking water to a family in Ethiopia.
Over the next week, I’ll be compiling a guide to last minute ‘gifts that give back’. If you have suggestions that you think we should include on our list, please leave them in the comments below. They must be able to be purchased online.
Good luck with the Christmas shopping and don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list to be eligible for those Christmas giveaways! Also see our Last Minute Christmas Gift Ideas from our Global Grand Tour X
Great read! I have never used any of the coupon or discount shopping sites, although I’m going to look at them now.
Thanks, Felicia! Worth looking at. I think that one is very American focused. But I’ve heard there are some in Australia too. Maybe Groupon? I think that’s one that a lot of people use which is all over the world. I’ve looked into it more since writing that, but unfortunately a lot of sites won’t post to Cambodia, so it’s not all that useful to me. I’d definitely be taking advantage of it if I lived in Australia or Europe though. Thanks for dropping by!