The best gifts for the gamer who travels

Traveling isn’t just about the destination. Carry On is our series devoted to how we get away in the digital age, from the choices we make to the experiences we share.

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There are so many options these days for people who adore video games, have places to go, and money to burn.

Hardware is more portable than ever, for one. There are many more options than just “the portable from Nintendo” and “the portable from PlayStation” these days. You’ve got tablets, smartphones, powerful gaming laptops, and even options for carting your entire console around.

Gaming itself is also just more involved than it used to be. A lot of the most popular titles aim to establish themselves in our lives as hobbies. The (relatively) niche popularity of MMOs like World of Warcraft has given way to wholly online social experiences that are as much about the hang as they are the gameplay.

What you won’t find here is a list of popular portable gaming devices. If you’re scouting out a gift for the games-loving world traveler in your life, you can rest assured they know the deal with Nintendo’s Switch, right?

Instead, these gift ideas are meant to surprise the most dedicated video game fans in your life with something they might not have known about or splurged on themselves. Let’s get to it.

This is it, the Cadillac of gaming-on-the-go products. It’s essentially a suitcase that opens up into a portable gaming station. You get a built-in 24-inch monitor (1440p resolution, even!), USB ports, audio ports, speakers, accessory mounts for things like webcams, and an entire media center. Also, storage for cables and controllers.

Not everyone needs all those features, of course. The accessory mounts and media center in particular are aimed more at the streamers and professional players in the Gaems audience. If that $700 price tag is just a little too steep but you still want to take your console (or small form factor PC) on the road, there’s also the $350 Sentinel and $300 Vanguard.

Online games are one of the big reasons we look for ways to take our hobby on the road: with something like Fortnite or Destiny 2 and their limited-time events, the FOMO is so very real. There probably won’t be a perfect solution until 5G networks are more widely supported, but depending on where you’re going and what service is like, an LTE hotspot is a functional option.

This is the kind of thing you’ll want to shop around for. Unlike the Gaems case, there’s a vast range of options when it comes to Wi-Fi hotspots. Our friends at PC Magazine have laid out some great recommendations, including the Nighthawk. But you should know going in that in addition to the upfront price, you’ll also likely be paying for a monthly contract and other data fees.

If you’ve ever spent any time shopping for headphones, you know there are options for pretty much every price point, up to and even well beyond $1,000. But let’s assume you’re shopping for a dedicated gamer who isn’t also an audiophile, just to keep things reasonable. Check out the Sony WH-1000MX3.

Any good noise-canceling cans will run you around $300 and that’s where these puppies fall. They come highly recommended for travel gaming both because of the top-notch noise-canceling tech and monster battery life (upwards of 30 hours). They also charge very quickly via USB-C, and they look stylish enough to scream “luxury” without forcing you to mull taking out a second mortgage.

Gamevice has spent a number of years refining a simple concept: what if you could slot your touchscreen smartphone or tablet into a console-style game controller? At this point, they’re pretty much the best game in town for this kind of thing.

You can find controller-equipped mounts to fit all sorts of Android and iOS devices on the Gamevice website, going all the way up to the hulking iPad Pro. Best of all: prices are reasonable. You won’t spend more than $100 on one of these things, and they’re great for people who have a hard time grappling with touchscreen game controls.

This one’s for the aggressively indie gamer in your life who wants to try something a little outside the norm. Playdate is a handheld device announced right before E3 2019. It’s small, it’s yellow, and it has a hand crank in addition to a few buttons and a directional pad. Also, the screen delivers a black-and-white picture.

It’s a completely self-contained experience in the sense that you won’t really buy games for Playdate. Instead, buying the device — a $150 proposition — gets you access to a “season” of 12 to-be-revealed games from known and unknown indie designers. (As of Feb 2020, we don’t yet know when Playdate will launch, but the company posts frequent updates on their website to notify eager potential fans of their progress, and promises that it will be in 2020.)

6. A portable power station

Most people are familiar with portable battery packs, the kind you can use to charge a phone, tablet, or some other USB-powered device a few times. Backup juice. It’s great. It’s also amateur hour. If you really want to get serious about having all the charge time you could want on the road, look to a portable power station.

We’re basically talking about a gas-free generator here. There are cheaper options, like the $150 Jackery Explorer 160, but it’s not going to be enough for a console or extended use of a gaming laptop. For something more serious, you’re looking at options that fall more in the $600 range (and higher), with the options from Goal Zero and Ecoflow being among the top recommendations. Just remember this: as the power and price both go up, so does the weight.