What Do You Get a Travel Lover for Their 40th?

How do you gift a trip to that travel lover in your life? You turn it into a game!

What do you get someone who lives for travel as a birthday present? More travel, obviously. But when you’re also freshly saddled with a mortgage and Antarctica feels a little out of reach, you have to get creative. This is the story of how I tried to make my partner’s 40th as special as possible and why scratch cards are genuinely one of the best things I’ve ever discovered.

Part 1: The Planning

The Big Plan

I’ll be honest, my original vision was huge. My partner is a proper travel lover and I wanted to give him the ultimate travel experience for such a milestone birthday. Antarctica had crossed my mind and really did seem like the ultimate travel experience. Could you imagine? Unfortunately, we had just bought a place so that particular dream had to stay firmly on the shelf. Instead, I settled on something smaller but decided I was going to make it as fun and special as I possibly could.

That meant 40 presents. One for every year.

Now, buying 40 presents sounds expensive, and it can be, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve. More on that later.

The Scratch Cards

A couple of years before his birthday I was at work and overheard a colleague mention that you could make your own scratch cards. I filed that away immediately. Bank that information. That’s going to come in handy one day!

When I finally looked into it, I was amazed at the variety available online. Obviously I couldn’t resist the heart-shaped ones. I bought enough for the 40 presents plus a few spares. I know what I’m like!

The idea was simple: I made 40 scratch-card hearts, each with a number hidden underneath from 1 to 40. I then had 40 presents laid out, each with a corresponding number attached. Every day for the 20 days leading up to his birthday, he got to scratch a heart and open whichever present matched.

The extra element of fun? Somewhere in those 40 presents was the main gift. Could he find it before his actual birthday? The game was on!

I was actually working in Nottingham at the time, away from home for a long stretch just before his birthday. It sucked to be away from him but it also gave me somewhere safe to get on with the surprise. So I spent several evenings sitting in my hotel room sticking paper numbers onto scratch-card hearts and cutting them all out. It was a little bit of a labour of love. And it was worth it!

I’m glad I bought extra scratch cards. After sticking them over the number, I realised you could see the number underneath. I didn’t want to risk any cheating, accidental or not, so I had to test some solutions. I tried blacking it out with a sharpie but then you couldn’t see the number once scratched. Tipex worked well but if you held it up to the light you could still make out the number underneath. But a simple solution was to add a fun little sticker over the Tipex.

The Main Present

While I’d been hunting for scratch cards online, I’d stumbled across something perfect: a scratch-card ticket designed to go inside a little cardboard suitcase that you build yourself. I bought one immediately.

I wrote “Brussels” on the destination line, then stuck a scratch card over the top of it. It looked so cute. When he finally scratched it and revealed the destination, the little suitcase made it feel like a proper reveal moment. Genuinely one of my favourite things I’ve ever put together.

Part 2: Putting Together The Presents

Making 40 Presents Work On A Budget

Here’s the honest bit: 40 presents adds up quickly, so I had to be clever.

Some of the numbers were IOUs. And I was hoping they were not boring ones! He loves my katsu curry and my scrambled eggs but I don’t make them often enough, so those became proper gifts. Back massage, foot massage, neck massage. These are thoughtful and cost nothing upfront.

I also padded out the trip itself across multiple numbers: the London hotel was its own present, so was dinner in London, the Eurostar tickets, the Brussels hotel. The trip became several presents rather than just one.

Then there were the practical-but-funny ones. We needed chilli flakes and coffee, two things he likes, so in they went. Useful but slightly ridiculous in the context of 40 presents. He knew exactly what I was doing.

Then there were the little and cheaper presents. I got some inexpensive sweets and I bought a three-pack of cider and split it into three separate presents. And I threw in an A&W Root Beer because I knew he’d clock all the wrapped cans and assume he knew what was in them. I wanted at least one trick up my sleeve.

The Themed Gifts

This is where I had the most fun…

The “You’re Getting Old” Presents

Maybe this makes me a mean person but I couldn’t resist getting a few presents to playfully mock the milestone. Things like Jellyatric Jelly Babies, Werther’s Originals and a bottle of wine with an You’re Old label on it. Because he’s older than me and someone has to mark the occasion.

The “Remember When You Were Young” Antidote

I didn’t want too many presents to be mean so I added a few that would make him smile and remember being young. Things like a Freddo Bar, Caramel Freddo Bar, Party Rings, Skittles. These were inexpensive, nostalgic and a nice balance to the mean ones.

And The thoughtful “I Love You” Ones

Because the main reason I was doing this was because I love him, so of course there needed to be some personal, thoughtful gifts too. Like a book I knew he’d like and a voucher for a make your own hot sauce. 

Not all the thoughtful ones needed to be expensive either. I got Safari Gummy sweets because he’s been involved in a charity in Africa. And I got some simple (pretty hot) chilli peanuts because he loves spicy food.

And of course, being a beer lover, he needed some beer too. But beer with some thought. He’s Welsh, so I got a selection of Polly’s Brewery beers (a Welsh brewery). One of the cans was called Bouquet, which felt like a lovely way to give him flowers. That one made him smile.

Keeping the Destination Secret (Sort Of)

Because 40 presents is a lot to fill I spread the main present, the holiday, across several numbers to pad it out. There was a hotel in London the night before we left, dinner in London, the Eurostar tickets, and the hotel in Europe.

I deliberately kept “hotel in Europe” vague. I was trying to keep Brussels a secret for as long as possible. And having the hotel and dinner in London as separate presents meant there was a chance he would open those before any of the Europe presents.

I liked this approach because in theory, if he’d picked up the London hotel first, he might have assumed I’d just planned something lovely in the city and not put two and two together. The game element made it more interesting. He was essentially trying to piece together the big picture from fragments, one present at a time.

Although that plan lasted about thirty seconds. His very first scratch? The Eurostar tickets. So he immediately knew we weren’t just going somewhere in London. Nice one. Still, at least I’d hidden which city, so the actual destination remained a mystery a little longer.

Part 3: Taking The Trip

Brussels: The Perfect Choice

For the destination itself, Brussels felt right for a few reasons. We love going to a Belgian restaurant together and we’re both big fans of Belgian beer, but we’d somehow never actually been to Belgium together. It also felt like a good pick because we’d both been before so there would be no pressure to do a mad dash around the city to see every sight. If he wanted to slow down and relax, he could.

The night before we left, I booked us into The Gyle hotel near St Pancras. It’s a lovely boutique hotel with character set across three Victorian townhouses on Argyle Square. The best part? It’s just a four-minute walk from St Pancras International. We arrived late in the afternoon so had dinner at a beer place nearby, and then a few more beers back in the hotel. It was the perfect low-key launch to what I hoped would be a very un-low-key few days.

READ ALSO: Fun Things to do in Brussels

For Brussels itself, I decided to splash out on the hotel. We’d recently been upgraded to a suite in Vegas and I wanted to chase a little bit of that feeling again. A full suite was slightly out of budget, so I went for a junior suite at the Steigenberger. It had a sort of upstairs/downstairs layout which made it feel special. And I loved how the hotel went above and beyond by putting happy birthday balloons and a rose petal heart on the bed when we arrived. I genuinely couldn’t have asked for more.

The Eurostar Surprise

We had talked about doing the Eurostar together many times but had never actually got round to it, so this was the perfect excuse. For the journey there, we went with the usual standard class tickets. But I’d been thinking about the trip home. He might feel a bit flat after a lovely few days away, so I quietly upgraded our seats for the return journey: a nicer carriage, comfier seats, plus a meal included.

Because it was Wimbledon season, they’d done the dessert up to look like a tennis ball. A tiny detail but it made it feel genuinely special.

The moment he twigged was brilliant. As we boarded the return Eurostar, someone was checking names at the entrance to make sure you were in the right carriage. He commented that it was funny they were doing that this time. Then we got to our seats and he said, “Is it just me or are these seats nicer?” I laughed and finally told him I’d upgraded us going home. He hadn’t seen it coming at all. It was the perfect last surprise.

The Full List (Yes, All 40)

I’ve pretty much mentioned every gift at some point in this post but here’s the full list so you can see it all together. For anyone curious, or plotting something similar, here’s everything:

I’ve pretty much mentioned every gift at some point in this post but here’s the full list so you can see it all together. For anyone curious, or plotting something similar, here’s everything:

1. Trip to Brussels
2. Eurostar Tickets
3. London Hotel
4. Dinner in London
5. Hotel in Europe
6. Katsu Curry (IOU)
7. Scrambled Eggs (IOU)
8. Mimosa in Bed (IOU)
9. Back Massage (IOU)
10. Neck Massage (IOU)
11. Foot Massage (IOU)
12. Balloons
13. Terry’s Chocolate Orange
14. 40th Birthday Badge
15. 40th Socks
16. Cider
17. Cider
18. Cider
19. Coffee beans
20. Chilli Peanuts
21. Polly’s – Everything Peachy
22. Polly’s –  Melon Wave
23. Polly’s – Bouquet
24. Polly’s – Goldroom
25. Old Git Wine
26. Jellyatric Jelly Babies
27. Wallet Card
28. Freddo Bar
29. Caramel Freddo Bar
30. Skittles
31. Safari Gummies
32. Condimaniac Voucher
33. Neon Raptor – Fort Lauderdale 
34. Belgian Beer
35. Book
36. A&W Root Beer
37. Werther’s Originals
38. Party Rings
39. Pop Chips
40. Chilli Flakes

Would I Do It Again?

Absolutely. One hundred percent. It was a lot of evenings spent cutting out heart-shaped scratch cards in a hotel in Nottingham, but seeing him scratch one every day and try to piece together the puzzle was completely worth it. The game element made the whole lead-up to his birthday as exciting as the birthday itself.

If you’ve got a milestone birthday coming up for someone you love, I’d genuinely recommend the scratch card approach. You can scale it up or down, it doesn’t have to be 40 presents. But turning a gift into a game? That’s where th magic is. And I’m happy to say, he had a great birthday.

Has anyone else done something similar for a big birthday? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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