Best Retirement Gifts for Men

Are you looking for a retirement gift for yourself or for a male retiree? Perhaps, your dad, husband, grandfather, co-worker, boss, teacher, etc. Look no further. We’ve spent many hours researching great retirement gifts. And we put together a list of the best retirement gifts for men out there.

We have categorized the gifts in traditional, baskets, personalized, travel, books, outdoor, electronics, hobby and funny, so you can see what matches the retiree’s plans in retirement. Because the best retirement gifts are the gifts that match his personality, hobby or plans for retirement.

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Best Traditional Gift: a Watch

Giving a (gold) watch is the most traditional gift you can give a man who is retiring. The tradition started in the 1940s at Pepsi Co. where they gave away 18kt gold watches to their retiring employees. It was a symbol of “you gave us your time, now we are giving you time”.

That tradition has evolved and modernized but the symbol of giving time is still used today. And that’s why it’s still one of the most popular retirement gifts. Besides giving a watch as a company to a retiree you can now give it as a spouse, friend or family member. Where it can symbolize: “let’s spend more time together” or “have the best time in retirement”.

We researched through dozens of watches and picked our favorite watches:

  • Original Grain Wood Watch: This watch is very original because it’s made from American Oak Whiskey Barrels (reclaimed beer barrels). And it has a scratch-resistant crystal glass, is splash-proof and has a stainless steel bracelet. If you buy this watch you also help to protect the earth. For every watch sold they plant one tree through Trees For The Future. And they planted over 500,000 trees so far.
  • Apple Watch Series 4: This watch is the most modern version of a traditional retirement gift for men. But it’s a great gift for retirees who love to workout, fitness, being active, tracking their health and staying up to date all at once. Make sure you don’t go for the apple watches series 1 and 2, they’re not as good as the 3 and 4 series.
  • Michael Kors Gold Watch: If you really want to go for the traditional gold watch than this Michael Kors watch is a good option. I like Michael Kors watches. And this particular watch has a Stainless-Steel-Plated Strap, mineral crystal, and Quartz movement with chronograph analog display.
  • GPS Golf Watch – Garmin: This is the perfect traditional retirement gift for Golfers. A watch that measures shot distances with auto-recording for post-round analysis and step tracking.

Best Gift Baskets

Best Personalized Gifts

Best Travel Gifts

If you or the retiree is going traveling in retirement then a travel gift is the best retirement gift you can give. We’re full-time travelers and have a lot of experience when it comes to travel gear. And that’s why we created a list with the best high-quality travel products out there.

  • GoPro Hero 7 Black or GoPro Hero 8: The best and most easy travel camera there is. What better way to celebrate his or your retirement travel plans by giving one of the best travel cameras out there to capture the adventures. The GoPro Hero 7 & 8 has a built-in stabilizer (earlier versions doesn’t!) that gives you smooth images and videos. They are a real upgrade from previous versions. These cameras are so easy in use and produce such high-quality pictures, videos, and audio recordings. It is the go-to camera for everything on your travel adventure (in & outside the water). And it’s small so it can fit in any day pack or bag.
GoPro Hero 7
  • Duffel Bag – The North Face: This is our go-to travel bag. You can use it as a duffel bag or a pack back because it has shoulder straps and padded carry handles. It’s a high-quality bag made from polyester materials and is light-weighted. And is easy to travel around with. Whether the retiree is going backpacking, going on a cruise, safari or European road trip. The bag has 90 L of luggage space, which is more than enough. And you can store the bag in all sorts of spaces you come across while traveling: trains, cars, boats, etc. If the retiree has all sorts of travel plans in retirement; this bag is your best pick.
  • The North Face – Daypack: A high-quality daypack is a must-have for every traveler. And it took us a while to find the perfect daypack until we found this daypack from The North Face. It’s is very versatile and has a 15-inch laptop compartment, big compartment for electronics, travel gear, and clothing and two smaller compartments in front for your wallet, passports, journal, etc. It has custom injection-molded shoulder straps, a padded mesh back panel, and a breathable lumbar panel which makes it very light and comfortable carrying it on your back no matter how many lbs you put in it.
The North Face Daypack
  • Hanging Toiletry Bag – Vetelli: A very unique toiletry bag for men made of leather from Italian design. This cool toiletry bag really stands out from all the other nylon bags everyone uses. And has a lifetime guarantee. A lot of the time you don’t have enough space in the bathroom to put down your toilet bag and that’s why a hanging toiletry bag is a traveler must-have.
  • Scratch Off Map of The World: With this map, he can celebrate his travel memories and adventures in retirement by scratching off all the places he has traveled to. You can buy a World Map but also a Scratch-off USA map poster with US capitals, 59 National Parks and state flags if the retiree is planning on traveling through the USA.

Best Book Gifts

  • The Bucket List: 1000 adventures big and small: A great book for every retiree who wants to travel, make their bucket list dreams come true or need extra inspiration on what to do in their retirement. This book is filled with ideas, great photos and locations around the world that will inspire every reader to make the most out of life.
  • Homage to Humanity: This coffee table book from Photographer Jimmy Nelson is a great and inspiring book with amazing photographs he made of tribes and ancient cultures around the world. The writer wants to uplift us, humans, individually, unite us spiritually and help motivate us to save our humanity, with this book. We have the coffee table book Before they Pass Away also from Jimmy Nelson with amazing pictures and information about tribes he visited worldwide. And we gave it as a retirement gift to Kirsten’s father. It lays open at beautiful pictures from tribes around the world at his table at home. Both books are great gifts for retirees who love to travel or are interested in people around the world.
  • If I Live to Be 100: The Wisdom of Centenarians: In this book, Paul Mobley photographed and interviewed America’s oldest and wisest citizens. More than fifty extraordinary Americans, who have all celebrated their one-hundredth birthday, share a century of insights. A great retirement gift for anyone that wants to be inspired.
  • How to retire Happy, Wild and Free: This book gives inspirational advice on how to enjoy retirement to its fullest. It shares wisdom about how to live an active and satisfying retirement. The wisdom you won’t get from your financial advisor. A great gift for everyone who is retiring.

Outdoor Retirement Gifts

If you or the retiree like to be outdoors than these outdoor gifts can be great to give:

  • Rooftop Tent: We travel around Europe with a rooftop tent on our small Toyota Yaris. And we love it so much. So we can highly recommend to everyone. The great part about it is that you don’t have to own a big car to be able to sleep on the roof of your car. A rooftop tent can fit on almost any type of car with using the best roof racks in the market from Thule. (buy the perfect fit for the type of car). This is one of the more expensive gifts on this list, but if you like to give an extravaganze gift to an outdoor person. Then this can a great gift.
  • Inflatable Stand Up Paddle Board: Supping has become such a popular sport worldwide. And mostly because it’s not too difficult, it’s relaxing and doable for any age. A lot of retirees love to do it in retirement. A great gift for someone who likes to be active in the water.
  • Inflatable Kayak: A perfect retirement gift for someone who lives near lakes and mild rivers or is going traveling in areas and loves to be active. This 2-persons inflatable kayak from Intex is the #1 bestseller on Amazon.
  • XL Charcoal Grill: Retirement is a great time to do a lot of BBQing. And a good grillmaster deserves a good Charcoal grill. Are you or is the retiree a BBQ-lover than this can be a great retirement gift.
  • Towable Tube for Boating: This is a towable tube that fits up to for 3 persons. Perfect gift for a retiree who loves boating and an adrenaline rush.
  • Hydrofoil Board: This is the new way of surfing. You don’t need waves; just water. A hydrofoil board is a surfboard with a hydrofoil that extends below the board into the water. It causes the board to leave the surface of the water at various speeds.

Best Electronic Gifts

  • Polaroid Camera – Fujifilm Instax: Give a gift so someone can capture the most amazing moments in retirement on polaroid. A great retirement gift for someone who’s going traveling or want to take fun pictures together with his grandchildren. The polaroid camera from Fujifilm comes in different colors and variations: Classic, Mini and Square.
  • Noise-canceling Headphones – Sony: Noise-canceling headphones are designed to reduce unwanted ambient sounds using active noise control. They help you sleep better in a noisy vehicle and alleviate fatigue when traveling. Because constantly being exposed to low-frequency noise can be tiring. The headphone from Sony is the industry leader and does not only cancel noise but is also a great headphone for listening to music.
  • Drone – DJI: A retiree who is into creating videos and photography will love getting a drone as a retirement gift. We’re using a DJI Mavic Pro, first-generation. A very good overall (travel) drone for professionals. But we can also recommend the DJI Mavic Air because it’s smaller, it weighs less and has the same image quality as the Pro. An even cheaper and smaller drone is the DJI Mavic Spark. Perfect for beginners. The image quality and possibilities aren’t as good as the Air and Pro. But still very good. Because DJI is the best drone brand out there at the moment.
  • Portable Projector – Vankyo: Ranked #1 portable projector for playing videos, TV series, photos sharing, football matches, etc. It can be easily connected with a smartphone, PS3, PS4, X-Box ONE or Wii to also enjoy games. If the retiree loves to watch sports, TV series, or movies than this will improve his experience. And makes it possible to watch entertainment anywhere he wants.
  • Smartphone – iPhone 10: Giving one of the newest Iphone’s is giving a tool to make amazing pictures for special moments in retirement, to contact family members easier and staying up to that with the latest “fashion” and technology. An overall great retirement gift.

Hobby Gifts

Funny Retirement Gifts