For a thoughtful self-care gift, I recommend the FOREO LUNA 4 go Face Cleansing Brush & Firming Massager. I use mine daily. Its one-minute cleanse deeply exfoliates and softens my skin, and the gentle vibrations help me relax and feel refreshed, especially in the mornings. It’s smaller than the palm of my hand, and one charge lasts up to 300 uses—so it travels everywhere with me. Right now, it’s on sale on Amazon. — CD

The Scrubba Wash Bag is a 5.3-ounce hand-powered washing machine. Add water, soap, and a few items of clothing to the waterproof bag, seal it, and start rubbing. Rubber nodules inside the bag gently scrub the clothes. It folds to pocket size. Not as thorough as an actual washing machine, but better than hand-washing in a hotel sink. — MF

I bought this National Geographic Platinum Series Ultra Quiet Rock Polisher Kit as a gift for my husband last Christmas, but it ended up becoming a gift to myself. Over the past year, I took up rock hounding, and this kit included everything I needed to start my new hobby of rock tumbling. It’s one of the more affordable and genuinely “quiet” tumblers available for beginners. We keep it in the laundry room, and it’s quieter than our washer and dryer—which is ideal, since getting through a load of rocks requires the machine to run for a month straight. — CD

Rubber stamps are fun for kids and adults. We make thank-you cards, holiday notes, border art, and mail art with small rubber stamps and colored ink pads. My favorite set of stamps is Stamp Bugs ($26), part of a series which includes Stamp Garden and Jingle Stamps. There are 25 wooden backed stamps holding parts of an insect like legs or antenna or wings, which you combine in infinite ways to make bugs, creatures, robots, or anything at all. The other sets give you additional parts and options, and any of them are perfect gifts. (The sets come without ink pads.) — KK

Here’s a free gift to give yourself and your friends: a library card. Beyond books, it can give you free access to museums, zoos, gardens, events, streaming services, and more. This guide provides a state-by-state breakdown of what your library card gets you — from free NYC Culture Pass access to the Met and MoMA to vehicle passes for state parks to performing arts tickets. — MF

Inexpensive laser engraving can produce personalized rolling pins which make great gifts. A pattern is etched into the wood so that it stamps the pattern on the dough before baking. Today on Etsy, you can get many folk patterns etched into rolling pins. Several years ago we got our daughter a rolling pin personalized with her name: it says “Homemade by Kaileen”. The roller is made in Poland and the crafts family is still going on Etsy. — KK

I’ve used Welcome Pickups in Lisbon, Berlin, Madrid, and Paris, and it’s become my default airport-to-hotel solution. You book online before your flight, see the exact price upfront (usually comparable to Uber), and most importantly, a driver will be waiting for you right after luggage pickup with your name on a sign. They speak English and can help with your bags. They operate in over 350 destinations worldwide. It’s the small dose of certainty that makes arriving in a new city less stressful. (The link above gives you €5 off your first trip.) — MF

This 2-minute animated film blends art and therapy to guide viewers through somatic exercises for emotional regulation, especially when overstimulated or triggered in crowded spaces. Practices like resting your hands on your heart or stomach can create space for energy and also encourage it to move out of your body. These self-soothing techniques can be used when engaging with any creative medium or media, helping you to find calm and rootedness even in the busiest, most stressful environments. — CD

China has 100 million gig workers, delivering food, sorting packages, driving ubers, barely making it. The diary of Hu Anyan, one of those gig workers, became a runaway bestseller in China. It has just been translated into English as “I Deliver Parcels in Beijing.” It is a richly detailed, unvarnished account of what life is like in the urban underclass of modern China. What makes it so readable is Hu Anyan’s indomitable spirit of always looking at the bright side despite horrifically unfair, unsafe, and illegal conditions. He recounts his misfortunes with empathy and impartial clarity. There are more people like him in China than the population of most countries. I don’t know of anything else that reveals the “real” texture of life in China from a distance as this book. — KK

Here’s a person-made map listing the birthplaces of influential ideas that shaped civilization. More than 250 of the world’s greatest ideas and inventions, color-coded by fields of knowledge. It’s fun to explore and learn something new. — CD

I’ve been seriously photographing for 55 years and the best camera I’ve ever owned is the iPhone 17 Pro. The sensor is the clearest, most sensitive, most color true I’ve ever had. It has near infinite capacity and a great battery. And most important to me is its range of lenses including wide-angle and a new optical telephoto lens that zooms to 200mm equivalent. Awesome! The whole kit fits into my pants pocket so I always have my best camera at hand. I no longer use any other camera outside my studio. — KK

Most online file converters are littered with ads and are sketchy about what they do with your files. But Vert, which is free and open-source, converts files directly on your computer, not a remote server (the exception is videos, which Vert deletes after an hour). It handles images, audio, video, and documents. The interface is clean and straightforward: drag your file, pick your format, done. — MF

I’m one of those people who loves to look up the menu before arriving at a restaurant, but I often get confused by menus full of complex food jargon. Now, I use AI to translate them for me. My go-to prompt: “Translate this menu into simple, everyday language and describe the taste and flavors of each dish.” This has even helped me become more adventurous and order dishes I’d normally avoid. — CD

When small things go wrong—spilled coffee, traffic jams, stubbed toes—we often think “this shouldn’t be happening!” Psychologist Patricia Zurita Ona suggests a better way, based on a therapy method called ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) that separates unavoidable pain (the actual problem) from avoidable pain (getting upset about it). Her three-step approach: Notice what you’re feeling in your body (tight stomach, racing heart). Name it: “I’m frustrated.” Ask yourself: “Will my reaction serve me later on or help me live the way I want to live?” This isn’t about liking what happened — just not making it worse by fighting reality. — MF

I just returned from another intense two weeks of travel in China so I’ve put together a document with all the most essential apps I needed there; I wished someone had told me about them before I left. I encourage everyone to visit China now that it is moving so fast, but you need a different set of apps to get around. Here are my 9 essential apps for independent travel in China. — KK

book.sv, is a free book recommendation engine built by scraping 43 million Goodreads users. I entered about ten favorite books, and the results impressed me. It surfaced other books I’ve read and loved, validating its taste-matching algorithm. More exciting were the new titles it suggested: intriguing picks I hadn’t encountered before (like Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze). Unlike Goodreads’ algorithm, this feels like getting suggestions from someone who actually understands my reading taste. — MF

I think I can retire my packing cubes—recently, I fit two weeks’ worth of clothing into a carry-on using just four of these compression bags. No vacuum or pump needed: just roll to compress and shrink your clothes. I even had enough room to bring back gifts from my trip. The 10-pack set includes three different sizes, is reusable, and costs only $10. — CD

I am releasing my brand new book: Colors of Asia. In it I present some of my favorite scenes from Asia, but instead of being arranged geographically, they are entirely arranged by color—a whimsical way of paying attention. Out of the dozen books I’ve made, I had the most fun making Colors of Asia. It was a blast to put together, and it made me smile the whole way. The book is exuberant, unique, life-affirming, exploding with color and strangeness—and special for me, it is short (144-pages) and portable (standard hardcover size). Colors of Asia covers the same territory as Vanishing Asia, but with a much lighter touch, and a much more affordable price. This is the book for travel enthusiasts, photography lovers, designers seeking inspiration, and anyone interested in Asian styles. I am not trying to maximize the possible profit for this book; Instead, I am trying to serve my 1,000 true fans. So I am limiting the production run to only 1,000 copies. Once they are gone, it’s gone. I have set up a small-time shop on Shopify to distribute Colors of Asia ($35). Pre-order now, and the hardcover, ink-on-paper books will be shipped starting early December. Sadly we can only send books to US addresses. More about the book here. — KK

I love when others synthesize what they’ve learned and share lists like these—102 Lessons from 102 Books, organized by theme. Here are a few of the insights:

• On Focus: Even having a phone nearby reduces our mental bandwidth and makes us seem less attentive in conversations.

• On Reflection: Asking yourself “what went well?” at the end of the day can give you a big boost to your happiness.

• On Outreach: Friendliness is irrationally undersupplied. In one study, subjects were asked to either stay quiet or talk to a stranger during their commute. People predicted they’d prefer solitude, but they enjoyed the conversation more.

Discovered through Johnny Webber’s blog. — CD

This video shows the best way to hang posters without damaging the walls or the posters. Use painter’s tape to secure four paper clips to your wall, positioned at the corners where your poster will hang. Then sandwich your poster between small magnets and the paper clips. Unlike poster putty or command strips, this leaves no residue, doesn’t tear the poster, and is completely reversible. It’s also easy to adjust the poster if it is slightly tilted. — MF