Gifts for students who travel by train (home and back)

The best gifts for students who travel by train make the trip between uni and home cheaper or easier. Top of the list is a 16-25 Railcard, which takes a third off most fares across Britain. After that come small comforts for long journeys (headphones, a power bank, a refillable bottle), and for a shared house, a live departure board showing the next trains from the local station. None of it needs to be expensive to get used every single term.

Students do a lot of train travel. Home at Christmas, back in January, home again at Easter, plus the odd weekend when the laundry piles up. Anything that makes those trips cheaper or comfier gets used a lot.

What's the best gift for a student who travels home by train?

A Railcard, almost every time. The 16-25 Railcard knocks a third off most rail fares, and on a few long trips home it covers its own cost.

There's one catch for gift buyers. It's tied to the holder's details and photo, but the Railcard website lets you buy one for someone else if you have their date of birth, a digital photo and proof that they're eligible. Otherwise, give the money with a note saying what it's for, or sit down together and buy it then and there.

A few things worth knowing:

• It's for people aged 16 to 25, and full-time students aged 26 or over can usually get one too.
• People aged 26 to 30 who aren't students can get the 26-30 Railcard, which lives in an app.
• There's a minimum fare on some early weekday morning trains, so it's worth reading the conditions once.

Our guide to which Railcard is best goes through every option if you're weighing them up.

Gifts that make a long train journey better

Some student trips home are short hops. Plenty aren't: Exeter to Newcastle, or Brighton to Glasgow, eats up most of a day. A few things make those hours better:

Put a couple of these in a box with snacks for the journey and you've got a solid end-of-term present.

A departure board for the student house

This one is for the house that takes trains a lot. TrainTicker is a small amber LED board that shows the next trains from any National Rail station in Great Britain, live from National Rail's own data. It shows platforms, expected times when trains are late, and cancellations with the reason given.

In a student house, two settings earn their keep. They can pick the station they travel to, say the one nearest home, and the board lists only the trains that call there. And they can set how long the walk to the station takes, so it hides trains they'd miss anyway. The next-three layout suits a house where everyone's heading different ways.

It's £199.99 one-time with no subscription, plus £4.99 UK postage, and it ships within 3 to 4 weeks. Setup takes about three minutes from a phone, with no app.

On a student budget, though, there's a free route as well. The live demo works in any browser with no signup. Load it on an old tablet propped up in the kitchen and you've got a departure board for nothing. More on that in our guide to putting a live departure board on any screen.

Here are the stations behind some of the big student cities, with the three-letter codes you can type into the board or the demo:

Tips for the trip home at Christmas

The end of autumn term is one of the busiest times to travel, so a few habits help:

• Book early. Advance tickets for a specific train are often much cheaper than buying on the day.
• Reserve a seat on long-distance trains. With many operators it costs nothing when you buy the ticket.
• Check for engineering works. The railway often plans big jobs around Christmas and New Year, and some lines close for days at a time. See do trains run on Christmas Day? for what to expect.

If you're shopping for a few people at once, our train gifts at every budget guide has plenty more ideas.