The top 8 retirement gifts

If you’re retiring and have more leisure time on your hands, what better way to spend it than having a spa day or even a short spa break – or a reflexology treatment or a sports massage. If you’re buying a spa voucher as a gift, you’ll need to book somewhere near the person’s home. A couple of years ago, ‘You’ magazine listed their nine best spas across the UK.

• Best Country Retreat Spa – Champneys, Forest Mere, Hampshire
• Best Day Spa – The Spa Hotel at Ribby Hall Village, Lancashire
• Best Boutique Spa – Stanley House Hotel & Spa, Lancashire
• Best Destination Spa – Aqua Sana, Sherwood Forest, Derbyshire
• Best Spa for Customer Service – Serenity Spa at Seaham Hall, Co Durham
• Best Wellness Spa – Rockliffe Hall, Co Durham
• Best Urban Spa – The Spa at The Midland, Manchester
• Best Health Club Spa – The Mere Golf Resort & Spa, Cheshire
• Best New Spa, the Spa at South Lodge, West Sussex

For spas in different counties, look at the SpaSeekers website. In Oxfordshire, for example, you’ll find The Cotswold Hotel & Spa in Chipping Norton and The Oxford Belfry Hotel and Spa. In Hampshire, as well as Champneys at Forest Mere, there’s the Old Thorns Hotel & Retreat in Liphook. Lythe Hill Hotel and Spa near Haslemere and Grayshott Spa. Surrey is home to Guildford Harbour Hotel & Spa and Brooklands Hotel & Spa near Weybridge.

The Arccos Caddie Smart Sensors set comes with 14 sensors to be attached to each club. When you download the app, you’ll receive automatic shot tracking, smart distance club averages, powered rangefinders – a GPS rangefinder that adjusts in real-time for wind, slope, temperature, humidity and altitude, caddie advice personalised to optimise your game and insights to highlight your strengths and weaknesses and guide your practise and equipment choice.

For people who enjoy ‘locking up and leaving,’ retirement is the perfect opportunity to travel, but sometimes it’s knowing the best places to stay. A book – or a collection of books by Alastair Sawday makes a wonderful gift. These are amongst the best travel guides we have come across. ‘Go Slow England & Wales’ celebrates life in the slow lane with a hand-picked selection of special places to stay, advice on cultural, historic, gastronomic, and unusual places to visit, and a small collection of regional recipes. The owners listed are passionate about seasonality and home-grown produce, and care about their effect on the environment.  Sawday also does a guide to ‘Britain’s Best Dog-Friendly Places To Stay’ and ‘Great British Bed & Breakfasts’ as well as a whole selection of continental guides.  Books can be found in most major bookshops and online.

Anyone who enjoys reading will appreciate a book subscription. Handpicked books are delivered weekly, monthly, or quarterly depending on the subscription you have chosen and whatever the preference of your friend or family member, there’s a book subscription to suit. The website All Subscription Boxes gives you a good guide to the various different subscriptions on offer – as well as a range of book related gifts.  One of the sites – Bookishly – specialises in beautiful vintage paperbacks and classic books with different genres on offer and many come with tea or coffee, and some with beautiful stationery and bookmarks. The book boxes in this collection are all set bundles of months, which are ideal for gift giving. You'll get a welcome pack sent out straight away which you can give to the recipient.

A Personalised Retirement Memory Book

The website notonthehighstreet.com has a range of unique gifts that are perfect for retirees. One of these is a Personalised Retirement Memory Book with a cover recording the person’s name and the date of the retirement. This may be used in a number of ways – as a guest book, keepsake, scrapbook or as a photo album but one idea is to get everyone at work to sign the book and note down a special memory and to add photos or cuttings.

A personalised wine or whisky decanter

Of course, with a bottle of something special to go in it, is a great present for someone retiring – there are plenty of suppliers including Etsy and Forever Crystal.

A "Things to do when you retire" box

Also, on notonthehighstreet.com there’s a box of things to do in retirement. You can personalise the box with the friend or family member’s name. Inside there are 25 cards in sealed envelopes suggesting various activities such as going to see a live band or visiting a friend you haven’t seen for a long time - plus five blank cards in unsealed envelopes for you to add your own ideas.