Must-Buy Items To Bring Home From Certain Cities

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When visiting a certain city, what’s the item you need to bring home? You know, that thing that’s only available there. You might even get excited about going somewhere because you know you’re going to be able to buy this specific item.

Over the years, we’ve developed a list of things we need to bring home if we’re going to be somewhere. Granted, I know that nowadays you can pretty much order anything from anywhere. Frankly, I don’t need these items that much to pay the shipping and handling costs; I can go without them. But if I’m visiting a place where I can just buy it, why should I pass up that chance?

Of all the New York foods we love, the only one that travels well is a bagel. If we have the opportunity to stop by Ess-A-Bagel, we’ll pick up a few extra to bring home. Not too many because they’ll go bad (unless we freeze them, which defeats the purpose. And they don’t taste as good when you defrost them. anyway) and all those carbs aren’t great for our diet.

If we’re going to New Jersey, I’ll see about stopping at our hometown Polish Meat shop and getting some Kielbasi. Amazingly, TSA Agents have no problem when you bring this back with you in your carry on baggage.

It’s even rarer that we’ll drive down to central Jersey but the one time we did we stopped at Delicious Orchards to get some Staymen (Stayman) Winesap apples. We brought back a whole bag in our suitcase.

While all of those items were things we grew up with, we’ve also developed a list of items from our travels.

Thanks to one of our readers, we were turned on to the wonderfulness that is Garrett’s Popcorn in Chicago. Our first time we only purchased small bags, which was a huge mistake because it was gone so quickly. We’ve now resorted to getting a super large bag of Garrett’s Mix (Caramel and Cheddar Cheese popcorn varieties) and gifting portions to those we care about or native Chicagoans who beg us for some.

When visiting the West Coast, we always stopped at the airport outlet selling See’s Candies. They’ve become more prevalent across the United States but because they started in Los Angeles, we still think of them of a West Coast treat. Now, Sharon used to be a huge fan of the chocolate covered peanut brittle bars but now that she once lost a crown when eating one, I think we might have to find a new favorite.

Another candy item that we associate with a place is Hawaiian Host chocolate covered Macadamia Nuts. And yeah, I know those are sold EVERYWHERE, even at the local drugstore, but we only tend to buy them when we visit Hawaii. They just taste better there. Maybe it’s because they’re made in Hawaii instead of the ones sold here, that are made in California.

Don’t worry, I’m not forgetting to mention how we bring home Salt Lick barbecue when we visit Texas.

Or that time during a trip to London that we packed up some Trebor Mints and every flavor of crisps we could find for our Anglophile friend back home.

So what’s the item you need to get when you travel?

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