15 Gifts for a Summer Spent Outside

Newsletters Surprise Me 15 Gifts for a Summer Spent Outside Published May 29, 2026 Falcon, Table Two Studio, Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter; illustration by Con McHugh for NYT Wirecutter By Mari Uyehara Mari Uyehara is a writer on the gifts team. She has been writing about food, drinks, and culture for more than 15 years. In this edition of The Gift, we share summery gifts for picnics, barbecues, and block parties. Plus … the best gifts for travelers and the pants our style expert swears by. For many of us, the actual “official” start of summer isn’t the solstice on June 21. It’s the final bell on the last day of school or the first Friday when you can saunter out of a ghost-town office extremely early to meet pals for drinks (like, say, last weekend). These are the days of scorching marshmallows over a firepit until puffy and blistered brown, chomping into thick watermelon slices in a bathing suit, and bellowing “NO RUNNING!!!” at slippery rugrats from a lounge chair by the pool. Good company, good weather, and good food are the only real essentials for a memorably good time. But you can add a little something special with thoughtful extras — especially if someone else is playing host. For some surprise and delight at your next get-together, treat your favorite pool party captain, park picnic wrangler, or sweat-browed barbecue maestro (maybe that’s you?) to one of these: Many of the best summer hangs are, undoubtedly, food-centric. For serving style as impressive as your host’s culinary skills, gifts editor Hannah Morrill favors these striking compostable paper plates . “They look like ceramics,” she says. “Incredible!” For a birthday party, I love these chic beeswax cherry candles for cheekily decorating a cake or bowls of ice cream. And this artsy reusable flower garland would gussy up any park pavilion. Speaking of ice cream, you can’t go wrong showing up to a sweltering shindig with a spacious cooler jam-packed with good ol’ fashioned ice cream sandwiches (I s