If you’re like me, the last thing you want to think about now is buying more gifts. But what if your sister has a birthday next week? If she’s an expert foodie, you don’t want to get her a gift card for her local supermarket. How about a mushroom growing kit or a rolling pin with embossed dinosaurs rolling pin?

Trust me! I didn’t think of these gifts but Expertly Chosen did.

With the Expertly Chosen website, users select a range of interests and personality traits for their recipient. They also choose a price range. The website then collates gift ideas from experts in each of these areas, resulting in a list of suggestions unique to that recipient. Again it avoids that desperate all-purpose gift card.

The owners asked me to look at their website and pick something to review. Their main categories run the gamut from Entertainment to Travel and Adventure. From the latter, I chose Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders. It’s a hefty book, not a book to take on a trip, but a fantastic book to plan your travels. I tested the book out just as I would test out a pair of boots.

Where am I going next, I thought? Tucson for some spring hiking and culture. Atlas Obscura  (AO) suggested the Titan Missile Museum, which displays the remnants of cold war missiles. Never heard of it – one point for AO.

Next, I think I know North Carolina well. What did they suggest? Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden in Wilmington full of pitcher plants and Venus flytraps.

This book reminds me of a travel Dream Book. It’s $18 on the Expertly Chosen site and $21 on the supposed cheap giant online book site. How do they do it? Of course, I could have gotten the book in other places but I didn’t know about it until I saw it on ExpertlyChosen.

Subject matter experts choose the gifts. I keep looking at their York bamboo trekking poles and wonder if they need testing as well.

Expertly Chosen is a useful site and fun to browse as well.