10 Best Travel Guitars For The Road in 2021
Traveling unleashes your soul and inner spirit, provides positive energy, adds to the value of both heart and mind. Traveling revitalizes your heart and soul, provides the pure energy you need to cope with routine life, daily chores, and hard times of your life. That’s why maybe people say, ‘let’s take a break!’.
Now, the one thing which seamlessly co-relates to unleashing the purity and notes of your soul is playing musical instruments, and for guitar lovers, it makes a way out through those strings and when you hit notes on it. Well, amalgamating the two powerful healers of your soul on a trip can make your journey memorable. But, when you are speaking about a guitar like your favorite instrument, you know that it’s not that travel-friendly.
There is a wide range of guitar sizes, both amongst electric-acoustic guitars, electric guitars, acoustic travel guitars. So, if you want to plan your forthcoming tour with your guitar by your side, want to enjoy the evening with a cup of coffee or brew hitting your favorite notes, you have to go through this information about the portable guitars. Here, you will get a comprehensive compilation of the 10 perfect travel guitars available in the market in 2021.
What is a Travel Guitar? / What is the best travel acoustic guitar
It’s pretty difficult to travel with a full-size guitar, which is vulnerable for hectic journeys and heavy, and there is a greater probability of them getting damaged while traveling. A few design changes, cuts, and bends in neck length, width, and weight can make it a better travel companion. Travel guitar is simply a modular version, compact, small, with salient features of a full-scale guitar. So basically, these are:
- Compact
- Solid built
- It comes with a travel bag
- Sometimes has foldable neck or detachable
- Affordable solution for travelers
- Lightweight
What Makes Travel Guitars Different?
A travel guitar is particularly shorter and compact in design. Needless to say, when you are traveling with a guitar, it needs to be highly portable, easier to carry, load, and unload with bags, or even light in weight.
Designing an acoustic travel guitar for traveling needs to make the design compact. There are a few ways how it is done. Firstly, it is made shorter by decreasing the scale length, narrow body with the standard fret, or a little modulation. These modulations bring a bit of change in tone and sound.
10 Best Travel Acoustic Guitar
Yamaha CSF3M
Artistically carved out of solid wood, Yamaha CSF3M has a scale length of 23.6 inches, with a fine seamless neck design for chords. In this electro-acoustic piece, Yamaha has scaled off onboard EQ. Speaking aggressively about travel guitar collections, Yamaha CSF is not marketed as a travel guitar, although this particular has all the features packed in it.
Priced at around $589, this short-scale, vintage-style folk electro-acoustic guitar has 20 frets. A classic design, elegant rosewood fingerboard make it a signature carry. With a 16-inch radius neck, the strong and impeccable rich tonal sound makes it an impressive pick in the market.
– Small and handy
– Rich tonal sound
– Made of solid wood
– Includes bag
Traveler Guitar AG-105EQ
Traveler Guitar is a unique and feature-packed acoustic instrument Californian brand that has crafted AG-105EQ, a small, highly portable, 25.5 inches compact travel acoustic guitar. This is an acoustic guitar with impressive tonal quality. Its body is structured out of mahogany and solid spruce; elegance and classified look are inherited.
Specifically ideal for traveling for its small-bodied design, the guitar offers complete playing comfort with normal string spacing, easy to play. Clarity of sound and loud sound will surprise you, taking into consideration the size.
Pros
– Shadow electronics
– Small with nice tonal richness
– Custom-designed, snug fit gig bag
Martin’s Steel String
Sturdy, artistic, small yet powerful Martin’s Steel String is what defines the potentials of this high-quality acoustic travel guitar. Designed with tight knobs, it gives you a good feel while you are on the flow over the strings.
Crafted with typified Martin style, the epic is created with its impressive fret design. This is reasonably small when you think of considering it for travel. Lightweight and compact, even if you take the protective bag or the strap in the count.
Pros
– Subtle yet vibrant sound
– Weighs only 2 lbs, highly portable
– Low action
Taylor BT2 Baby Taylor
Amazing dreadnought-designed ¾ sized Baby Taylor BT2 fascinates you with its body style and incredibly loud tonal control. Genuine solid mahogany structure devised with a classic ebony fingerboard offers it a classified appeal. Although primarily designed for kids, it is ideal for a traveler for its compact design and solid structure. This loud acoustic guitar draws great similarity with the Little Martin guitar. The ebony fingerboard is uniquely designed, which enhances your experiences with neck navigation. It comes with a humidifier that keeps the guitar safe from the effect of heat.
Although it misses out on the high hits of frequency like Little Martin, you simply cannot ignore its well-defined treble tones with this acoustic guitar. A standard set of 19 frets fit within a total scale of 22”, and this can be perhaps a perfect partner on your beach trips.
Pros:
– Small with powerful treble
– Classic Ebony fingerboard.
– Soft and padded cover bag
– Solid and durable
Córdoba Mini M
Córdoba is well known for its plethora of classical guitars. The Córdoba Mini M comes in with the astounding playability of full-sized guitars. If you are one of those bass lovers, perhaps you might fall in love with this piece, playing it on its tuning. It offers a comprehensive full-scale guitar feel. With impressive sound quality and tonal range, this piece designed by Córdoba comes within a decent price range, thus making it the best of the best acoustic travel guitars.
Do not go by its miniature size, for it has the potential of a full-size guitar in terms of playability and tuning. Its unique sound and depth can be credited to its typified neck depth and fret spacing. However, when played on E tuning, it might showcase a range of vibrancy which can be avoided if you tune to A.
Pros:
– Small-sized sized.
– Nice A-A tuning.
– Great tonal quality
– Impressive sound
Taylor GS Mini-e Koa
Rich sound, small design, amazing pickup, Taylor’s GS Mini-e Koa has a complete package to amaze you. It is ¾ the size of a conventional guitar, and it offers loud acoustics. The sound and tonal range are mesmerizing and quite surprising for a small acoustic guitar. The scaled-down design makes it highly portable. This guitar also comes with a built-in digital chromatic tuner. It also has an LED display for tuning, and it also shows a low battery.
Crafted out of mahogany and spruce, this one has an ebony fretboard with a slight yet artistic arch in its back; you can fall for the visual magnificence as well. Comprehensive solid top, ebony fingerboard with uniquely layered sides and back together offer an impressive tonal quality. Integrated with Taylor’s Expression System preamp system, the chic handy tuner is perhaps the best investment you can make. Besides, lefties can also get the am model designed for them.
– Feature-packed
– High-end tonal richness and sound quality
– Gig back for traveling ease
– The unique solid body design
Traveler 6-string acoustic guitar mark III MK3 MHG
Pioneer of the thoughtful trend-setting manufacturing of traveler guitars, Traveler is a company of utmost experience of 20 years. Similar to EG V2, the Mark III MK3 MHG can boast full-scale travel acoustic guitar features compiled within a smaller framework.
One of the impressive features of this acoustic guitar from Traveler is a built-in shadow headphone amplifier and an auxiliary input. It comes crafted with an under-saddle pickup system, deep acoustic tonal range, and sound quality, just like full-size guitars. Strong and durable, built with mahogany, featured with EQ controls, it offers an amazing range and frets access. Besides, this guitar is 26% shorter and 47% thinner than regular guitars, thus making it a popular choice for travelers. It has a standard EQ carved out mahogany and offers higher fret, thus making this travel size guitar a perfect buy.
Pros:
– Humble personalized experience with
– Headphones for silent guitar practice
– EQ controls and onboard tuner
– High frets easy access
– Aux in for practice with tracks
Luna Safari Series Muse Mahogany
Having affordable prices packaged with the elegance of a typical Mahogany dreadnought body, Luna Safari Series Muse Mahogany scales up the attraction of this ¾ dreadnought travel guitar. It is 3/4th of the standard guitar size, thus making it a travel-friendly guitar. While the body is made of rosewood, the fingerboard is carved out of mahogany. Luna is a reputed brand known for feature-packed acoustic guitars.
Even this model is no exception, a classic Celtic laser-etched henna crafting with rosewood fingerboard. An adjustable truss rod, reliable fretboard, and full-scale play range make it a perfect companion on your travel days. So, if you are looking for high-quality guitar, then you can consider buying this acoustic travel miracle.
Pros:
– Travel-friendly ¾ size.
– Good sound
– Affordable
Journey Instruments OF660M Overhead
A unique gift to the world of guitar lovers, a masterpiece from Rob Bailey, Journey Instruments OF660M, was launched at NAMM in 2013. This innovative design is collapsible but has a solid construction, which makes it a perfect travel guitar option, thus making it suitable for the travelers who love to tuck in their favorite guitar when traveling. It has a 24.5-inch scale and a 1 3/4 nut width.
A simple solution for your travel hassles with a full-sized guitar, this one has a completely detachable neck. This compact-sized guitar is made with carbon fiber and is completely weatherproof. Even after detaching it completely, there are no issues of cracking while attaching again. It is one of the expensive guitars, but its features justify the cost of this guitar, thus making it an excellent choice for all guitar players.
– Tough made, carbon fiber crafted
– Detachable, easy to carry
– High resonance
Yamaha Silent Guitar SLG200S
The Yamaha Silent Guitar is perhaps the largest acoustic guitar on the list, with a scale length of 25”. With the built-in amplifier and headphone port, you will enjoy playing the tracks on this travel acoustic guitar. If you like silent practicing, which is also quite travel-friendly, this is the one for you. It has a low acoustic sound.
But if you are undermining the power of Silent Guitar’s SRT, the pickup system has a lot to take you into surprise. It has low action, a unique friend for electric guitars, with a drifting design and look. It features a slim neck with an overpowering 43 mm nut width over the foldable body.
– Amazing plugged-in sounds
– Portable design with a foldable mahogany neck
– Backed with electric playability
– Ideal for both acoustic and electric guitar players.
What makes a guitar the best travel acoustic guitar?
When shortlisting guitars for your travel trip, you need to streamline your choices per a few criteria. The foremost one is portability, but only portability might not fulfill your thirst for playing the guitar. So, here you go with the essential pick points.
Sound and Playing Ease: Understanding that getting a travel guitar does not mean that you must compromise on sound and tone quality. Buying a ¾ size guitar must give a hand on a compact guitar, not a poor quality one. You should look for guitars with the standard fret, good tonal richness, and sound quality.
Portability: This is perhaps a vital factor while considering a travel acoustic guitar. Size and design should be compact to make the guitar easy to carry and handle. It’s not always your journey in a car, so if you have a guitar with you, it must come with a good travel bag; the hard case can be great, just that it will add to the weight.
Playability: A guitar is nothing without a rich tone, deep sound, and good bass. Some guitarists simply love playing with the range of treble and bass of acoustic guitars, playing with tracks. So, you can look for good bass, deep sound, aux port for a better experience. While the guitar’s size impacts the guitar’s sound, but that is not the only factor; the tonewood also plays an important role in tone control of the guitar. The tonewood is used for making the body of the guitar; there are different types of wood:
Sapele – This is light in weight but very durable.
Maple – It is rich in treble and easily cuts through the mix.
Mahogany – If you are looking for a strong sound with a little boost, then this is the one.
Soundhole: The soundhole plays an important role in acoustic guitar. If the sound hole is small, then it produces lesser volume as compared to the bigger soundhole. There are different types of sound holes like large round holes, multiple smaller holes, F-hole, and oval holes.
Concluding thoughts
Whether it’s budget-friendly or high-priced, the guitar you buy is largely dependent on your pocket, but that should not be the only deciding factor. Guitar playing touches your soul, so when you are buying one for your travel purpose, ensure good sound, tonal range, EQ range or frets, etc. This matters while you play your guitar, and want to enjoy the strings. Besides, try checking out reviews of the best travel acoustic guitars in the market before you pick one, for even if you look for an affordable one, you should buy the best travel acoustic guitar for your budget.
