Guest post by Kattya Evia-Rhodes, Founder of WIRRW, in partnership with Exploring London Tours.
TL;DR: Peer-reviewed research shows experience gifts build stronger relationships and last longer in memory than material gifts. A guided London tour is one of the clearest examples: educational, genuinely memorable, and something you do together rather than something that sits on a shelf. The one practical snag is knowing what to get and when to book it, which is exactly what a cash-gift wishlist like WIRRW solves, with no hidden fees.
In this article:
- Why experiences beat things, according to the research
- What makes a London tour a genuinely great experience gift
- The problem with gifting an experience
- Meet Kattya: how WIRRW solves it
- How to actually gift a tour, step by step
- FAQ
You’ve been there: another birthday, another “I don’t really know what to get them.” You end up buying a candle. They already have four candles.
There’s a real, well-studied reason that candle never quite lands, and it’s the same reason the gifts people actually remember tend to be the ones you do together, not the ones you unwrap.
Why experiences beat things, according to the research
A 2025 UK consumer survey by The Harris Poll found 44% of people planned to buy experiences rather than physical gifts for friends and family this year, and 52% said they’d prioritise activities and social time over expensive presents. The shift toward experience gifting is already happening.
The psychology explains why. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research by Cindy Chan and Cassie Mogilner found experiential gifts build stronger relationships between giver and recipient than material ones, measurably, not just anecdotally. Earlier Cornell research by Amit Kumar and Thomas Gilovich found people get more lasting happiness from talking about a shared experience than from talking about something they own: an experience gives you something to relive, while an object just sits there.
What makes a London tour a genuinely great experience gift
Not every experience gift is created equal. A private guided walking tour (like the ones Chris runs around the City, Docklands, Westminster, and the East End) ticks every box the research points to:
- Educational: real history from a qualified Blue Badge Guide, not a script read off a laminated card.
- Inspiring: standing on the actual street where something happened lands very differently to reading about it.
- Brings people together: it’s shared, in person, and impossible to half-pay-attention to like a gift card can be.
- Built-in food stops: every route passes genuinely good spots for lunch, dinner, or a pre-tour breakfast, so the experience naturally extends into the rest of the day.
That combination (learn something, feel something, do it with someone, then go eat somewhere good) is a difficult thing for a physical object to compete with.
The problem with gifting an experience
Here’s the catch. You don’t always know which tour they’d pick, what date suits them, or how to split the cost if a few people want to chip in together. That practical friction is usually what pushes people back toward a “safe” physical gift instead, even when they know an experience would mean more.
Meet Kattya: how WIRRW solves it
“I built WIRRW because too many gifts get guessed wrong. An experience like a London tour is exactly the kind of gift people wish they’d been given more of, but someone still has to make it easy to actually give.”
Kattya Evia-Rhodes, Founder of WIRRW
WIRRW (What I Really Really Want) is a cash-gift wishlist platform: you create a page for the occasion, friends and family contribute directly, and the recipient ends up with enough to book the actual experience they want, on a date that suits them. No hidden fees, no guessing: just a simple way for everyone to put toward one gift that actually gets used.
For something like a London tour, that means the birthday person, the happy couple, or the retiring colleague gets to choose their tour, book it when it works for them, and everyone who chipped in knows their money went toward something that’ll actually be used, not a fifth candle.
How to actually gift a tour, step by step
- Pick the occasion: birthday, anniversary, leaving do, thank-you, or just because.
- Create a wishlist at whatireallyreallywant.com, with no hidden fees, and add “a London walking tour” as the goal.
- Share the link with whoever wants to contribute: everyone can chip in whatever they’d normally have spent on a gift.
- Once it’s funded, the recipient books directly with Chris for a tour that actually interests them, on a date that suits them.
- Go and do it together, and stop for lunch after at one of the spots along the route.
FAQ
Do experience gifts really make people happier than material ones?
Yes, this is one of the more consistently replicated findings in consumer psychology. Chan and Mogilner’s research found experiential gifts specifically strengthen the relationship between giver and recipient, and Kumar and Gilovich’s work found people get more lasting happiness from talking about experiences than from talking about possessions.
What counts as an experience gift?
Anything you do rather than something you keep: a guided tour, a class, a meal, a day trip, tickets to something. The common thread is that it creates a shared memory rather than an object.
How do you gift an experience without guessing wrong?
A cash-gift platform like WIRRW solves the two hardest parts: letting the recipient choose exactly what they want, and letting multiple people contribute toward one meaningful gift instead of several small, mismatched ones.
Are there any hidden costs with WIRRW?
No, WIRRW is upfront about how it works, so what friends and family contribute goes toward the actual gift, not surprise charges.
About the author
Kattya Evia-Rhodes is the Founder of WIRRW (What I Really Really Want), a cash-gift wishlist platform with no hidden fees, built to make giving better than guessing. She founded WIRRW to make it easy for friends and family to put their money toward one gift someone will actually use, rather than several that miss the mark.
Sources
- Chan, C., & Mogilner, C. (2016). Experiential Gifts Foster Stronger Social Relationships than Material Gifts. Journal of Consumer Research.
- Kumar, A., & Gilovich, T. (2013). To feel happier, talk about experiences, not things. Presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Conference. Cornell Chronicle.
- The Harris Poll UK (2025). Christmas 2025: Experience-Led, Emotion-Driven and Redefining Value.