Best Travel Guitar – Comparison of Top 6 in 2017

There are many reasons you may want to buy a travel guitar. Maybe you travel often for business and you want something you can take with you to keep your chops up. Maybe you travel less often, but your primary guitar is a $2,000 Gibson that you couldn’t bear to see thrown around by people working at the airport.

Standard guitars are too large to be brought as carry-ons in most cases, and unless you want to buy an extra plane or train ticket for your instrument, it is hard to travel with them. And then there are those times with friends, family, or coworkers – retreats, camping trips, hikes, bike rides – where bringing a full-size guitar just doesn’t seem practical. For any or all of those reasons, you may be looking for a travel guitar. If you are, then this guide is for you. We will take a look at the best travel guitars – acoustic, electric, and acoustic-electric – and then we will talk briefly about how to choose the best one.

• Washburn RO10
• 4.1 Customer rating
• Body: mahogany
• Top: solid spruce
• Scale length: 24 inches
• Price: $$

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• Martin Steel String Backpacker
• 4.4 Customer rating
• Body: Solid Tonewood
• Top: solid spruce
• Scale length: 24 inches
• Price: $$

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• Luna Safari Series Muse
• 4.6 Customer rating
• Body: mahogany
• Top: Mahogany
• Scale length: 22 inches
• Price: $

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• Taylor BT2 Baby Taylor
• 4.9 Customer rating
• Body: mahogany
• Top: Solid mahogany
• Scale length: 22.75 inches
• Price: $$$

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Best Acoustic Travel Guitars

Washburn Rover RO10

The Washburn Rover is an example of the kind of travel guitar that is not simply A miniature version of a full-size guitar. Its body is shaped more like a mandolin or a lute than a guitar, and for that reason its sound is a little unlike an ordinary acoustic guitar. Its neck and fretboard, however, are full-size – another way this guitar, and guitars like it, is unlike miniature guitars. The Rover is ideal for practicing when you’re going away from home and don’t want to or can’t bring a full-size guitar with you.

This guitar features a mahogany body, a solid spruce top, and a rosewood fretboard. It is quite small, designed to fit in the overhead compartment of an airplane. Since its neck is as large as the neck of a standard acoustic guitar, it is rather top heavy, and is best played with a strap. The sound of this guitar is pleasant, and it is surprisingly loud, although it sounds discernibly “thinner” than a full-size acoustic.

Martin Backpacker

The Martin Backpacker is in many ways the gold standard for travel guitars. It sets the bar for all the others in terms of quality, playability, and projection. It is another travel guitar that has a small, oddly-shaped body – it resembles a fan – and a full-size neck. It is hard to beat for producing the feel of a full-bodied guitar when you’re on the go. The best part, however, is that it’s made by Martin – one of the best names in quality acoustic guitars. Martin guitars routinely sell for thousands of dollars, and if they’re going to put their name on something, the chances are good that it will be good.

This guitar features a mahogany body with a spruce top, and its fretboard is made of hardwood. The presence of tonewoods is felt here – the backpacker, for its size, has surprisingly good tone. It also projects very well. Overall, it’s hard to beat this instrument if you’re on the market for a travel-sized acoustic guitar.

Luna Muse Safari

The Luna Muse Safari is a different kind of travel guitar than either the Rover or the Backpacker. It is in almost every way exactly like a full-size guitar, only it is smaller – 25 percent smaller, to be precise. This 3/4-size guitar has all of the features of a traditional acoustic, only it is designed to travel well.

The Muse features a dreadnought-shaped body, and its back, sides, and top are all made of mahogany – a pleasant-sounding tonewood. Its neck, though smaller than a standard neck, is large enough for large fingers but small enough for a child’s hand. Its sound, in part due to the mahogany construction of its body, is surprisingly rich (considering the fact that the guitar is scaled down). Overall, this is a great option if you are looking for an acoustic travel guitar that won’t break the bank.

Taylor BT2 Baby Taylor

Taylor is, like Martin, a huge name in full-sized acoustic guitars, and their guitars are played by many professional performers. The Baby Taylor is their Travel guitar, and it sits on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Martin Backpacker. It is another 3/4-size guitar (like the Luna), which means that it’s body is a standard shape and that its neck is smaller than the neck of, for instance, the Martin. While not as portable as the Backpacker, this guitar sports a great feel and an impressive sound, and its owners agree nearly unanimously that it is worth the little bit of extra money.

The Baby Taylor features mahogany construction for its back, sides, and top, and has an ebony fretboard and bridge. All of that amounts to a tone that is quite sweet, and richer than almost any other guitar of its size. The Baby Taylor costs a little more than the other acoustic guitars on this list, but that extra money buys some great quality.

Best Electric Travel Guitar

• Traveler Guitar Speedster
• Body: One-piece maple
• Neck: maple
• Fingerboard: Ebonized Rosewood
• Scale length: 24 inches
• Price: $$

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• Voyage Air Guitar TransAxe Series TelAir
• Body: alder
• Neck: maple
• Fingerboard: maple
• Scale length: 24 inches
• Price: $$$

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Traveler Guitar Speedster

The Speedster is one of those guitars that every guitar collector probably wishes they owned. Aesthetically, it is unlike any other: a neck, without a headstock, seamlessly becoming a small, solid, amorphous, asymmetrical body with tuning pegs jutting up and out of its midsection. Added to that is a detachable armrest that appends the body, adding even more severity to the guitar’s image.

But this guitar is more than just an odd-looking aesthetic object. It is functional – a fully-usable solid-body electric guitar that can be easily transported. Ideal for traveling, this guitar is more than just a practice instrument. With a high-output pickup and a quality I neck, it can scream with the best of them. Overall, there is hardly an electric guitar that is more easily travelled with, nor a travel guitar that is a better guitar.

Voyage Air TelAir

If the Traveler was novel in its design, then the Voyage Air TelAir is like something out of a sideshow. It has a small body, shaped a little like a Les Paul, but the punchline is that – wait for it – this guitar folds in half. The neck of the TelAir folds down to meet the top of the guitar, making it able to fit into an almost square-shaped case that can easily be stored or stowed. When it comes to portability, nothing beats this guitar.

This guitar features maple construction and Telecaster-style pickups, so its sound is bright, poppy, and articulate. In that way, it has a lot of character, which could make it a great substitute for certain guitars – if your primary guitar is a Telecaster, for instance, this guitar may be great for traveling and still maintaining your sound.

Best Acoustic-Electric Travel Guitar

• Traveler Guitar Ultra-Light
• 4.6 Customer rating
• Body: maple
• Neck: Maple
• Fretboard: Ebony
• Scale length: 24 inches
• Price: $

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• Yamaha SLG130NW
• 4.4 Customer rating
• Body: maple
• Neck: Mahogany
• Fretboard: Ebony
• String Scale: 650
• Price: $$

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Traveler Guitar Ultra-Light Acoustic-Electric

The Traveler Ultra-Light Acoustic-electric is maybe the most portable guitar on our list. Weighing under three pounds, and measuring just 48 inches, it is a very small guitar. But it is not in any way miniature. It has a full-size neck, a lap rest attachment, and is capable of putting out just as much juice through an amplifier as any other electric guitar.

This guitar features one-piece, solid maple construction, and it has a single piezo pickup in the saddle (which is why it is considered an acoustic-electric and not simply an electric guitar). Owners claim that the pickup sounds great – through headphone amps, acoustic amps, and electric amps alike. In general, this is a great, affordable option if you’re looking for something exceptionally portable that still has the ability to deliver a big sound (and that still feels like a real guitar).

Yamaha SLG130NW Silent Guitar

The Yamaha SLG130NW Silent Guitar is unlike any other guitar on our list. First, it is not as compact – it includes a headstock, and from top to bottom it measures about the size of a standard classical guitar. Second, its fretboard is broad and flat, designed to mimic the feeling the a nylon-string instrument. Visually, it is striking – it has a slim body extending down from its neck and two curved arms (both of which are detachable) outlining the girth of its body. Where there seems like there should be substance, there is only empty space. Aesthetically, it is not at all unpleasing.

This guitar has the highest price tag on this list. But there is good reason for that. Yamaha is a great name, and with it comes a lot of quality. Also, this guitar, for being slightly larger than, for instance, the Ultra-Light, feels a little more substantial, like you’re really playing something. Its sound is impressive, and its neck is of high quality. Overall, this is a great option if you’re willing to spend a little more.

Best Travel Guitars Comparison Chart

What is a Travel Guitar?

Guitars are great, but they are rather bulky. Maybe we guitarists don’t have it as bad as upright bassists or tuba players, but we certainly have it harder than flautists, harmonica players, and vocalists. To make up for the fact that sometimes it is difficult to travel with a guitar, manufacturers have designed instruments that are smaller than standard guitars. They have all of the essential features, and most of them have full-size necks, but they are small enough to travel with easily, designed often times to fit in the overhead compartments of airplanes. These instruments are what we call “travel guitars,” and the guitars on our list represent the peak of innovation on the front lines of portability and functionality.

Tips on Choosing the Best Travel Guitar

There are a few decisions you have to make when you’re shopping for a travel guitar: whether you want an acoustic, electric, or acoustic-electric instrument; whether you want a guitar that is as small as possible or one that feels more like a standard guitar; and whether you want a miniature guitar or a guitar with a full-size neck and a small body.

Acoustic travel guitars cannot be plugged in. They produce their sounds acoustically. They tend to sound thin as compared to full-size acoustics, but they can still sound great. Electric travel guitars produce their sounds via magnetic pickups. Acoustic-electric guitars use piezo pickups, which sound much more like acoustic guitars then magnetic pickups do.

There are travel guitars, like the Traveler Ultra-Light, that are as small as can be, and for that reason they are more portable. But they tend to feel strange in your hands, and so there are other instruments, slightly larger, that feel more like full-size guitars.

Finally, there are miniature travel guitars and there are ones that have full-size necks. Miniatures, like the Baby Taylor, are basically just full-size guitars, except they are in every way smaller. Other travel guitars have full-size necks that are attached to bodies that are smaller, sometimes much smaller, than standard guitars.

Conclusion

Overall, travel guitars are great things – they are functional, inexpensive, and each one is idiosyncratic, different than all of the others. Some of them sound better than others, some of them feel better than others, some are more portable, some of more creatively designed, but each of them serves a purpose. Each of them is just what somebody is looking for. Which one is best for you is, in the end, up to you, but with a luck this guide has helped make the decision of buying the best travel guitar for your needs easier, even if only by focusing your attention on a few of the major players.

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