Authors: Rob Laing, published by Daryl Robertson on June 24, 21

The 9 best travel guitar choices for musicians on the go

The guitarist is lucky-we have played an instrument that can be carried and played with us. But the best travel guitars enhance and complete this concept to provide ultimate portability. Whether you want to take your guitar with you on vacation, work trips, or a smaller guitar at home, here are some high-quality options. We chose the best guitars, they are a wide range of guitars-from full-size electric guitars to ¾-size acoustic electric guitars.

There are good reasons for this diversity; travel guitars need to be portable, but how it achieves this depends on many factors. We have taken them all into consideration when choosing the best travel guitars you can buy right now.

More than ten years after the design was launched, Taylor GS Mini-e Koa is still the benchmark for travel guitars. Now includes Taylor Expression System with onboard tuner. It is an excellent guitar suitable for home, away, performance, recording, song creation...it can easily become your favorite guitar.

Yamaha CSF3M is rare. A travel audio with a sturdy back panel and side panels, at a very competitive price. Like the GS Mini, it sounds much larger than its smaller scale implies, and combined with a comfortable and spacious neck experience, it is another travel guitar that is very suitable for various players and needs.

Although Yamaha has not explicitly marketed its CSF series as "traveling guitars," they have created a first-class example with this short-scale folk electroacoustic. The combination of solid wood and 105 mm body depth makes it stand out from many competitors.

We discovered a wealth of tonal characteristics and impressive projections. The 16-inch radius neck feels spacious and suitable for fingerstyle and chord playing. Yamaha passive piezoelectric pickups do not have a built-in preamplifier, but what is impressive is the advantage of CSF3M.

The complete package is Yamaha's hard bag, which can provide a reassuring protective cover for the guitar, whether at home or on the road, it can provide you with many years of inspiration.

Ed Sheeran's favorite-even though he recently moved to Lowden-Martin LX1E is a small product from Martins that provides the excellent build quality and high-quality amplified sound you expect from an acoustic giant. 

This guitar is made of solid Sitka spruce panels and high-pressure laminate back and sides, and a composite neck. It may not have the elegant appearance of D-28 or HD-35, but it is very sturdy and almost indestructible. This powerful little guitar can undoubtedly cope with any harsh conditions. 

Read our full Martin LX1E Little Martin review

Taylor's GS Mini was a leader when it was launched in 2010, and it is still the superb design of the company's design wizard Andy Powers. This is a benchmark example of a guitar, which has a fuller sound than its size-thanks to the slight arching of its back. 

It turns out that the spruce and mahogany choices are very popular, and Koa stands out with its eye-catching visual influence. The solid top, layered back and sides, sapele neck and ebony fingerboard provide a rich tonal formula. Using Taylor's Expression System preamplifier system (including a convenient tuner) and high-quality gigbag, it completes an excellent package for one of the company's most valuable models. Left-handed models are also available-yes! 

Silent Guitar is an unusual proposal, it has a detachable folding frame. It can also be plugged in to amplify or plug in through headphones-it makes very little sound by itself. This is good for quiet practice, but Silent Guitar's SRT and pickup mixing system can also produce surprisingly organic tones on-site through a PA or acoustic combination to simulate a real acoustic microphone. 

If they can accept its unconventional appearance, its low motion, 43 mm nut width and slim neck will suit electronic players. The onboard chorus and reverb further enhance the usability of the SLG200S as a travel companion. 

Hei Xing made a guitar! ? Yes, the Guitar Amplifier Company has developed a small electric guitar in cooperation with other British Gordon Smith Guitars; the 20.7-inch scale with the size of the Ukulele is undoubtedly compact, but it turns out to be very good with the full-size neck Comfortable.

It is a one-piece body and neck design, which helps to resonate. We really like the tortoiseshell-like plastic binding and the matte neck, sides and back for the comfort of playing. It’s also great to see the coil separation on the humbucker pickup through the amplifier to achieve tonal versatility-you can even take it with you and buy it with Blackstar's Fly3 mini amplifier.  

Read the full Blackstar Carry-On Deluxe Pack review 

Another collaboration between two successful guitar brands, Traveler has a reputation for traveling electric guitars. With its EC series, ESP has created some of the most suitable guitars for heavy rock and metal; LTD EC-1 is a combination of these skills.

The full-size single-pole model debuted in 2016 and is now available in retro black with gold hardware-the traveler-designed business card is reduced by placing a locking tuner in the body design to reduce the overall length. The pickup here is an active two-channel pickup designed by ESP, so it is very suitable for using the built-in headphone amplifier to obtain higher gain tones and reduce the main sound work. It even has a chamfered surface, which provides higher access to the tone. 

This is Yamaha's third entry in this list, but we think it needs to be included. Yamaha took their popular APX and scaled it down to create APXT2. This 3/4 size speaker is one of the smallest speakers on this list, measuring only 34 inches, which is perfect for most travel situations. 

The APXT2's onboard pickup is surprisingly good, providing a tone that is far greater than that when it is unplugged. The preamplifier also comes with a convenient built-in tuner, which means you don’t need to carry any additional equipment. The satin finish not only looks great, but also very smooth to play. In fact, the whole neck is very familiar. If you have played Yamaha guitar before, then you will understand how it feels. It also has a series of different colors, just like its big brother APX500. Therefore, if you are a fan of the APX series or are looking for a unique traveling guitar, it is worth a try. 

The street price is less than $450, and the price performance here makes Little CJ stand out among the big brands. Although some higher-priced games offer lower prices, valuable features such as friendly playability and precise 18:1 ratio tuners do make a difference.

The V-shaped neck profile is very suitable for providing comfort in a short range, and the Fishman Presys II is a bit higher than the company’s Sonitone system that we often see on electroacoustic guitars under $500, making this guitar It sounds like a larger model. In addition to bass, treble and phase control, the onboard tuner also greatly increases the sweetness. 

Read the full Cort Little CJ Walnut OPH review

No matter what you think of Ed Sheeran's music, he has great taste in the music of the luthier. George Lowden actually designed the Wee Lowden travel-size guitar for songwriters, and their friendship developed into a complete guitar series in 2019.

S03 was updated in 2021-"S" stands for small body. The latest 24.8-inch scale model uses solid cedar panels, but this time uses mahogany and mahogany layers on the back and sides. The impressive full sound matches the quality of the LR Baggs VTC system used for insertion, and with a cut corner design, this is one of the best travel-grade speakers for live performances. 

Read the full Sheeran By Lowden SO3 review 

The portability of travel guitars may be due to a smaller body, lighter weight, and shorter scale (this is the distance from the guitar pillow to the pillow), but the guitar is still very suitable for carrying and has a full scale. 

Having said that, acoustic travel guitars tend to have shorter scales and smaller bodies for easy portability, but they will still be tuned and played like ordinary guitars. In fact, the best travel guitars we have selected in this guide are all outstanding for their playability and timbre, so they don’t require much habituation. 

Electric travel guitars can usually be plugged into guitar amplifiers and PAs, but some have their own built-in amplifiers that can be used with headphones, making them an all-in-one practice tool. 

Of course, many acoustic travel guitars include built-in pickups and preamplifiers to achieve this. Ed Sheeran is one of the most famous living guitarists on the planet, using small travel guitars on stage and in the studio. He likes them very much, and now he even has his own series.

If you wish, even traveling electric guitars designed for earphone practice can be used with amplifiers, so they may be a great choice for traveling to improvise or improvise. 

All travel guitars are portable, all guitars are fun; but they all perform well in different ways. For example, some are more suitable for playing, while others are more suitable for practicing with headphones. Therefore, please consider your needs for travel guitars; do you want an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar? Do you want to use it for recording? The best news is that no matter what you need, we have provided you with the right travel guitar in this guide. 

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