Best Jigsaw Puzzle Gifts for Adults

A jigsaw puzzle makes a brilliant gift for anyone – including adults. But the hardest bit is picking the right one, with a huge amount of choice available. And it’s not as simple as just picking a picture you think they’ll like. 

Choosing the right puzzle gift comes down to three key decisions: theme, difficulty and piece count. And, to make it even more complicated, each one of those elements impacts on the others. 

But don’t worry. We’re here to explain the finer details of choosing the right puzzle gift for your adult friends and family. And since we’ve been around since 1883, and making jigsaw puzzles for all ages since 1964, we know a thing or two about puzzles. 

Adult lives are busy. Between work, looking after kids if you have them and keeping up with the endless buzzing notifications on our phones, we never seem to have the time to switch off and disconnect for a while. 

Completing a puzzle means you have to carve out some genuine quiet time in your busy schedule. Turn off the TV, put the phone on silent mode and just focus on the task in front of you. 

Puzzling is a great activity to complete on your own, or to share with a partner or housemates. You can work on it for hours at a time, or just complete a piece here and there. 

Gifting someone a puzzle isn’t just giving them a box full of precision-cut pieces. It’s giving them some mindful space in their life.

There are three main things to consider when you’re buying a puzzle as a gift for an adult: piece count, difficulty and theme. And, because each one affects the others, you’ll need to understand them all to make the right call. Let’s have a look at what you need to think about. 

For children's puzzles, or if you’re buying a puzzle for a senior, piece count can be a useful guide to difficulty. Because of course more pieces means a more difficult puzzle, right? 

Well, yes it does. But it’s not that simple. Most adults should be perfectly capable of completing a puzzle with almost any number of pieces. So why does it matter how many pieces a puzzle has? 

There are two key factors here. First is the commitment level. A puzzle with thousands of pieces will take a lot longer to complete than one with a few hundred pieces. Will the adult you’re buying for have lots of time to spend on the puzzle, or will they want to complete it sooner and move on? 

Then there’s space. Puzzles with more pieces are often much bigger. That means they need keeping out until they’re complete, and if cats or children are involved this can cause problems. 

300 piece puzzle gifts for adults

300 pieces is about the baseline for a puzzle that will be fun for an adult. Much fewer and it’ll be too easy. Most beginners should complete a 300 piece puzzle in an evening or two. 

500 piece puzzle gifts for adults

500 pieces is a nice step up from 300, and is probably the sweet spot for most adult puzzlers. A 500 piece puzzle won’t take up too much space, but it’ll be complex enough to pose a bit of a challenge and feel satisfying when it’s done. 

1,000 piece puzzle gifts for adults

A 1,000 piece puzzle is a proper project for most people. It’s perfect for someone who has a bit of experience with puzzles and plenty of time to spend on them. 

1,500 piece puzzle gifts for adults

If you’re buying a gift for an experienced puzzle fan, a 1,500 piece puzzle should given even them a good challenge. It’ll look spectacular when it’s done, and might even be the kind of thing they want to frame to show off.

We mentioned above that piece count isn’t everything for judging difficulty – so what is? Well, there are a few things that will make a puzzle more challenging. It’s worth bearing these in mind when you’re choosing – while a super difficult puzzle might be the perfect gift for a seasoned adult puzzler, it might put off a beginner. 

Signs a puzzle will be tricky

There are a few things to look out for that can make a puzzle difficult. Big areas of similar colours is a good one – they mean lots of very similar looking pieces, that can take a long time and a lot of experimentation to sort and fit together. The same applies to repeating patterns or textures. Look out for big areas of things like sky, water or grass, and any repeating patterns. 

Lack of contrast is another thing to look out for. If the definition between sections of images is a bit blurry, it can be hard to see where one part ends and the next one begins. 

It’s also worth considering the quality of the materials used. Some cheaper puzzles use low-quality, reflective printing that can be hard to see under certain lighting conditions. Of course this isn’t a problem with Ravensburger – every one of our puzzles is of the same great quality – but it’s something to bear in mind. 

Things that make a puzzle easier

You’ve probably already guessed that the things that make a puzzle easier are pretty much the opposite of what makes it trickier. But there are still a few specific things to look out for. 

You might look at a busy, complicated puzzle design and think it’s going to be really tricky. But actually these can often be the easiest. There’s lots of detail to work out where things go, and no big empty areas to spend ages trying to figure out. 

Something with lots of different colours will be simpler, too. It means you can sort all the pieces by colour and treat it almost like a few little puzzles, before slotting it all together. 

So all there is left is to choose a theme that suits the adult you’re gifting the puzzle to. That should be simple, right? Well, yes and no. 

Because Ravensburger makes such a huge range of jigsaw puzzles, there’s a great chance you’ll be able to find something to suit them, from spectacular landscapes and quaint interiors to abstract artworks and famous licenses.

But you need to bear in mind piece count and difficulty, too. 

Piece count is easy to take care of – our website lets you filter by number of pieces, so you’ll only see the puzzles you want. 

Difficulty is a bit trickier. When you’re choosing, make sure you have a really close look at the design of the puzzles you like best. If you’re buying for a landscape fan, but you know they don’t have the patience for a really tricky puzzle, maybe don’t pick a beautiful seascape that’s all water and sky with no other features. 

But what happens when you need to buy a gift for a seasoned adult puzzle fan? The kind of person who has stacks of boxes on their ‘to be puzzled’ pile? You just know another jigsaw puzzle will sit on that stack for months if not years, and who wants that from their carefully chosen gift? 

You have a few options. 

Puzzle accessories

You don’t need lots of puzzle accessories to enjoy puzzling. You can pop a puzzle on the kitchen table, and you’re away. But for seasoned puzzlers there are a few little things that can really make the experience that much better - and the best thing is, not every puzzler knows about them. 

You could get them a puzzle stand to help them be more comfortable when they’re puzzling, or a puzzle roll so they can pack it up safely when they’re not puzzling. How about sorting trays for all those pieces, or a store and go to help keep puzzles safe and out of the way? 

You could even get them some puzzle glue to help them frame their favourite puzzles. 

Personalised puzzles

Or, if you think they’re the kind of person who already has all the accessories they need, how about their very own personalised puzzle gift? You can choose an image you know will be special to them, and give them something with much more meaning than any pre-made puzzle.