Packing Tips : for People who Hate Packing

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Packing Tips :  for People who Hate Packing

Confession: I hate packing. I don’t really know anyone who actually enjoys it, but I really hate it. I don’t have anxiety, but packing makes me feel as close to really anxious as I get (oh, and public speaking). And because we travel a lot, I have to pack a lot. I have come up with some systems that help make the process easier for us, and we have tweaked them over time.

This is a general list of packing tips and things that make packing easier for us. I have more specific packing list tips, and tips for different types of trips (Disney, road trips, cruises) that I will write about at another time. These Packing Tips are the foundation for any good packing session.

1. Get a Packing App

Unless you are old school (hi mom!) and you want to use a pencil and paper, packing apps can be a great way to get organized. The one that I use for my iPad and iPhone is the Packing Pro app. It lets you organize your lists by person and by trip. I save my repeat trips (I’m talking about you Disney) on the app, and then I can remember what I brought. I like that I can check things off as I pack them too.

There are different categories (clothes, toiletries, medicines, gadgets, etc) that you can use to sort your list, and the app will also give you tons of ideas that you probably haven’t even thought of!

Packing Pro App from iTunes

 

2. Pack using Packing Cubes

We use Ebags Ebates (my link).

Some Packing Cube tips:

  • Get one color for each family member & pack each family member’s clothing in their bag color.
  • OR (for a shorter trip) pack each days’ worth of clothes in a different colored bag. Saturday is pink, Sunday is yellow, etc. That way you don’t have to rummage through your luggage. This is especially helpful if you are road tripping and/or staying in different places each night
  • When you get to the hotel, you can just put the bags into the drawers (they usually fit right perfectly)
  • Roll your clothing before packing it into the cubes. It fits better and gets less wrinkled.
  • For the kids’ clothes: in large ziploc bags, pack an outfit for each day. Make sure to add underwear and socks to the complete outfit. Press all of the air out of the bag as you seal it. These can be placed in the cubes for an extra layer of organization if you are “that” kind of a person (I am sometimes).
  • Put your dirty clothes back into the empty bags. It’s a great way to keep them separate from the clean ones.

 

3. Pack toiletries in a hanging organizer

I like to use a flat-fold, hanging organizer with zippered pockets to pack my toiletries and medicines. We have two of the shopping portal first to get 12% cash back (at the time of this writing).

4. Ziploc bags are your friend

I use ziplocs for many of my packing needs. They are cheap, reusable, and durable. For the kids’ outfits, I like to pack an entire outfit in a bag, press out the air and seal it tight. This makes it easy for the kids to just dress themselves by grabbing a bag and getting dressed (this was VERY helpful when they were younger). I then re-use the bags either for the next trip or for things like collecting sand on our beach vacations, storing wet bathing suits when repacking, etc.

5. Keep a travel binder

This is where I prefer to go old-school. Even with all of the travel apps and programs out there, I like to have paper copies of my reservations. I find it to be more convenient and it just alleviates some of my pre-trip anxiety. One of the things that I like most about the binder idea is that I then have it as a memory of the trip.  For example, when we went on our month-long National Parks road trip last summer, I made a binder with all of our different locations. Then, as I collected things like park maps and brochures, I could just put them into the “sleeve” in the binder and bring it home as a nice (and free) way to remember our trip.

 

What are your favorite packing tips?