Lists galore, it must be the teacher in me.

I love to travel, but right before any trip I get pretty stressed out, and I am not one of those people who works best under pressure either. What I’ve learned to do is to start packing – or at least make piles of things to pack – a week ahead of time.

• Start pulling together the things on your list that you won’t need before the trip. This helps you to see what you have and what you will need, and gives you plenty of time to get to a store and pick them up before you leave.  
• Also, pull out the clothes that you plan on taking, so you don’t accidentally wear them and have to do a load of laundry at the last minute.
• Make separate lists, and piles, for each person on the trip. When I’m pulling together items, I keep each person’s things together in a pile and top it with their individual packing list – checking things off as I add them to the pile (see the bottom of the article for a link to my packing list).

•  If you’re flying – To maximize space, and therefore pay less for checked bags, roll your clothes instead of stacking them flat. I don’t know why this works, but it does. You can also pack clothes into plastic bags; press all the air out right before you close the bag and the clothes will be quite compact, but they will be extra wrinkly. Also (although it totally goes against my organized obsessiveness), I recommend splitting up each person’s clothes pile if you are taking more than one suitcase; this is so if the airline loses one piece of your luggage, then at least you will have some clothes to get you through in the other suitcase.

Liam loves having his own suitcase.

• If you’re driving – Since you may be less worried about space or losing luggage, you can do what my sister-in-law taught me and put each person’s pile of clothes into a pillowcase before she puts it in the suitcase. This keeps everything together and makes it easy to pull out and put in a hotel room drawer. Or, you can go bigger than that and allow each person to have their own piece of luggage. You can use smaller, lighter suitcases that way, and you’ll know exactly where to find what you are looking for.

Little travel tip I picked up from Pinterest.

3) A “lesson learned” tip for packing – if it’s at all liquidy, seal it up in a plastic bag; or unscrew the top and put a piece of plastic wrap over the opening before screwing the lid back on. Even if it’s already in your toiletries case it can still leak out all over your clothes – and that’s a bummer. 
4) If you are taking food with you (another budget-saving tip) pack up a shoe box with the items you don’t want squished, like bread and fruit, to put in your suitcase. 
5) Take a couple of large trash bags, for your dirty clothes. They take up hardly any space in your suitcase, then when you get to your hotel leave it in the closet or a corner and after you wear something roll it up and throw it in. When you’re packing up to leave again, the dirty stuff is basically all packed and ready to go, and easy to dump in the washing machine when you get home. Bonus – if you are flying, you can line your suitcase with them and they will protect the contents if your luggage goes through rain or snow.

Lina wants to come too.

If you would like a copy of my packing list click here; save it as a Word doc on your own computer to tweak it for your needs – and print! Several of the items on my list are from Chapter 1 of the Babes In Disneyland book. For more tips on what to pack, see Lisa’s recommendations here, here, here, and here.