Maximize your Vacation by Packing Smarter

I consider myself lucky to have travelled a lot for my career to a lot of beautiful locations. But one thing I haven’t done much is to travel for vacation. I used to joke with friends who told me about their trips: “Vay – what – shun? Nope. Sorry. Never heard of it.” 

But recently my family stopped being jealous of the kind of people who vacation in Hawaii. Now we are the kind of people who vacation in Hawaii.

And since I now have a 5 year old in tow, I had to re-examine my old methods of packing.

Here’s what always (sorta) worked for me before:

1. Make piles of neatly folded clothes – OK, I’ll admit that I don’t do “neat” when it comes to folding. In the words of my professional organizer, “Some people are just not folders.” (The implication being that I’m included in that number.) 
2. Put similar items near other similar items in the suitcase. 
3. Place all toiletries in one large bag and shoes in another.
4. Zip and go. 
5. Upon arrival, open said suitcase and find that all items have shifted into different places and all categories have mixed together. 
6. Throw every item out of the suitcase and onto the bed to find the one thing you really want to wear.
7. Scoop all items off the bed and mound them into the open suitcase.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 every time you dress for the rest of the trip.

At some point it occurred to me that there might be an even better system than this.

So I started looking around and discovered packing cubes. 

Packing cubes are brilliant. 

Here are the advantages:

1. You don’t have to be a great folder. With a separate cube for each category of clothing (I reserved the largest one for swimwear!) it doesn’t matter if it’s neatly folded or not. You can still find what you need.
2. They have mesh fronts so you can see what you packed and you don’t have to remember what is in which cube. (Now where did I put my glasses again? Oh yeah, they’re right here on my face…)
3. They have little handles so you can carry them with you to the bathroom when you are changing.
4. They have double zippers so it’s easy to get things in and out.
5. They are soft and compress easily when you need to cram things in. By the end of the trip, I had added 5 new stuffies of varying sizes, a monster truck and a life-sized Storm Trooper mask to my suitcase. (Some of those were even for my son…)
6. When you reach the point when your suitcase won’t zip, instead of rearranging everything, you just shift a couple of cubes around.

On this trip, we stayed in 6 different places over 15 days. That’s a lot of transitions. I was amazed at how much more I enjoyed my vacation because I could find things easily, change quickly and pack and move nimbly. 

I bought two sets of these fabulous cubes: https://amzn.to/42Yuk1w

The bonus pouches included with the cubes aren’t clear. So I bought a set of these mesh pouches https://amzn.to/3PAIZNu for all of the smaller items that might get lost in my suitcase: charger cords, hairbrushes, etc. 

I also bought a hanging toiletry bag with multiple pockets and slots for makeup brushes: https://amzn.to/3XsNtYd 

I put my cosmetics in the flip-out sides and organized my travel toiletries in the internal pockets. I now use it at home. I just open the sides when I do my makeup in the morning and I leave the rest of it packed for the next trip.

This trip, I spent less time fooling around with my suitcase and more time in the ocean feeling silky sand between my toes. So I have officially become a cubist. And I can’t wait to travel again with my new gear!

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