Packing for a trip or holiday can be a daunting task. What to pack? How much to pack? What is actually essential to me? Let’s give you a one-stop shop for packing the perfect suitcase with our holiday packing tips and hacks.
Packing the Essentials – Holiday Packing Tips & Hacks
The essentials will depend on how long you are going away for. If you go away for seven days, all you need are three changes of clothes for the daytime and something nice to wear at night. Of course, your toiletries will be crucial and if you are travelling with hand luggage, you need to decant your favourite toiletries. If you take medication, use a pill organiser.
How to Maximise Space in Your Suitcase
Use Packing Cubes
Packing cubes help you pack more because you can compress a lot into the cubes and zip each compartment to seal, and also keep your clothes wrinkle-free.
Fold Your Clothes – The Right Way
The oldest trick in the book is to roll your clothing. Rolled clothing can be squeezed into smaller spaces, but depending on the clothes you have, you may want to combine folding clothes into a rectangle the size of a packing cube and then roll it up.
Store Socks in Your Shoes
When you’re packing the essentials like socks, bras, and underwear, socks go in the shoes or anywhere that fits. Because they’re so small, you can put them into random corners. Line up all the bras on top of each other with the cups lined up and fold the bras in half down the middle, which also means you can store some socks between the cups.
Pack Travel-Size Items
There is no point in bringing full-size toiletry bottles as you need to decant your toiletries, but you should also opt for travel versions of your hair brush and towels.
Holiday Packing Tip – Pick Multi-Purpose Items
Choosing items that serve multiple purposes will help you cut back on the things you need to bring. Multi-purpose items such as rain jackets and sarongs are great clothes options that double up, but even something like coconut oil can have many uses including sunburn relief, acting as a moisturiser, or even as shaving cream!
What Not To Pack in Your Suitcase
If you are flying, you need to keep things in your hang luggage rather than in your suitcase just in case they get lost in transit, including:
- Medicine. Medicine needs to stay in your hand luggage.
- Cash or credit cards. Suitcases can be hand-inspected, so keep cash and credit cards on you. This also includes your important documents, such as your ID and passport.
- International travel adapter. You are going to need to charge your phone, and travel adapters are very bulky to pack, but you can benefit from travel adapters that reduce the weight of your luggage. TOP HACK – You can even pack one travel adapter plug and an extension lead so you only need one plug to plug in multiple items from home!
Finally: Write a list!
These are all things that we recommend you should and should not take, but you have to decide what is important and what isn’t. The best piece of advice is to write out a list and then take a third of that off! Only then do you have the bare essentials for your holiday! How did you find our Holiday Packing Tips? Let us know in the comments 
