We’ve all felt stressed out while doing our last-minute holiday packing.
Here are eight tips for making things easier when packing to leave the concrete jungle and head to the coast.
- Don’t stack your clothes – store them rolled up:
A great way to save suitcase space and make sure your clothes don’t crease is to store them in tight rolls instead of stacking them on top of each other.
- Use vacuum bags:
Vacuum compression bags are invaluable for packing bulky objects such as jackets, children’s clothes, soft toys and bed linen. This method of packing will save you some serious space.
And when the time comes to pack for home, vacuum bags will prove handy again – for storing dirty laundry.
- Employ the ‘pyramid’ principle:
First, pack your shoes by arranging them along the suitcase walls. Next, pack large clothes such as pants and skirts. Don’t roll them up – lying spread out on the bottom of the suitcase, these clothes will serve as wrapping for the rest of your things. Now, roll up your non-creasing clothes – these will form the middle layer of your pyramid. After that, roll up and pack the lighter/easily creased items.
Finally, pack the highly creasable things as well as cosmetics, accessories, documents and small fragile objects, placing these at the top of the pyramid.
- Buy travel-size cosmetics:
All of us feel the temptation to pack our holiday suitcase with as many tubes and jars as possible. However, you’d be wise to resist this urge in favour of taking more useful things. While on holiday, try to make do with travel-size versions of your favourite cosmetic products.
- Pack small things the right way:
When it comes to packing small objects such as USB memory sticks, pocketbooks, hairpins, tights, socks, sunglasses and reading glasses, place them inside packed shoes, cosmetics boxes, document folders and suitcase pockets. As for your jewelry items, these you can store inside a pillbox.
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- Don’t pack more medicine than necessary:
There’s no point in trying to fit the entire contents of your medicine cabinet into your holiday suitcase. Adopt a more sensible approach by selecting only the most essential drugs. Don’t pack more than one pill sheet of each type of medicine – this will suffice to deal with any emergency.
- Don’t leave empty spaces:
When packing suitcases, don’t make the mistake of leaving room for souvenirs you might acquire during your holidays. This could cause your packed clothes to become seriously creased during the journey.
Instead, fill the empty spaces with small items of clothing or lumps of wrapping paper.
- Only take what’s really useful:
Things like notebook covers, camera cases, hairdryers and travel guides should remain at home. Wrapping your electronic gadgets in a soft beach wrap or a hoodie will give them adequate protection throughout the journey. Paper travel guides can easily be replaced with smartphone apps. As for sorting out the hairdryer issue – you can make do with the one provided at the hotel.
By following these easy-to-memorise packing tips, you’ll always stay in control of the situation and make the best use of even the smallest of suitcases.
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