Packing: It Gets Easier with Practice

When I first started traveling alone with the kids, I would start the planning and lists a week in advance. I’d start packing days before the trip…..partly from excitement and partly from nervousness. I’d obsessively print out itineraries, contact numbers, reservations and more.

Over the years, the packing and preparation process has gotten much quicker, simpler and more relaxed. If it hadn’t, it would be almost impossible for us to take the back-to-back trips that we manage to take nowadays. The kids and I have our packing down to a science.

Two days before a trip, we get the laundry done and charge up the DSes and Kindle. The day of a trip, we pack clothes, toiletries, electronics and chargers, books and “food”.

For an airplane trip, toiletries go in plastic bags in the front pocket of our rolling suitcases. Empty water bottles, granola bars and apples go in backpacks. Despite our conviction to not check and only use our “international sized” suitcases, a swimsuit and a change of underwear go in the bottom of the backpack, just in case.

For a roadtrip, the cooler gets packed with snacks, water bottles, plastic utensils and sometimes even plastic plates. More books and homeschooling come with us in the car than we would take with us on a plane trip. Generally a book on CD, our XM receiver and a pile of new music CDs come in the car.

Other things I tend to make sure get packed: coffee, filters, dish towels, ziptop bags, museum membership cards and metro cards, soft frisbee, cards, and an inflatable ball.

It isn’t perfect; we always manage to forget at least one thing.

This latest trip? Chloe forgot her PJs and Camille forgot her booklight.