February 15 - Packing Strategy

Over the weekend I did a mad dash of next-to-last-minute store runs, a bunch of house cleaning, and buckets of laundry to prepare for the coming week. Once my vacation clothes were cleaned, dried, and lined up, I began to pack for real.

And I must say... Space Saver bags are absolutely and without a doubt worth the money. Although if anyone inspects our carry-ons I'm afraid they'll think we're trying to smuggle freeze dried clothes out of the country, as the air-less sealed packets resemble MRE's more than they do packed clothing. Appearance aside, we can not only fit far more stuff in our suitcases, but our clothing is well protected from moisture and dirt while traveling as well.

We used these last year and I was impressed with their durability, however you don't want to ever pack anything wet inside the bags... as the moisture gets into the chamber and renders the magic "air can get out, but can't get in" feature useless. The bags that we managed to keep dry, however, have lasted a full year and are being put to good use again.

I recommend packing a few extra bags as well - because the tetris configuration of the suitcases is never the same coming home as it is going out, is it? A couple extra empty bags take up no space, and are handy for when you find yourself unable to squeeze those last few souvenir t-shirts in.

Another packing strategy I learned from my parents... pack some of your stuff in a smaller suitcase, then put that inside a larger suitcase for the way out of town. When you arrive at your destination, you now have an extra suitcase to haul all your stuff back. Nowadays that requires you to pay a fee for checking an additional bag, but in the end it's more convenient than trying to find a post office and ship your belongings back to yourself in the last stretch of your vacation.

And finally... luggage tags. Buy the brightest, most annoying colored luggage tags for your checked bags. Gone are the days of us standing in baggage claim, trying to determine if that black suitcase roughly the size of ours is the right hint of faded black/army green or not. Now I look for the neon luggage tags and I can yank my suitcase off the revolving belt with confidence. Honestly, as much as I avoid pink in my wardrobe... if I could talk D into a bright pink suitcase with yellow polka-dots, I'd totally buy one.

February 9 - Preparing

As the clock ticks down to T (travel) - Day I find my mind buzzing in 20 different directions at once. Bright pink post-it notes are the ticket to my sanity as I use them to jot down random thoughts that come to mind that I just can't trust I'll remember later. Even though they seem so basic.
Remember passports.
Print out flight information.
Pack snacks for plane.

All these things pretty well fall under the category of "DUH" for me, yet I write them down anyway. Through all of our trips - spontaneous and pre-planned - I've discovered it puts my mind at ease if I can absolutely verify something has been done by physically writing a check-mark next to it on the list. The killer thing for me is having to wait until the day of travel to check most things off the list... because so many things cannot be done until the last 24 hours before we leave.

But there are at least some things we can do prior to that day to make the last bit of packing up run smoother. The list is the first and most obvious for me. Have my completed list sitting out, waiting for me to run down and check things off. Then there is the gathering of supplies/items that we can start to put aside in one spot, so that we aren't searching the house over in the last hours of T-Day.

That is one of the benefits of traveling from a cold winter climate to a tropical one for vacation - I'll not be touching my bathing suits or sunblock anytime soon, so I might as well gather that stuff up in my suitcase. As we paw through our summertime supplies, too, we can take stock of what we have and stock up on what we need.

This year some new additions to are travel supply arsenal - a large rolling duffel bag, and a couple of adjustable travel pillows.

We decided that our 16 year old oversized soft sided suitcase was just too inflexible for our needs, and a royal pain in the ass to haul anyway. After researching (read: beating up in the store) some of the hard sided options, we went with the large rolling duffel instead. It'll store better in between trips, it's long enough to carry the snorkel gear with ease, and as we've already opted to buy shipping containers for the bottles of rum we'll bring back, we don't necessarily need the added "protection" of a hard shell suitcase.

The travel pillows were not something I thought we'd need until we flew last year. It seems the airlines have really cut back on every amenity they can, including those wee little airline pillows and blankets they used to provide. Granted my own pillow will be a lot more comfortable anyway, but up until now it was nice to have that one less thing to haul around. The pillows we picked up have a convenient clip on the, though, so at least we can stick it to the outside of the carry-on, instead of having to waste space shoving a pillow in the bag.

So my list is building, my suitcase lays open on the floor with clothing and games dropped haphazardly over the top, and the countdown continues.