SOCIAL MEDIA

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Let's Look... Inside My Suitcase

Good morning! Today I am linking up for Let's Look and the theme is "Inside My Suitcase". This could not have come at a better time because we are currently on our first trip of the summer to Colorado. It was so easy to just snap some pictures as I packed!
But before we get started on that I wanted to remind you that I started a new link up called "Weekend Highlights" for all of you to share any posts about what's been going on with you lately. To read our most recent highlights and join the link up, click here!


Devin and I are lucky to travel often so we pretty much have packing down to an art. I have posted about how/what I pack in other posts you can read here:

Not only do we travel a lot for fun, but about 60% of Devin's job is to travel internationally for work. Meaning he is gone A LOT. Meaning he has to pack suitcases A LOT. Because of this, we have learned several tips and tricks over the years... the most important ones being:

Compartmentalize!
 We love to organize things into separate containers for packing because it makes unpacking/finding things when you need them a breeze. 
 I always, always, ALWAYS keep my shampoo, conditioner, face wash, etc. in a gallon size ziplock bag. One time on a family trip to Europe in college I did NOT pack these items in a ziplock and my shampoo busted open. The shampoo got ALL OVER my clothes/shoes/everything and ruined some of it. Luckily most of my clothes were okay and I just had to send them to the hotel laundry service (which isn't cheap!) but some of my shoes were ruined. You live and you learn, right? NEVER AGAIN will I travel with shampoo without bagging it (I've been known to double bag too).
 Over the years I have received several of these monogrammed bags for Chrsitmas/birthday/teacher gifts and these make for a great place to hold all my smaller toiletries. I put my toothbrush, glasses, contacts, etc. in the blue one and since the green one has a plastic liner inside I put other small liquids (contact solution, face lotion, etc.). I have one for my makeup too. This makes it super easy to unpack. If I don't feel like it, I don't have to take this stuff out of these bags when we get to our destination. 
 These space saver bags have come in handy SO MANY TIMES when we've been traveling! We try really hard when traveling to Europe (and some other destinations) not to check a bag. We've had it happen before where luggage has been lost, or your hotel doesn't have elevators, or we're using public transportation and bringing a GIANT suitcase is a pain in the neck. These space saver bags help us to pack a ton of stuff into much smaller carry on bags. (In this case we are in Colorado for almost two weeks and I packed my stuff AND Lily Grace's, so I needed the bigger bag). It is important to buy the ones that don't use a vacuum to suck the air out.. because how often do you have a vacuum readily available when traveling?
 Another thing we love are these packing cubes. These are great for keeping our clothes organized. We like to put one outfit for everyone in the family in at least one cube and put it in each bag just in case a bag gets lost. Then we at least all have one clean outfit to wear until we can make other arrangements. These make it so easy to fit everything into the suitcase with ease and it not look like an unorganized mess.

I also love to use these smaller bags to hold other important items (FYI-- these make great teacher gifts too!). We use one to pack snacks for our carry-on. This way when Lily Grace (or another family member) is hungry, we just pull out the bag and have all our snacks readily available. MUCH easier than digging through our bags for that missing bag of Goldfish crackers. I use one to hold all my jewelry for traveling. We use one to hold our chargers/small electronic devices. I pop this in my "personal item" in case we need to charge a phone/kindle/ipad at the airport or on the plane. And then I use one for a random hodgepodge of stuff (chapstick, eyedrops, etc.). This makes it SO much easier on the plane to reach in, grab whichever bag I need, and then have everything available. I obviously don't bring the jewelry one in my personal item FYI. I can't remember ever having a "jewelry emergency" while on an airplane and figure it's better off in our suitcases. 

If we aren't staying at a hotel I always try to bring one giant plastic trash bag to hold our dirty laundry. I get really grossed out when my dirty clothes touch my clean ones so I like to have somewhere to put the dirty laundry before we get a chance to wash it. 

Our last tip is that we always roll a small duffel bag up and stick it in one of the outside pockets of our suitcases. This has come in handy SEVERAL times where we ran out of room to bring back souvenirs. We just unroll the bag, stuff some of our clothes (usually whatever is dirty) into the duffel and have plenty of room for our new items. 

Those are our travel tips and tricks! If you have any other ideas/suggestions, please leave a comment below!!

Follow along with us on this trip on Instagram!

5 comments :

  1. Those space saver bags sound like such a good idea, thanks for sharing!

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  2. Packing cubes for the win! Seriously what did we do before those? :)

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