Packing is such a hassle sometimes. Here are a few tips I've learned to minimize the headache to a slight annoyance instead.
I must admit – I hate to pack and found that in the past I avoided it until the very last possible moment, which just added stress to my travel before it even started. With every trip thought, I came to realize that I was just packing the same items, so it shouldn’t have been such an issue. But yet it still was!
Suddenly, a light bulb went off in head. If I just kept a standing order (master) packing list to reuse for every trip, that would simplify the packing nightmare to a slight annoyance instead of the headache it always seemed to be.
I initially hand-drafted a master list that included everything I usually pack on each trip and then just made a bunch of copies for later trips. Now that I had a standard list, each time I traveled, I would bring out that list and cross off items as I packed them and then highlighted those I couldn’t pack until the last minute. I made sure that I had a clean copy before each trip and would repeat the process whenever I sat down to pack for a new trip.
I keep telling myself I will take the time to input the list in a document – guess by seeing the picture above it will have to wait until the next trip – wink, wink.
I obviously try to pack things that won’t wrinkle easily. But when I do need to pack an easily- wrinkly item, I find it helpful to use dry cleaning bags in between each item to keep the wrinkles to an unexpected minimum.
When packing heavy non-clothing items, I place them on the bottom of the suitcase so they don’t crunch the clothes on top and make them wrinkly.
Pants are then layered with a dry cleaning bag in between because I’ve found my pants to be the next heaviest item. Here's how I layer them.
Shorter items like jackets and tops come next and are layered in the suitcase in the opposite direction. The goal is to minimize the folds so that you don’t have a bunch of awkward crease lines on your clothes.
Finally each layer is inter-mixed allowing a bag in between each item to, once again, cut down on wrinkles (if you can’t tell, my clothes wrinkle easily).
Hope these tips help for less stressful packing! More to follow ….
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