How to Pack for a Family Vacation
By 
Being able to pack efficiently and successfully’taking only what you need with nothing left behind’is a very useful skill. Vacations are not daily life’so we don’t need to bring all our everyday life items with us.
Many airlines are now charging extra fees to have luggage checked, so for cost effective purposes, plan carefully. If you do, you may be able to fit a week’s worth of warm-weather vacation clothes and essentials into a carry-on suitcase.
When it comes to packing your bags, a light touch is what you need. Use your weather app before your trip to get a better sense of what to expect.
Plan
- Lay out your clothes ahead of time; select carefully.
- Stick with one or two colours that coordinate and are versatile.
- Layer the outfits, so you can peel off and on according to the temperatures.
- Choose clothing you can wear on more than one occasion.
Pack
- Roll clothing items to save space and provide greater visibility if you are going to be living out of the suitcase for a while.
- Use space-saving bags, packing cubes or transparent kitchen-storage bags. These are useful if you are going to be making several stops, because it keeps like items together and eliminates random packing.
- Leave space in your suitcase if you think you are going to shop.
- Pack shoes last, soles up. Fill them with small crushable items such as hosiery or socks.
Loss or Theft
- Be prepared for lost luggage: carry a change of clothing and must-have medications, and possibly jewelry on the airplane with you.
- Buy luggage that’if lost’is easy to describe or identify.
- Consider a second copy of passports, important ID and credit cards in luggage or on your smart phone as back up.
- Once you’ve selected the items to pack, take photos of them. To make an insurance claim, you may need to remember everything that was in the lost suitcase. The photos may be useful for the next trip as well in planning what you took.
