Aaron and I have a very quick trip planned later this week, so I am sharing my packing process and tips. My process doesn’t change much for long trips, I just start it earlier. There is nothing that starts a vacation off worse than rushing around the morning you leave in a mad dash to make sure everything is packed and you aren’t late for your flight, so my goal with this process is to avoid that as much as possible.
I usually start my packing process a week before we actually leave. I start the process by making a list of everything I want to take with me. I keep the notepad (or phone list) easy to reach at all times so I can add to it every time I think of something.
I also make a list of the things I need to do before we leave. This list includes things like skip Home Chef for a week, order cat food if we are running low, anything that I need to do before we walk out the door.
I cross things off this list as I do them leading up to our trip, and depending on how long the list is, I may re-write it once I have most of if crossed off.
The next thing I do (usually on the weekend before we leave) is start to pull out the clothes I want to pack. I hate having to do last minute laundry the night before we leave because something I really want to take is dirty.
I don’t cross anything off my packing list at this point, I just set the clothes aside so I don’t wear them leading up to our trip.
One to two days before we leave I should have everything set aside and I can start to pack it away. If you don’t use packing cubes, you are making your life harder. You can buy a bunch of them on Amazon. I got the ones I’m using for this trip in a FabFitFun box.
The trip I’m packing for is short, so I’m only using the smallest two packing cubes. I put all my undergarments in the smallest one, and all my clothes in the middle size cube.
The cubes fit nicely inside my carry on and I know where everything is. As I place my items in the cubes I check them off my list.
There are a lot of things you can’t pack until the morning of your trip, and there isn’t much you can do about that. Thinks like my toothbrush, my contacts/glasses and my makeup will have to wait. I do pack anything I can put into travel containers though so I don’t have to worry about it later.
I have my face cleanser and my night cream in smaller containers and ready to go in the front of my carry on. I will add liquids to this bag as I use them the morning of our trip. I did add some extra hand sanitizer after this photo.
This is what I put my non-liquid makeup, accessories, and hair things in. I leave this out right next to where I get ready so as I use a product I can pack it up. The night before we leave I will put hair ties, accessories, and anything else I don’t need the next morning in this to make it easier.
I work on my list of things to do each day as we get closer. My goal is to always have everything checked off a day or two before so I don’t have to worry about it any more. The last thing I have on my current list is reserve an Uber, and I will do that later today.
The main goal for me is to do as much as possible a few days before we leave so we aren’t running around the morning of a trip. I hate leaving for vacation stressed out.
If you have any tips for packing for short trips I would love to hear them!