rechelle's lifelyrics

In preparation for our recent epic adventure, celebrating 35 years of marriage, I started thinking about sharing some of my habits that have made getting ready much more manageable while living a busy life leading up to a big trip. Hopefully, you can adopt a few of these tips into your life so that your next adventure won’t be so stressful in the “getting ready” phase! At some point, I started seeking for ways to make things more streamlined, and easier to pick up and go in preparation for a big trip, because I had way too many experiences of being so exhausted just getting ready for the trip. I would end up feeling like it wasn’t worth the effort to follow through with the travel plans – even though that was hardly ever the reality of the situation!

• First things first. If you have young children, plan activity bags (paper bags with fun goodies to snack on, play with, and occupy their age level attention span) ready a few days before the trip. I used to have several bags for each kid stowed under their seats, so when the hours of travel got long they could look forward to a new surprise in their next bag.
• Keep a “toiletries travel bag” stocked and ready to go – always! Almost every grocery store has travel sized essentials including shaving cream, small quantities of medicines, and hygiene products ready for purchase. They pack nicely in a small toiletry tote, and if you have those already stowed in your travel gear, it is a no-brainer to include them in your bag/suitcase/duffle bag come packing day.

• Roll your clothes that you want to bring! My Grandma shared this tip with me over 40 years ago. I think she read it in a newspaper article, because it was long before social media even existed. She explained that it helps keep clothes from getting hard creases in them, and it is so much easier to see everything you have packed!

• Use netted drawstring bags for things like socks and underwear. If you’ve ever been somewhere, and struggled to rifle through your suitcase or duffle bag to find your last set of clean underwear on a trip, you will automatically understand the value of this travel tip!
• Keep a large netted laundry bag with a tie (to hang from a door handle) in your suitcase or normal travel bag. It’s really nice to get to an accommodation, and have a place already set up (because you can hang it where you are going to disrobe) for the clothes you take off throughout the trip. Inevitably, that bag will become larger than the clothes left in your travel bag or suitcase, but the same volume of materials is being displaced as you go. Having the dirty clothes “temporary hamper” in a netted bag instead of a plastic bag (that might be provided by some hotels you stay in) will be a benefit to you, because it does not keep moisture (or stinky-ness) within the dirty clothes collector.

• Always start out with a few snacks that can be in your purse or backpack for an emergency situation. Accommodations are only open certain hours of the day. If you are in a situation where a flight got delayed, or you weren’t able to stop for a meal like you planned, at least you won’t put yourself in a dire situation. After all, we are humans, and we need food and water to have the strength to navigate large airports or long transports!

I will tell you these tips have been amazingly useful in the last many years – from long trips planned well in advance, to a night or two, out of town, on the spur of the moment!