Packing for a family vacation, can be a royal pain in the butt!
Especially, if you are packing for FIVE! But don’t worry..after many, many years of trial and errors….I may or may not have it figured out. This trip we will be gone for eight days. We are headed to Hawaii, so not only do we need the basics, we also need the non-basic travel items. Life jackets, because I don’t want one a million other kids have worn. Swimming suits, beach towels, sunscreen in bulk, beach bags, boogie boards, underwater goggles, and lastly….sand castle building set.
STEP 1:
First, I wrap the shoes in cheap shower caps. I got a package of 10 shower caps at a local Sally’s Beauty for $2.49. It may seem like a waste of time, but who wants their gross old shoes touching their clean nice clothes? I don’t! Also, it may help the spreading of that white beach sand you pick up, and from getting everywhere on the trip home. It’s easy. It’s clean, it’s legit!
Step 2:
In a zip lock gallon size freezer bag, I enclosed all of the swimming suits. Then labeled them with my handy dandy OCD label maker. In another bag, I put in swim goggles and arm “floaties,” and a couple water game toys.
Step 3:
Socks and undies. Granted we may live in flip flops and swimming suits, but you can never be sure! 🙂
Step 4:
Altoids! Yes, you can NEVER have too many altoids containers. I bought a lot of 200 expired Altoids off of eBay for $20. Emptied the mints, and kept the tins. With girls, they come in super handy for hair elastics, hair bows, make-up, etc.
Step 5:
The rest of the story! The basics. These are gallon size freezer bags, filled with size 6 girls clothing. We have PJ’s x five.. Dresses x three. Shorts and tee’s x four. Pants and tee’s x four. Our Villa does have a washer and dryers, so I hope this will be okay.
Step 6:
Don’t forget to pick out “Travel Day” clothes. Airplanes can be cold one minute, hot the next. So, we picked a short sleeve top, with stretch pants, and a sweater cardigan. Not to mention their travel blankets that I will have in my carry on.
Step 7:
Carry on bag. Can you really take enough stuff for kids to play with? I think not. In this bag we packed:
- coloring books
- crayons, markers, colored pencils
- magnetic tic tac toe and 4 in a row
- antibacterial wipes (for the airplane seat, table, arm rests)
- antibacterial hand sanitizer
- iPad
- charger and head phones
- medication
- small cups with lids and straws (because I hate letting a two and a five year old have a open cup of juice or soda. You know, the ones they give you on the plane, that spill all over the place?)
That is it! Super easy, super fun, super legit! Our finished product looks like this:
Do you have any travel advice to give me? I’d love to hear what you say!!! Until next time….over and out! 🙂
