Travel Tips

I am going to pretend temporarily that I do have an organization blog (oh look!  now I do!) and that I'm some sort of logistics "influencer." Please scroll past if you're looking for nerd-based bon mots.

I was organizing my stationery bureau and it reminded me of the things I do to make travel easier.

#1 - HAVE A METRIC TON OF BUSINESS CARDS

These are business cards printed by Zazzle* on "premium silk" paper which is water- and tear- resistant.  I use plastic-coated key cables to connect them to our luggage like these. If the ring isn't plastic-coated, it may rust.

To connect them to our internal packing cubes, I use zip ties. I saw an AskReddit thread directed at baggage handlers: "What can I do to ensure my luggage gets to me?" One of the answers was to have tags INSIDE AND OUTSIDE your luggage.

When tags (and custom email domains) are this cheap, it's no great shakes to tag all the things.

#2 - ASSIGN EVERYONE A COLOR

Each family member has a color associated with them for packing. I keep the related pens in a special place. Our packing cubes (hint 2a - use packing cubes) correspond to our assigned color. My color is red/pink. Dom's is blue. Hasty's is grey/black. Hal's is green.

On our passports, I daub a drop of nail polish on the spine with a corresponding color. The boys have three passports each, Dom has two, I have one, so it's nice to be able to reference country and citizen quickly.

On our plane tickets, I label clearly who has which ticket and I also write which block of seats we have for clarity so that when we're boarding the plane no one has to know exactly to which seat they're assigned, we can just sit down now and switch later.

#3 - SET UP A PACKING STATION

When we're going on a family trip and packing over the course of a few days or a week, we set up a packing station where we can dump various bits and bobs until it's time to pack the carry-ons.

These collapsible bins are from the Container Store (duh.)

The bins are also good for overall packing tasks. I give the boys a bin and a list of things they need to bring (5 x underpants, 3 x trousers, etc.) They put them in a bin, bring the bin to me, and I fold the contents nicely into packing cubes.

The crates also double as the receptacles into which I set clean laundry to be put away once a week after its been folded.  Apparently the bins are no longer available at CS, but these from Amazon are similar, but I've not tested them.

When not in use, the crunch bins fit in this Poppin Bench which lives in our guest room.

#4 GIVE EVERYONE SOME BAGS

• a gallon Ziploc for motion sickness or for storing wetly soiled clothes (or a wet bag like this which we use ten million times a year at the gym or the pool.  SkipHop and Target have other similar options.)
• a small bag/pouch of wet wipes.
• a flip and tumble bag (bonus points for color coordinated ;) ) for when it's time to leave your airplane seat and you don't have time or patience to pack everything away nicely. Stuff and run and sort later.

* full disclosure, I work for a Zazzle subsidiary, but I don't get any kickback from this post unless you count the fact that they pay my salary.