Whether traveling for business, leisure, a short weekend getaway, or a long-term adventure, packing the right essentials can make a huge difference in your overall experience. By taking the time to prepare and pack properly, you can avoid common travel mishaps and ensure that your trip is a success. With these smart tips, you can take more than you think. Today I’ll show you how to pack for your next trip.
- Roll Your Clothes Instead of Folding Them
- Pick the Right Travel Bag
- Always Have Some Additional Space in Your Bag
- Have a Packing List
- Start with the Last Item
- Pick Outfits That Can Easily Match
- Wear Your Bulkiest Clothes When Traveling
- Have Your Dopp Kit Ready
- Collect Important Travel Documents, Cash, and Credit Cards
Roll Your Clothes Instead of Folding Them
Rolling your clothes instead of folding them can make a huge difference in your packing game. I learned this skill many years ago from a video about the U.S. military.
Often when you fold your clothes, you use more space than it would take with rolling. If you fold your clothes, you will have a lot of unused space in your bag.
If you need a simple visualization of how to efficiently roll your clothes for your next trip, check out the following video:
Pick the Right Travel Bag
As I mentioned in a previous article about essential travel items, if you want to pack well for your next trip, first you need to buy the right bag for the occasion. Make sure to read that article, you will find a few good tips there.
Once you have the right bag, the packing will be much simpler.
Always Have Some Additional Space in Your Bag
This is a point that I learned many years ago from a Mr. Porter video. It is a must if you go on a long vacation and plan to pack a lot of things. We often pack our bags full of instincts and often forget that we might want to buy souvenirs.
Anything can happen – you might find a new sweatshirt that you want to buy, but your bags are full, or you buy a nice gift for your family. Always keep some space in your bag.
Have a Packing List
This is such an easy and helpful tip. When you start planning your next trip, start writing a list of all the needed items for the trip. It can be a simple checkbox list.
When you start packing for the trip you just need to go through the list and tick them. I have a few lists for different types of occasions. You can easily reuse them for future journeys.
Start with the Last Item
A great tip when packing your bag is to start with the most unused item. I often start with flip-flops or shoes if I am packing them because it is most likely that those two will be the last items I need.
You might need a sweatshirt or change T-shirt from your bag and it is not the best if those items are at the bottom of your suitcase or bag.
Pick Outfits That Can Easily Match
Having a versatile wardrobe is great but if most of your clothing matches with only one item, you’ll be in big trouble when you want to pack lightly because you’ll need specific pants for a specific top, and vice versa.
However, if you have well-matching attire, you can easily mix and match your clothing and you’ll still have a great outfit.
Wear Your Bulkiest Clothes When Traveling
Oftentimes, there are space limitations, for example, when you are traveling via airplane, you need to follow strict rules regarding how big of a suitcase you can have and how much you can pack.
An easy trick to solve this is to wear your bulkiest clothing when traveling, this way you can save a lot of space in your bag.
Have Your Dopp Kit Ready
I covered it a few times before, but having a ready-packed toiletry bag is essential if you are a frequent traveler. I always have my toiletry bag – or Dopp kit, as I call it ready for my next travel. It is filled with the essentials that are needed for any type of journey.
We wrote a detailed article about the topic, make sure to read it:
Collect Important Travel Documents, Cash, and Credit Cards
This is another important point that you should check before you go on any international trip. Always have local currency, your credit card, and most importantly, your passport ready when visiting a foreign country.
We in the EU can travel between European countries without a passport, but if you want to travel to a country outside the EU, we have to prepare our passports.
I collected these points throughout many years of frequent journeys. If you miss a few points, don’t worry, we always forget something, but if you have such a list, you can save a lot of time thinking about what you should take with you for your next trip. I hope I could help with this article. Have a great trip!
Keep on reading: What Should Be in a Gentleman’s Wardrobe
