We’re just back from our annual family vacation — and honestly, this one almost did me in!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to travel! 

Exploring new places, seeing some AMAZING sights and being with my family — just us without all the day-to-day craziness that we leave behind — it’s something I look forward to each year.

This year, we’ve decided to take a two week vacation which is a first for us — two weeks away from home and living somewhere else means more planning, extended prep time and a really impressive packing job!

 

Two issues came up with this recent trip — first, we were flying.  Even though I love to travel, I really do NOT enjoy flying.  I would rather road trip any day than spend hours in an airport on someone else’s schedule.

Flying means that I have to be much more efficient at packing because I don’t want to pay any more in baggage fees than I absolutely have to but at the same time, I want to make sure we take everything we’ll need for the trip.

Thus the second issue — trying to decide what to bring since we are limited on room. 

 

 

Planning What to Pack on Your Next Trip

Have you heard the line by comedian George Carlin:  “When you go on vacation, you can’t bring all your stuff — just the stuff you really like”.

If you’re flying and will be gone for two weeks, it’s hard to bring the stuff you really like.  Those 3 blankies and 20 books that my daughter pulled out just didn’t make the cut since we wanted to have enough clothes for the trip.

 

To get a better handle on what we SHOULD bring, I created these Trip Planning & Packing printables. 

For each day of our trip, I listed what we planned to do in the green box and then jotted down what items I thought we would need to pack for those activities.

 

 

 

The planning sheets worked beautifully!  I was able to use them to create a master packing list and when I told the kids they would need 7 outfits, I could easily see they would need 1 dress set of clothes, 4 beach-type outfits and a few casual semi-nice outfits with some extra shirts.

It was also a great way to get all our shoes together since I had a better idea of what activities we were planning to do.

And the BIG bonus:  I knew exactly what we would need when we got to the rental house!  For example, we had some beach days planned so I knew I would have to scout out some beach chairs and a cooler when we checked in.

If you’re heading out on a vacation, I hope these freebie travel planning sheets will help with your packing.

Travel safe & enjoy the trip!

~ Jacquie