Packing for a Family Trip
Believe it or not we needed ALL of this stuff for a long weekend trip last year. There is no such thing as traveling light with three little kids.
We just got back from a fall mini break (more details to come) so I thought it might be a good time to share our approach to family packing. Traveling with three kids five and under requires a lot of planning, some flexibility, and a sense of humor. On the planning front, we’ve found having the right stuff makes a big difference in our experience. I end up being the family packer, which is a thankless but important job.
I used to be a very light packer. But let’s be honest, that ship sailed sometime between kid 1 and kid 2. Now it is about containing the chaos. Here are some of the things I do for packing to enjoy travel with our family:
Invest in packing cubes. We’ve found packing cubes from e-bags to really help level-up our packing and travel game. Having quick access to what you need when you need it is a must when traveling with toddlers. We typically assign one color of cube per family member and then within the cubes we organize either by day (very helpful for multiple destinations and for people other than me being able to figure out who should wear what when) or by garment type.
Have an overall plan for your trip so you know what you will and won’t need (will you be swimming, will you need more than one outfit type in a given day, are there special needs or occasions?)
Check the weather both at the outset and before you finish packing. Sometimes those little last minute shifts make a big difference. I tend to pack over a couple of days so it’s important to do that final check and make any necessary adjustments. For example: a few days out we had several highs forecasted in the 60s and we ended up with mostly highs in the 80s. Originally I only planned on 1 pair of shorts per person, but when the forecast changed so did the clothing being packed.
Think about what gear you really need and what you can use at your lodging. As a frequent traveler, I usually let the hotel, owner, etc provide the crib/pack n play, but during our last move we ran into a hotel that advertised cribs and then when we arrived said they didn’t have any and tried to gaslight me about what their website said. After spending an uncomfortable night awake co-sleeping with a baby Clara, we decided that if we’re driving we will just bring our own pack n play from now on. We will also sometimes bring our clip-on high chair. We have too many strollers, because the right stroller for the use is a game-changer. These days we tend to travel with our double BOB jogger because it is the best suited to trails and because it is so simple to collapse.
Make sure you have backup clothing accessible! It’s great to pack an extra but if it is buried at the bottom of your diaper bag or worse trapped in a random bag at the bottom of luggage mountain, or worse yet checked when you are on a plane covered in baby grossness, that extra can’t help if you can’t get to it quickly! And don’t forget backups for Mom and Dad too, babies and toddlers have a knack for exploding on you at the worst possible moment.
Put the right cubes in the right bags. We barely fit in one suitcase for a weekend trip, so we try to turn multiple bags to our advantage. If we are staying in multiple places I will divide the packing cubes by stop so we don’t have to haul all of it in at each stop. If we are flying, I make sure that each person’s stuff is split between the bags, in the event a bag is lost or delayed everyone will still have some of their clothes. I keep a separate bag for essentials (chargers, toiletries, meds, etc).
Consider the family’s overall look in outfit selection. I like to lay everything out like I do for family photos and see how things work together and what pieces might be missing. I did less of this for our South Dakota trip because a) I was short on time and b) because we were planning to mostly hike, and since this is a relatively new hobby of ours we haven’t amassed much gear yet. Sometimes I will devote a lot of effort to get the looks just right. We take a lot more pictures on trips than in every day life so the extra effort is often worth it to me. This could be a lot simpler if you do capsule wardrobing or adopt a family color palate more generally, both ideas I consider and then reject with regularity in favor of more variety.
