After spending the entire month of November at home (a feat that doesn’t happen very often at all), I’m back to being gone for nearly half of December.

Several nights ago as I was packing, I realized I’ve gotten a lot faster and less frivolous with packing. Now, it still took me a couple hours the other night, but that included a headache, distractions, and the fact that part of the packing was for “sunny Florida” and the other part was for Christmas Town at the Creation Museum, which means cold. Therefore, I had to figure out what I needed for the different climates.

Video chatting while packing. 

Overall though, I’ve learned a fair amount of helpful tips when it comes to packing, mostly through trial and error.

1. Start out with all your laundry clean
2. Have a note of how many days you’ll be gone, and if there are any special occasions you need to pack for (For example: If you’re going to a fancy dinner, hiking, or attending an Ugly Sweater Party)
3. Look up the weather where you’ll be traveling
4. Don’t overpack clothes – This is huge (haha). It’s so easy to randomly throw extra items into your suitcase, but that’s generally not a good idea. One way to help avoid this is to lay out everything before you pack anything and go over each item to see if you’ll actually use it
5. Packing outfit-by-outfit cuts down on the extras. And, rolling the clothes into tight, neat bundles is the best way I’ve found to pack and not take up excess space
6. With non-clothing items, once again, less is generally more. Books are normally the hardest items for me to go easy with, but since they weigh a lot, they’re not fun to lug around. This trip I kept my list of physical books down to four: My Bible (I have two I generally read, and I brought along the smaller one), a book-for-review I have to read, a book I’ve been studying, and one book for fun. That might sound like a lot of books, but I had several more books I wanted to fit on the list and didn’t. (Also, kindle books are a great way to keep the weight down)
7. If you’re packing things like vitamins, snacks, or other small items, it’s quite helpful to put them into little baggies instead of taking along the whole container
8. If you’re flying, make sure you bag, or double bag, all your liquids/gels/etc… Also, taking a reusable water bottle along to fill up after you’re through security is a good idea, because it’s very easy to get dehydrated while traveling by air
9. Double-check to make sure you have everything you need. This last time I nearly forgot to pack socks, then as I was falling asleep the night before we left, I realized I hadn’t packed my wrist-brace
10. Turn it into a game. Packing is something I really enjoy. I sometimes challenge myself to see if I can fit everything into one backpack, or figure out a new combo for older clothes, or dance to some upbeat music as I work. This time several of my little friends were over and we video chatted with some of my other friends as I packed. They also had fun helping me pick out which clothes to take along, as well as putting some of the outfits together for me

Okay! Obviously this isn’t a conclusive list. What are some packing tips y’all have? I’d be delighted to hear them. 🙂