Summer Holiday Suitcase Packing Tips Revealed

A well-packed suitcase. Photograph: Moodboard/Corbis

You don’t have to be completely obsessive about Summer Fashion, but there is one day of the year when you ought to pay a little more attention to your attire, and that is the day before you go on summer holiday, as for most of us, it’s the one day of the year where you think what you’ll wear for the next two weeks. If you think like that all of the time you might just be slightly too obsessed with your wardrobe, or be ever so slightly barking. But the premise still remains that a good Summer holiday, we believe, starts with a well-packed suitcase.

But surely, it’s common sense isn’t it? chucking your favourite summer dress into a suitcase and off you go? lots of people do it every year; yet I suspect it’s the cause of more arguments than football, religion and politics all together!

No doubt you’re familiar with the  now clichéd joke of sitting, jumping or using whatever weight to have to bare on top of the suitcase just get closed, so it can be a major source of stress to lots of people if only just deciding what one should take, yet despite this, we’ve found that it is virtually impossible to get any useful information on the subject of packing.

While the glossies and supplements are packed full of so called ‘travel advice’ at this crucial time of year when we might need a little guidance, normally it’s from contributors who possess absolutely no grasp of reality whatsoever, with their contributions hardly constituting practical advice, such as “I always send my eveningwear to my destination in advance, so that the villa staff have time to steam the creases out of my Valentino” or something to the other extreme like  “all you need for two weeks is a kaftan, a perfect pair of sawn-off Levis and a slim volume of poetry”.  The grim reality faced in that empty suitcase on the bed are cast aside and so we struggle on aimlessly panic-buying cheap sarongs at the airport and spend two weeks in the same comfy but slightly sagging cotton jersey dress we wore on countless number of previous holidays.

But here at summer dress we are able for once to give you some practical tips for that annual task of packing your suitcases courtesy of real life examples and a nicely written piece by Jess Cartner-Morley of the Guardian newspaper

So just take your time and read through the following top tips to get the best from your suitcase packing experts:

1. Think in Outfits
   

   People who have to pack and travel on business regularly have found this trick particularly useful. By packing each outfit on a hanger, with clothes and accessories hung around the neck and shoes in a fabric bag, with each outfit folded into a garment bag.  It is the best way to pack.  However as you’re not necessarily going to a fashion shoot or a business conference you don’t need the whole shooting match, but the principle of  thinking in outfits is key. So rather than flicking through your wardrobe and pulling out your favourite Summer Dress or things I might look good in when  I’m brown, think carefully about what you’ll be doing.  If it’s a beach holiday, pull out your swimwear first and then work out three or four outfits that you can wear easily over them during the day. Stick to a few colours – say, navy, white and denim – so that you can mix the pieces up.

2. Take your nicest things

   If you’ve got those special Going Out Dresses you save for good and holidays? Take them.  Again think about the practicalities and leave the diamonds at home if you are going backpacking, but don’t get stuck in a rut of only packing tatty old vests and shorts. Just because you can be casual doesn’t mean you have to look like a tramp all the time while on holiday.

3. Start a travel drawer

   A great idea is to start a travel drawer, over the proceeding days, weeks and even months, have a drawer where you keep your passports, spare coins, travel adaptors, phrase books, maps and medicines. This just saves time and the stress of having to dash around while the taxi taking you to the airport is clocking up a nice fare sitting outside your house waiting while you franticly tear the house apart to find one of the many travel plugs you’ve acquired at the airport every year because you can’t find all those that you’ve bought previously.

4. Two pairs of shoes, a couple of cover-ups

   Wear  trainers for the plane and pack one nice pair of flat sandals and one pair of wedges.  If you’re going somewhere warm, take two light layers that can be worn together: a cardigan and a jacket, for example. Then, if you leave or arrive on a chilly day, or if you’ve picked the one week in the year your destination gets really cold, then you can layer up.

5. Underpack

   Be bloody minded and practical about what you pack, taking things that you might wear but end up not wearing only means that it takes up more weight, you'll waste time packing it and it'll need to be washed and ironed on your return. Leave it where it is.

   6) Wear favourite jeans on the plane

   Jeans are  great on short flights, they’re comfortable, the pockets are handy, and they are the right temperature for planes. If you are going somewhere hot you always think you will wear your jeans while you are there, but you never do. One pair will work fine for the journey there and the journey back. Do not pack a second pair; you won’t wear them.

6. Sort, then pack

   Don’t put things straight in the suitcase: you will not get it right first time and so will hinder any editing. When you’ve got your pile on the bed or floor, flick through and remove anything you are not completely set on taking. You should then pack in the following order: shoes first, and wash bags – both packed inside carrier bags, which you can use as laundry bags once you’re away. Books, chargers, ans one evening bag – a good tip is to put jewellery in here so it doesn’t snag on your clothes and then a belt.  Swimwear follows with underwear coming next. Finally, anything else that doesn’t need hanging up – fold it or roll it but as thin as possible.

7. Keep everything else on hangers

   To keep your hangers together, wrap a rubber band or a hair bobble around the hooks, then slip a garment bag (the thin kind you get from the dry cleaners) over the clothes. Fold over and lay on top of everything else.

   The slipperiness of the garment bag will keep avoid creasing – when you arrive at your desticnation, you simply hang the clothes straight into the wardrobe, and delight in the knowledge that you didn’t have to fight with those irritating non-stealable hangers. Same when you go home (without the non-stealable hangers of course).

8. Wear a waterproof watch

   If you’re like me who doesn’t wear a watch, this can be ignored, however if you have several or a good one you wear regularly,  think about leaving it at home. You will only leave it on the beach. So dust off your waterprofof watch iif you have one, or buy a cheap one, there’s plenty out there.

9. Party Dresses

   Never, ever go anywhere without a really nice dress and the right bra to wear with it. You never know who you might meet.

10. Bathroom scales are your friend

    perhaps some might disagree with the above title, but most people have to keep within a weight limit when flying. So check with your airline if and what is the personal limit, and weight each bag once fully packed to ensure it falls below the recommended maximum otherwise you may me charged, or suffer the ignominy of opening your bags at the front of the checkout queue to despatch items of significant weight to delight of fellow passengers. This I know from experience. Remember also that the weight limit is per bag, not person, so don’t be tempted to get and extra big suitcase to share between two or more people as you may come a cropper here also.