Honeymoon travel/packing tips

[zoebartlett]

I posted something in the shopping forum and it got me thinking. We''re thinking of registering for luggage and I had asked what types of luggage are recommended. Here are some things I thought of afterward (good to remember when packing for your honeymoon):

1. Try to pack a smaller, unused bag within your larger one. As your bags fill up with souvenirs, you can use the extra bag you packed.

2. Monarch''s tip in another thread: use Zip-loc space saver bags for dirty laundry storage

3. Try to pack light and pack mix ''n match outfits.

4. The hotel probably has a laundry service which may be helpful to use

5. When packing reading material, I try to pack soft-cover books that I can leave behind if I finish a book. This lightens the load on the way home (or just makes more room for souvenirs).

Do you have any other tips to add to this list?

 

[robbie3982]

Try to make sure that you re-pack the same way that you packed! Somehow DH and I managed to pack way more stuff (or at least heavier stuff) in our one checked back when we were coming home. It ended up being overweight and we had to pay $50 cash at the airport. The bag wasn''t even close to being overweight on the way there and we didn''t buy a lot of stuff so we must''ve just distributed things differently on the way home.

 

[Mara]

take ''necessities'' such as medications and other things with you in a carry on bag...especially if traveling to a faraway destination or on a trip where you have multiple stops/layovers. our luggage got stuck/lost for a few days on our honeymoon, leaving us with almost nothing to wear for 3-4 days out of 7 on our honeymoon. luckily we were in a tropical locale so we bought bathing suits and sarongs and just had to wear ''clothes'' at night. i washed our stuff nightly in our sink!

i really wish i''d packed an extra pair of shorts and a tank etc in my carry on and it would have been that much less painful for us. we''re going to mexico at end of the month and we got stuck on a flight over with 2 layovers so i am packing my carry on with necessities and a change of clothes for us just in case!! i have totally learned my lesson!

also, bring extra batteries for camera, or charger or whatever. and extra memory cards. we took so many pictures that we ran out of memory and we had to buy disposable cameras, at the tune of $20 a pop! we bought TEN and i was so irritated when i came home and had everything developed and the quality was mostly crap.

lastly, if you are traveling overseas and have a global cell or similar, make sure your charger plug in works with whatever plugs the country you are going to has. same with things like hair dryer etc if you bring it.

 

[musey]

I loooove packing and little travel thingamajiggers, like they sell at the container store.

Some of my favorite things for travel are:

1. Facewash towelettes (I like the Apivita chamomile ones), no water needed, especially for beach vacations.

2. "Paper" bath&body products (like this shampoo) can be really great to work around carry-on regulations. Also facial bars instead of liquid facewash, etc.

3. Okay this is weird, but a mini yoga ball is so great for long flights. I take it with and can do thigh & arm exercises in my seat. It keeps the blood flowing and helps me feel at least a little bit productive.

If you're traveling within the US, the USPS flat-rate boxes can be a life-saver in a packing pinch. It's of course better to carry everything with you, but if you can't for whatever reason it's easy to ship stuff in those boxes. Any weight, as long as it fits, and I think it's under $9 if I'm not mistaken.


ETA: Also, last time we went to a tropical vacation spot, we bought our own snorkel gear and took it with us. If you plan to rent more than once or twice, it's worth it--even the super-cheap sets at you can find are generally nicer than the rental stuff (unless you spring for their most expensive pieces). It's nice, too, if you're a bit of a germ-phobe like me, and don't like the thought of putting a rented mouthpiece in your mouth... **shudder**

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I put lotion, hair products, make-up, toothpaste, everything in Zip-locs. I had a lotion explode once so now I make sure I protect my clothes. I took bug spray on our honeymoon. DH made fun of me but it came in handy in Mexico. I agree with extra batteries/film. Also a deck of cards is always fun to have. We played by the pool.

 

[Pandora II]

Rolling clothes tends to crease them less than folding and takes up less room.

You will always pack too much. In 99% of places you can buy things you forget or don''t have enough of!

I have a black waterproof top-opening wash-bag with a top section with holders for toothbrush, tweezers etc and a bigger bottom section. I keep it permanently stocked with mini-shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and shower gel, plus a couple of mini soaps, mouthwash, toothpaste etc, plus a razor and blades - basically anything I need when I''m away.

That way, I don''t have to start looking for everything the night before and I don''t forget anything. Being waterproof it also saves on bottle breakages etc. You can get minis of most things in chemists shops - or I tend to swipe all the toiletries in quality hotels everyday so that they have to give you new ones! I got four sets of soap, body lotion, showergel, shampoo and conditioner all by L''Occitane a few weeks ago.

After 5 years of boarding school, 4 years of university and living abroad for 8 years I am one of the world''s greatest packers

.

My top tip is to make a list of everything you pack into your case and then check them back off before you return.

Being totally OCD, I actually have a spreadsheet of my entire wardrobe on my computer.

I then just pull out clothes, shoes etc to suit what activities I will be doing. It helps you remember things that have got forgotten in the wardrobe. Then I print it out and pack from the list (also stops you taking too much)

 

[ChargerGrrl]

i'm a road warrior for work, and totally "second" all the great advice thus far.

my favorite site/resource for travel stuff is magellans.com the WC kits are a lifesaver, and the "no jet-lag" pills work pretty well. I also like the packable "cubes"- i use one for undies, another one for t-shirts, etc, then just throw them in the dresser drawers when you get to your hotel.

also, can't say it enough- ZIPLOCKS, ZIPLOCKS, ZIPLOCKS!

 

[ChinaCat]

Zoe-

Not sure where you are going, but if you are taking multiple flights on your honeymoon (usually island-hopping), some of the flights may be smaller airplanes. We had this problem on ours- our bags checked through no problem on the way there, but on some of the smaller flights, they had different rules. One would only let us check one bag each (and I had two!), and another had lower weight requirements for each bag. I really wish I had checked before I left. We were travelling multiple airline carriers as well. so it was complicated.

So my tip is check each airline''s requirements before you pack!!!

 

[zoebartlett]

Hi ChinaCat,

We''re going to the Azores and we''re going to fly directly onto the island of Sao Miguel and probably stay there for the majority of our trip. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[onedrop]

Ditto everything that wa said above, especially rolling clothes instead of folding and putting things into zip-loc bags. I also recommend if you''re travelling abroad to get a prescription filled for an anit-biotic. You never think you''ll need it but you never know. I''ve travelled some in areas where medical care and convenience is not like it is here, and I contracted something that I needed an antibiotic for. So instead of dealing with that particular medical care system, I already had antibiotics in hand. It was a big relief for me.

 

[zoebartlett]

I like the tip of rolling clothes instead of folding them, but it never works for me. All my clothes look horrible when I pull them out of my suitcase. What''s the secret?

 

[fleur-de-lis]

There are so many great tips in this thread! I totally agree with the posters who said to pack an empty bag, try to coordinate your clothes for mix and match, and take a bare minimum change of undies/little compactable outift in your carry-on in the event your bag gets lost en route. (When flying to someplace tropical, I put in a bikini, clean undies, and this great Jil Sander little black dress that compacts down to the size of the palm of my hand.)

The other thing I would add to the list is, pack clothes which have a touch of lycra! Just 2% lycra makes most clothes resist wrinkles like magic, and they'll still fit if eating with gusto is a part of your vacation plan.