How to Pack for Short Trips

There are people who seem gifted at packing; their packing process is organised, clothes come out of the suitcase or bag wrinkle-free and they seem to have the right outfit for each event.  It’s admirable.  For most of us though, packing is a nightmare and packing for short trips, say 4 or 5 days is even more difficult as dumping most of your wardrobe into a small suitcase wouldn’t work.  If packing has never been your forte, you’ve come to the right place.  This post will give tips on how to pack for short trips and in the future, I’ll do a post with tips on how to pack for long trips.

• When packing for short trips, you need to know how many days exactly you’ll be gone for so you can plan properly.  You also need to be sure what sort of trip you’re going on.  The clothes you would pack for a business trip with a possibility of a few formal dinners would be different from the clothes you would need for a beach holiday.
• Choose one style of packing.  This means, if you want to roll your clothes into your travel bag, roll all of them.  Don’t roll some of the clothes and fold the others.  It’s a sure way to make sure all your clothes come out wrinkled.
• Think creatively when it comes to your clothes and learn to combine what you’ve got.  If you’re going away for 3 days, there’s no point in taking 3 pairs of jeans.  All you need is one pair and 3 different tops.  Then maybe pack a dress and heels or a pair of proper trousers and a dress shirt for going out.
• To save myself the stress of ironing (one of my least favourite activities), I generally pack clothes that stretch or that contain Lycra as these ones are less likely to need ironing.
• I love shoes as much as the next girl but there’s no need to pack 5 different pairs even if you’re going to be away 5 days.  At most, you need a pair of comfortable walking shoes (which you can wear when travelling), a pair of proper shoes for dinners or formal events and an extra pair just in case ;-)
• Put soap, shower gel and body lotion and anything that can spill or stain clothes in a Ziploc bag.  Decant your favourite gels and lotions into small containers to save space in your travel bag.
• Packing underwear is easy.  Simply toss your smalls on top of your packed clothes and smile at immigration officials’ discomfort if they search your bag.  Naturally, this only works for women J
• Mentally wear the clothes you’ve packed for each day and each event you plan to attend to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything and that’s it.  You’re packed and ready to go.

What are your top packing tips?  Go ahead and share them in the comments box.

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Photograph by jetheriot

How to stay happy when you get back from holiday

Photograph by xtheowl

If you’re like most people, you look forward to your annual holiday desperately and anticipate your return to the daily grind with dread.  Of course, this isn’t ideal.  Everyone should be as eager to return to their ‘normal life’ as they are to go on holiday.  This doesn’t hold true for many people though so until we all find a way to be as happy to get back to our lives as we are to go on holiday, here are a few tips to make returning to the normal schedule as happy as possible.

·         Make sure you’ve stashed some money at home/ in an account you didn’t have access to when you were on holiday so you’re not flat broke when you get back.

·         Make your bed and clean your room/ house before you go on holiday.  This makes it easier for you to settle in when you get back.  Besides, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as lying down on a well-made bed when you’re tired.

·         If you took your laptop with you on holiday, download your photographs onto it at the end of each day otherwise download them onto your laptop as soon as you’re home so you can re-live those great moments whenever you want.

·         Plan lunch, a night out with friends or whatever takes your fancy for the day after you return from vacation.  It gives you something to look forward to plus gives you the chance to re-live your holiday. Again.

·         Start wearing the clothes and displaying the curios you bought while on holiday to lift your mood instantly.

Perhaps the most important tip though is to create the sort of life that you would love to come back to after a refreshing holiday.

What do you think?  Are there any things you do to keep yourself in a good mood when you come back from a vacation?  Put them in the comments so we can learn new tips.

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How to have a holiday romance without the heartache

                                                   Photograph by Nattu

Okay, first of all I have to admit I can’t advice on how to avoid heartache completely after a hot but brief holiday dalliance but I can tell you how to reduce the hurt you might feel.  But wait, before we get to the point of (possibly) having your heart broken, let’s start with how to have a holiday romance at all.

                     

Naturally, the first thing is to go on holiday.  Sounds pretty obvious but stay with me here.  The next thing to note is that you don’t have to travel to far-flung places to be on holiday.  All you need is to take a break from your regular work or school schedule.  In fact, if we widen the description of a holiday romance further, you don’t even actually have to be on holiday yourself – you just have to be involved with someone who is.  It’s a holiday romance for the other person and therefore, for you too.

If you do decide to travel somewhere exotic, your chances of having a holiday romance increase if you travel alone.  See my blog post on how to go on holiday alone for more on this.  If you do travel with friends or family, make sure you go out on your own sometimes so people have the chance to talk to you without wondering if  your buddies are making fun of their chat-up lines.  Remember to stay safe when you do go out by yourself, always let your friends know where you’re going and when you plan to be back.

I think the most important way to attract people to you whether you’re on holiday or not is to be (or at least appear) happy and confident.  If you do hit it off with a sexy waitress/ barely adult university student/ attractive business person, have fun but do remember that if you’re only there for a few days, it’s unlikely to lead to a lengthy, all-consuming romance.  That’s the first step towards not being heartbroken when the fling ends.  Other ways to remember the romance with fondness and not regret are to take lots of pictures together but skip the exchanging email addresses/ phone numbers part.  How likely are you to keep in touch with your Spanish lover if your grasp of the language is limited to ‘hola’?  Most of all, don’t make promises you know you won’t keep (“I’ll call you everyday”), tag the (brief) relationship under your experience folder (in your head, not your CV) and remind yourself from time to time how exciting your holiday was.

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How to go shopping on holiday without going broke

                                         Photograph by NeilsPhotography

Ahh…shopping.  One of the greatest delights available to man.  If you’re going on a strictly shopping holiday, this article might not be too useful to you.  After all, your planned holiday schedule will probably be:  eat, shop, sleep, wake up and repeat.  For the rest of us who go on holiday and intend to do some shopping on the side, a more detailed plan of action might be required.  This plan should begin before you actually go on holiday. 

Before you set off on your merry shopping way, determine your budget.  Yes, budgets are boring but if you want to come back from your holiday feeling on top of the world instead of down in the doldrums, they are necessary.  There’s no need to open up Excel to create a shopping budget (not unless you really want to, anyway); just decide how much you can dedicate to shopping alone.  This amount should exclude money for transportation, feeding and of course accommodation. 

A good way to come up with a budget is to determine how much you can spare for shopping then calculate its value in the currency of the country you’ll be visiting.  You can get exchange rates from websites like www.gocurrency.com or better still, call up your bank and ask them.  What I usually do is determine how much I’d like to spend on shopping in the currency of the country I’ll be visiting then I’ll change it to the currency of where I am.  If after this calculation, I find I can’t afford my dream shopping allowance, I adjust the figures until I reach an amount I can spare.

This may not work for everyone but I prefer to carry most of my shopping money in cash and put ‘emergency’ shopping money on a debit or credit card.  Of course, one can argue that emergencies aren’t exactly relevant to shopping but I’m sure true shoppers out there would beg to differ.  I use the emergency funds on my card for things like buying a last-minute present for a friend or buying books in duty-free.

OK.  Now you’ve sorted out how much money you have to spend on shopping so you’re ready to hit the shops!  Not quite.  Malls are enticing places filled with tempting shoes determined to go home with you.  Be prepared.  What I usually do is make a list of the things I really really want before I hit the mall/ shopping centre/ souk.  That way, my subconscious is focused on the things I want and I’m less distracted by the things NOT on my list.  That’s not to say I don’t go home with more bangles and tubes of lipgloss than I had intended to buy but it means I hardly ever buy things then wonder what I was thinking when I get home with them.

If there’s something I desperately want (usually a big, black handbag).  Once I spot it, I stroke it, stare at myself in the mirror while holding it, take a mental picture of it then go home.  Without it.  If I’m still thinking about it 2 days later, I know it’s something I really want and hurry to the shop begging them to take my money (not really, but you know what I mean).  I find that purchases like these are the ones I love and use the most.

So now you’re prepared and can confidently go shopping on holiday without worrying about going back home broke.  What about you?  Do you have any tips about shopping on holiday?

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