My family and I just returned from a 14-day Puerto Rico adventure trip where we traveled around the island, staying at five different spots. My children are 11, 12, and 13 years old, so they are able to help out with the packing/repacking.
We stayed in Airbnb houses, condos, and hotels, so we had different amenities in each place. We had a washer/dryer at the houses, which worked out to be every other place we stayed, which helped with my packing. I knew I had stopping points where I could wash clothes and didn’t have to pack 14 days worth for us.
I have had several mamas ask me if I had any packing tips to share for that kind of trip and flying, so I thought I would share the things that I found to be super helpful for us as we traveled around.
The dollar store is your friend as you prepare to travel.
- I bought a pack of three notebooks and gave one to each kid to guide them in documenting details and their favorite experiences of the trip. They each carried a small sling backpack on the flight, so they could pack whatever they wanted on the plane in their little bag. Amazon has these game books that have travel tic-tac-toe, hangman, and bingo, and they are awesome to use throughout the trip when you were waiting in places and kids needed something to do.
- Buy snacks and candy treats for the flight ahead of time; this saves so much money from airport spending. We each packed an empty water bottle to use in the airport in to save on water purchases and filled up at water fountains.
- Special little crafts if you have a kid who loves to have creative things to do (beads/ sticker books/little notebooks with small pens for drawing, etc). I bought watercolor paint from there for my daughter to paint shells on the beach and that was a huge hit.
My go-to items to pack.
- A camera for your kid(s). My daughter brought her Polaroid and she did travel photo documenting of each region we traveled to, but you could use an old phone for camera storage or a disposable camera as well. It keeps them engaged in noticing the details around them
- Ziploc bags. I use these in so many ways: throw snacks in, trash, wet clothes if you’ve been out, etc. On this trip, I got some stickers, wrote the names of different places on the bags, and let kids use them for souvenirs (like shells from the different beaches we were at).
- If you’re traveling to the beach, I pack some blow-up beach balls and beach things to use like a frisbee, water toys, and other activities that are easy and light to travel with.
- Pack empty bags to lay on top in your suitcase that you will use during your stay to help for easier travel while you are there.
- Sunscreen, which I packed in a clear bag that was easy to use while we were in the different kinds of rooms so everyone knew where it was located. We carried this bag around everywhere.
- A small collapsible cooler to use for lunches/snacks/drinks.
- Goggles/snorkel masks, which aves so much money from paying for snorkel tours in areas.
- Travel coffee mugs and insulated can holders. I loved having these to take down to the beach and traveling around.
Then, when I repacked at each location change, everything went back in the same bags so that it was easy to know where everything was at.
A few other things that may come in handy:
- We did cave exploration, hiking in the rainforest, coral reef snorkeling, and river excursions, so we had different shoes we used for different activities. I brought a collapsible bag that, once we got to our first location, I used as an all-trip shoe bag and it traveled around with us like that. It was SO helpful not repacking everyone’s shoes in their clothes bag and having them all in one spot.
- We are a fishing fam, so a fishing pole is always traveling around with my husband. I highly recommend a travel fishing pole that can break down and easily pack in your suitcase.
- Pack detergent pods in a Ziploc and then you are ready to go for the washer/dryer availability at your locations. I got a travel hanger line from Amazon because we do not dry some of our clothes in the dryer and this was GOLD. It was great to even hang up and use for towels and swimsuits after coming back from the beach to dry during the night and be ready to go the next morning at the locations we did not have a dryer.
- I packed each kid in their own small duffle bag, and then for flying, we put two duffles a piece in military bags. Once we arrived at our rental car, then we took the duffle bags out, left the military bag in our car, and each kid would keep up with their bag and travel around with it.
- I packed collapsible grocery bags to use for our snack/food bags that traveled around everywhere with us.
Something else that made road trip traveling fun was letting kids have turns with our Spotify playlist and they each played their favorite songs and added new fun songs to our family list. This gave a fun vibe in the car (once everyone settled on when their turn was 🙂
Happy traveling this summer!
