Your vacation is over and you can’t seem to fit all your stuff back in your suitcase. Now what? Here are my top three tips for packing to go home.

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I have a cousin who told me that after she had a baby, she folded him up and couldn’t figure out where he had come from. I sometimes feel the same way at the end of a vacation. No matter how hard we try, we can’t get everything to fit when packing to go home. You might be thinking that we bought too many souvenirs. But, we aren’t big souvenir people. And, even if we were, we’re still at the “travel with diapers” stage. So, the souvenirs would just replace the diapers anyway.

So, what do we do?

Fold Your Laundry

My kids always think this is gross. But, folded clothing takes up waaaaay less space than a bag full of laundry. So, when you’re packing to go home and things aren’t fitting, the first thing to do is fold the big stuff. Then, if you’re still short on space, you can fold the small stuff too.

If you’re concerned that your suitcase might smell, you can put the folded laundry in laundry bags. We like to bring along a few scented garbage bags for exactly this purpose.

Pro Tip: If you’re concerned about the smell of the dirty laundry, place a small bar of soap amongst the clothes (the small hotel soaps work perfectly). You don’t even have to open it completely–just rip it open a bit.

Pro Tip: If you have more than one suitcase, pack the dirty clothes separately from the clean clothes and other stuff. If you only have one suitcase, at least put the dirty stuff in bags and the clean stuff back in your packing cubes.

Don’t Take It All With You

We all take things with us that we don’t really need to bring home. But, we always feel bad leaving stuff behind. We feel like we spent good money on something or we might use it at home (or even definitely use it at home). But, that doesn’t mean you need to shlep it home.

Maybe you brought a big bottle of sunscreen for your beach vacation but now you’re returning to a New England winter. Or you brought a bottle of baby shampoo, stain removal spray, static guard, wrinkle spray, your favorite body wash, or any number of other things. Yes, you may use them all back home. But, is it really worth it to try and squeeze all that stuff back into your suitcase? Run the risk of it leaking (even if you tape the cap and put it in two ziplock bags)? Possibly pay $100 in overweight fees so you don’t have to throw out your $5 soap bottle?

It served its purpose. You got good use out of it. Now, just leave it behind!

Pro Tip: If you really feel bad just leaving stuff behind, give it to someone who can use it. A friend in the area, a shelter, or even just leaving it at your vacation rental for the next guests to use. We recently left our hotel room key for That Jewish Family in case they could make use of anything we left behind on their travels.

Buy a Cheap Suitcase

If you still can’t get everything to fit when packing to go home, buy a cheap suitcase. Depending on the airline you’re flying and type of ticket you have, it may be cheaper to buy a new suitcase than pay overweight fees even if you can fit everything into the suitcase(s) you have.

If you’ve been in the market for a new suitcase anyway, buy something that will make sense for you in the long run. If not, just get something cheap that will do the job.

Pro Tip: We always throw a collapsible duffle bag into our suitcase for just this purpose. If we need another piece of luggage, we have it and it doesn’t take up too much space or weigh too much.

Pro Tip: Don’t be surprised and have to repack and shuffle things at the airport. Take a compact digital luggage scale with you. We like this one that weighs in both US and metric and comes in a two-pack so we can easily send them with our kids to camp.

Bonus Tip: Ship It

When all else fails and you end up with more than you can bring home with you, just ship it! Luggage Forward will pick up and deliver your luggage door-to-door anywhere in the world. We’ve used this service several times. Sometimes intentionally (as in 7 Southern States in 6 Days) and sometimes unintentionally (as in True Confessions: Forgotten Luggage). But each time we have been very satisfied with the service and highly recommend them.

Pro Tip: Sometimes we have shopping stores that offer free shipping with a minimum spend on their website. Sometimes they honor it for in-store purchases and will ship for us for free. Other times, we just make the purchase online now that we know what we want.

Packing to go home at the end of vacation can be very overwhelming. But with these three tips in mind, it is also very doable. Let me know which tip is most useful for you.

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