10 Ways to Lighten a Travel’s Load

I’ve been planning a trip I have next week. I am making lists and packing and finding ways to reduce the amount of “stuff” I take. I tend to be an overpacker, so I try at least shrink the size of the junk I am carrying. If I have to have hairspray, then at least I can take a mini-bottle and not my 12″ monster.

I’ve got a few tips that I have learned over the past few years of traveling a lot. With each trip I figure out something new, so I am sharing it here for 2 reasons: so you can use these tips if you want and so that I will remember them the next time.

Put supplements in teeny ziptop bags. I take so many supplements that if I took all of the bottles it would take up 1/3 of my suitcase. So I use teenty bags and make a little bag for each day with whatever pills I need. This only takes up a speck in my travel bag. For this I use a 2×3 bag.
Pre-prepare your make-up remover. I love my coconut oil + frankincense homemade makeup remover. But I don’t need the entire amount for only a few days. So I swipe a tissue in the remover and fold it up. I make one for each day then stack them inside a small ziptop bag. For this I use a 4×6 bag.
Roll your clothes. This tip has been around for years, but to add to it, I roll whole outfits together so I don’t have to dig around for the separate pieces when I am getting dressed each morning. It really makes the mornings easier to have them all rolled together!
Pack an extension cord. This isn’t a reducing tip, but it is such a help and takes up hardly any space that I had to share it. You never know where the outlets are going to be wherever you’re staying. Having an extension cord makes it easy to plug in chargers, fans, diffusers, whatever. Plus it gives you a few extra places to plug in. Just wrap it around the outside edges in the suitcase and it take up no room at all.
Put your oils in sample bottles. I travel with at least 20-30 essential oils so I need to reduce the size of the load. If it’s one that I don’t need to put in the diffuser or use in my water, I like to put them in small roller top bottles. I also get to use my label maker when I do this, which makes me happy.
Use an old spice jar for powder. I love my powder and don’t want to be without it, but I keep mine in a large container I make it myself with cornstarch and essential oils). So I put some in an empty McCormick’s spice jar and it’s perfect for travel.
Audiobooks or Kindle. One thing I love about traveling is getting time to read! But I also get travel nausea if I look at teeny letters so an audiobook is the way to go for me. I will have several books ready to start before leaving so I can enjoy them from the first minute!
Take minimal makeup. If you’re not going to an awards ceremony, leave the heavy makeup behind. Dump out the old makeup bag and just take the 2-3 things you really need. In my case that’s concealer and eyebrows. Without those I look like I’m having a near death experience. It’s really a favor to other people.
Take a small purse. I will fill up whatever size purse I have, so I take a small one that will only hold my essentials…money, ID, sunglasses, my phone, lip balm and a few teeny containers of oils. Anything else I can do without and just enjoy the experience.
Be fearless. If you don’t absolutely need it, don’t take it! Do you really need a whole package of batteries? Or can you just take 2 from the package? Instead of bringing along your shampoo bottle, put some in a small container that you can throw away once you’re finished with it. Don’t take a whole tube of sunscreen, squirt some in a small ziptop bag and just use that!Instead of the entire pack of feminine products, count out how many you’ll need per day and just take that. Those small changes will significantly lighten your load!

I tried to find some other great travel tips online for y’all so we could learn from the pros. I’m sure there is a lot of useful info out there, but all I could find were super cool people traveling all over the world and experiencing life in a way that I can’t even think about. Many of these blogs think a great place for a weekend break is somewhere like Morocco when I’m thinking more like hanging out at the nearest state park eating chickfila. We just have different ideas. And budgets.

While I am sure there are many great, more down to earth sites out there…great blogs with travel tips that are more my speed, Google wasn’t finding them for me. Clearly I need to up my game though because I never go anywhere fascinating, unless we can count all of the countries in the back of Epcot. If we get to count that then I am totally a world traveler!

Speaking of, I do have a post with 9 things you must have if you go to Disneyworld. And here’s how I did the city of Chicago in one day all by myself! And if you’re going to conferences of retreats, here’s one that you will like!

If you have more, hop over to Facebook and leave them in the comments….we’d all love to hear ’em!