So your trip is all planned, your hotels reserved, your itinerary all settled, but now you have to pack. And if you are traveling with children, you’re not just talking about one backpack. There are two concerns here: First, you’d like the packing process to be as simple and streamlined as possible. Second, you’d like to actually be able to make it through the airport without being crushed under a pile of luggage. Note that this advice is not specific to Iceland travel–I’m not telling you what to bring–that will be a future post, once we’ve seen what we have and haven’t used from our packing lists.
I have two separate sets of tips for the process, depending on your personality (or rather, your tolerance for mismatched clothing on your children). If you are willing to step back a little from the process, children who can count things and reach all their dresser drawers and closet hangers can pack their own suitcases. We start with a list of items to pack (verbal (one item at a time) for very young children, working up to a pictorial list and then to a written list once they can read). The kids can mark off each item with a marker once it has been packed. I do always still run down the list at the end with each kid: “Do you have three long sleeve shirts?” etc. to make sure they aren’t missing anything, but it saves a lot of time and whining–“I don’t like these pants!”–to let them pack their own suitcases. The con for this method is just that you have to be willing to let them wear what they picked out! Sometimes that means just letting it go when your child comes out wearing striped pants and a checked shirt. And sometimes it means being very specific with your list: Pants may mean sweatpants to a tween boy, and if you want him to have a pair of khakis, it will need to say that on the list.
While that is the method we prefer, it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. If that method isn’t right for your family, my sister has a method that works very well for her family. Maybe it will work better for you? She packs each individual outfit (including socks, underwear, even hair accessories, if they are needed) in an individual bag, usually a plastic grocery bag, within the larger suitcase. The con for this method is that it does take more time up front from the parent. However, while traveling, the child just pulls out a bag and has everything he needs!
No matter what method you use for packing, you still want to minimize the amount of luggage you are dragging along behind you. We have two tips for helping with this. First, each child gets his or her own suitcase. From about 3 or 4, a child is perfectly capable of pulling a carry-on size wheeled suitcase through an airport. (And at that age, they are usually excited to do so!) Second, we don’t pack any more than will fit in that suitcase, plus a small bag of stuff to do on the plane. How do we do that? We never pack more than 4 or so days worth of clothes, even for a longer trip. We nearly always plan to do laundry while we are traveling. When you have small children with you, this usually isn’t too much of a scheduling problem–throw a load in at night after kids go to bed and before parents do. So far we haven’t had problems finding laundry facilities. I hope that continues!
Do you have better tips for packing with children? If so, please share them with us!
Lora,
We are “practice packing” this week for our trip soon, using a luggage scale to make sure we’re not over our weight limit. My 13-year-old daughter is not so happy that she has to economize, as she’s at an age where she wants to change clothes quite often. When we visited France a few years ago, we took just about anything we wanted, but for Iceland I’m committed to taking the minimum. It makes so much sense, as so many people usually say they take way too much.
Our airbnb host has said we can use her washing machine, but she has no dryer, so we’ll see how that works out. I’m taking simply a sports bag, and my daughter will have her own boxy-type luggage on wheels, which meets the size restrictions just right. She has a list of things she wants to take, and after she’s packed it all in, we’ll weigh it and determine whether she has to delete some items (which I’m betting she’ll have to do) or can actually add more.
After she told me that her list included three books, I said uh-oh, that’s gonna be too heavy. So I’ve begun to get acquainted w/ our local library’s ebook loan service along w/ Overdrive, the app for digital book borrowing. If you’re interested, I’ll let you know how that turns out.
I’ve been enjoying your blog and look forward to hearing more. Thank you!
Hello Sally!
My kids are never far from their books, either. While they did indeed pack some books, we also brought two Kindles to share. Our library does use Overdrive, and though the selection is not stellar, it is much better than nothing! For older titles (out of copyright), you can also download books from Project Gutenberg. One important thing to be aware of when downloading books outside of the US (this is for Kindle, not sure how Nooks work) is that Amazon will charge you for the data use unless you are on wifi. (But you will likely be able to find wifi or just download the books before you leave!)
Good luck with the packing, and have a good trip!
So cool of you to respond so quickly, Lora.
We have an old Kindle but not sure we’ll take it. I didn’t realize we could borrow books on it, but now I’ll look in to it and maybe access a few just before we leave. For me, there’s nothing like a real book in hand, so I’m gonna take one even if I have to leave something else.
How’s the weather up there?
Hi. Where did you do laundry? At your AirBnB? We are staying at hotels and worried about doing laundry…
Hi! Since we are a large family, we stayed in a lot of houses we found on AirBNB, or apartments from booking.com. And many of them had laundry facilities, and that worked well enough for us.
You’ll have to check with your hotel to see if they have any options. If not, some hostels have laundry facilities, so you can see if there’s one close to your hotel. If you’ll be in Reykjavik, you could try to Laundromat Cafe. Downstairs, they have laundry facilities along with a family dining area. It’s often crowded, so you may want to try this at an off time, but it might be fun to eat while you handle your laundry. See a picture of the downstairs area in this post.