It’s super-high tech. It’s super high-end.

It’s a bag of gallon Ziplock bags.

Mic drop.

Hear me out! We’ve been using this cheap, easy hack packing for a family vacation for the last two years, and I will never go back. It makes planning what to pack, keeping track of multiple kids’ clothes and remembering what is dirty and what’s clean a breeze.

Vacation is meant to be relaxing, not stressful, so the next time you’re packing for a family trip, try this travel trick. You’ll wish you started ages ago.

The best hack for packing kids’ clothes for vacation

Packing like a pro is straightforward. Here’s how:

1. Pack one outfit per bag. Include everything you need for a complete outfit—including underwear, socks, headbands, the whole shebang.
2. Include at least one outfit per day. My kids count how many days we’ll be gone and we pack that many bags—plus extras. ‘Cause I don’t know about your kids, but mine find ways to get waaaaaaaay messy (mac n cheese! sand! glitter!), no matter what, so we pack extras.
3. Involve the kids. Each of my girls, even the toddler, pack their own clothes in the Ziplock bag—and they love it! In fact, recently I was trying to be efficient and packed the bags myself and both girls lost their minds. I had to take everything out and let them redo it. Bonus: Picking out their own outfits makes them excited to get dressed once we reach our destination, so it’s not a fight to get them out of their PJs.
4. Label—if you want. Feel free to label each bag with the day of the week of your family vacation. This step is overkill for our family, and the girls like the flexibility of picking whatever outfit strikes their fancy, but it might work for you.

No-stress packing for family vacation

Here’s why I love this family travel hack:

It takes the guesswork out of packing. I know exactly what clothes to pack for my kids and how much of everything I need. And once I’m packed, I’m confident I have enough of everything. No running to the store to buy extra underwear!

It separates clean and dirty clothes. Clean clothes are in Ziplocks, dirty clothes are in their own bag, and never the two shall meet.

It makes coordinating outfits easy. When you have a mess of pants, tops and dresses jumbled in a suitcase, it’s mayhem trying to find a matching outfit. Organizing outfits in Ziplock bags means less stress on vacation.

Extra travel tips to be a pro packer

Want to make packing for a family vacation packing even easier? Try out these other organization hacks the next time your family plans a trip.

• Color coordinate your Ziplock bags. Ziplock makes colored bags around the holidays (green and red at Christmas, etc.). Buy a few extras when you see them at the store and assign a color to each kid. Then it’s easy to see whose clothes are whose—at a glance.
• Don’t go generic. We’ve used gallon plastic bags from the Dollar Store before, and they just don’t hold up. Now I buy brand name bags, and we reuse them for all our family trips.
• Bring a dirty clothes bag. As soon as clothes come off, they go straight into a dirty clothes bag. That way they’re all together (no cross-contamination!), and I just dump it straight into the washer when we get home.

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