An open and shut suitcase.

We are on the countdown.  3 days until our adventure begins. We have created list upon lists, conducted extensive research of travel blogs, Pinterest links and quizzed other traveling families over the course of the past 10 months. Yet despite being uber organised there’s still one thing that sends me to the edge.

Is it just me or does anyone else suffer from pretravel anxiety?  I love planning, making lists, researching destinations and exploring new places, but I hate the actual process of leaving the house.  Packing a suitcase would have to be my most loathed chore and I display behavour similar to being hangry!  The mental load of juggling work, home and 2 kids is often overwhelming enough, then throw in to the mix travel insurance, foreign currency, medications, spare clothes, snacks, travel sickness emergency packs. It’s the fear of forgetting to pack something important.  In reality there isn’t much that you can’t buy along the way but I seem to lose sight of that in the midst of my packing panic attacks.

The only way I was going to pull off a mammoth pack required for our 7 weeks winter adventure to Canada with 2 small kids was to schedule in a packing day. Send the said small children with Gam Gam and Popples for the weekend and just get stuck in with no distractions.

Our bedroom looked like our walk-in robe threw up for about 4 hours but in the end we had it sorted.  We had upgraded our suitcases earlier in the year taking advantage of a Strandbag sale and purchased 2 large and 2 cabin sized hard cased Antler Juno luggage. 376L of combined capacity seems plenty but traveling in winter requires so many bulky layers that they quickly filled.  At home I’ll wear the same clothes every day for a week but packing for a holiday I seem to pack like I’m going to change my clothes 3 times a day so pack EVERYTHING!  Not this time.  I had to be ruthless and only take the necessities. The biggest challenge we faced was making sure our larger bags were going to be under the 23kg weight limit.  The problem with 2 large bags and 2 smalls is that is difficult to distribute weight evenly. We had to abandon the idea of having 4 suitcases packed for each individual person instead putting all the heaviest items in the small cases like our shoes and toiletries and mixing the kids clothes in with ours.

Our packing tips:

1. Roll every item of clothing you can!
2. Packing Cubes.  They even made the job of packing and repacking while tackling our weight drama so much easier!
3. Vacuum Bags.  Amazing for bulky winter items like ski jackets and pants. 
4. Pack what you think you’ll need and then take ½ out and leave home
5. Plan your outfits ahead so everything is interchangeable.  Probably not that big of a deal to have a coordinated wardrobe when traveling in subzero temperatures and wearing the same ski jacket and pants every day. But still a good idea if you don’t want to be in the same outfit in every photo you take.
6. Invest in a luggage scale.  We didn’t and resorted to subtracting Ad’s weight from the bathroom scale total to calculate the weight of our bags. You can get them for like $9 from Officeworks so just get one.

With the school presentation mornings and break up days, tying up lose ends at work and wrapping the last of our Christmas presents I’m sure this week will fly.  Hopefully, all our preplanning will mean we can breathe easy and enjoy every moment of our adventure from the moment we arrive at Brisbane International on Thursday morning!