We pack kid clothes in ziplocks or packing cubes in a Rubbermaid tote. Bring in only what you need based on weather, activities, etc. Adults like pick and choose outfits day of so we tend to pack in our own bags and bring the whole thing in. One bag is toiletries, nightlight for the bathroom, pjs, swimsuits, and gadgets that always comes in.

We have a bin that stays in the car and dirty laundry goes in there so it’s not coming in and out needlessly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most people leave stuff in their bag when staying at a hotel, so why would you need to pack differently? Bring bag in lay down on luggage rack. Unzip. Enjoy your time. Zip up. Go to next destination, rinse and repeat.

And you must know the greatest weather person on earth if you can pre-pack for multiple stops over any extended period.

What if you decide to go to a nicer place for dinner? Or decide to do something that requires a different type of clothing?

I'm guessing the OP has kids. I can certainly relate. We were road warriors with four kids under six. Lugging two weeks' worth of stuff up to the room at every stop was exhausting, especially when it was usually just one of us doing the unloading since the other would be watching the kids.

The number of people with 4 kids under 6 is pretty slim.

We did a 2 week roadtrip last summer, kids were 4 and 6. I packed both kids' outfits for the in a gallon ziplock, I had enough for the first half of the trip and labeled each bag by location (day would work too, but I did by location bc it helped me figure out what kind of clothes they would need.

A pair of PJs and underwear, toiletries, and essentials (chargers, etc) in a small weekender bag so I could get to them quickly when we reached our destination, usually close to or past bedtime.

My clothes were in packing cubes, 3 outfits in each, and their extra clothes and pjs were in another. I had a couple places in mind mid-trip where I could do laundry.

This system worked well, we could get into the hotel in one trip and with the cubes/bags we didn't have to rifle through the suitcase. I've done the similar for shorter trips since.

Anonymous wrote:Most people leave stuff in their bag when staying at a hotel, so why would you need to pack differently? Bring bag in lay down on luggage rack. Unzip. Enjoy your time. Zip up. Go to next destination, rinse and repeat.

And you must know the greatest weather person on earth if you can pre-pack for multiple stops over any extended period.

What if you decide to go to a nicer place for dinner? Or decide to do something that requires a different type of clothing?

I'm guessing the OP has kids. I can certainly relate. We were road warriors with four kids under six. Lugging two weeks' worth of stuff up to the room at every stop was exhausting, especially when it was usually just one of us doing the unloading since the other would be watching the kids.

What I always do: hiking backpacks with minimalist wardrobe and cooler with food staples. I've done this for road trips with or without airplanes, with an Embassy/dressy event each time, and it's the least voluminous way and annoying way of traveling. That's why backpackers do it! It's the work of just a moment to locate stuff within each pack (one per person, or one for two, depending on the trip), and to repack each morning. The key is to have the minimal amount of stuff and to pack smartly so that you locate everything at a glance.

Most people leave stuff in their bag when staying at a hotel, so why would you need to pack differently? Bring bag in lay down on luggage rack. Unzip. Enjoy your time. Zip up. Go to next destination, rinse and repeat.

And you must know the greatest weather person on earth if you can pre-pack for multiple stops over any extended period.

What if you decide to go to a nicer place for dinner? Or decide to do something that requires a different type of clothing?

We traveled across the country for a month last year with four kids ages 3-10. I ended up just getting colored duffel bags for each of us with matching packing cubes. We dragged the bags into and out of the hotels every time. Some stays were 1 night, some were up to 4 nights. DH didn't feel safe leaving everything in the car. It was fine, and the cubes helped keep the bag contents from exploding everywhere.

It doesn't matter. It'll be a shit-show no matter which way you do things.

Anonymous wrote:we take a two week road trip each year. What I do is the packing cubes and label them. So, I have one cube labelled "kids pj's" "dad shirts" "mom long sleeve" "bathing suits" and so on. So, it is very easy to find only what you need and not have a suitcase explosion. Those can usually fit in two duffels. I have a third suitcase for miscellaneous like towels, rain coats, extra shoes. I have one laundry bag that I use for dirty clothes and try to do laundry at least twice.

I do something like this except I use the 2 gallon size zipper top bags, labeled by category. They’re great because you can easily see what you have in each bag. The clear bags are much less expensive than packing cubes and serve the same purpose. I’ve been using the same bags for more than ten years now.

we take a two week road trip each year. What I do is the packing cubes and label them. So, I have one cube labelled "kids pj's" "dad shirts" "mom long sleeve" "bathing suits" and so on. So, it is very easy to find only what you need and not have a suitcase explosion. Those can usually fit in two duffels. I have a third suitcase for miscellaneous like towels, rain coats, extra shoes. I have one laundry bag that I use for dirty clothes and try to do laundry at least twice.

We've tried this a few times, and it always fell apart by the second or third day. The only time it works is when we had a brief stopover on the way to our ultimate destination. We packed a single overnight bag with pajamas, toiletries and clean underwear for everyone, and everything else stayed in the car for the ten or twelve hours we were there.

The other thing to be mindful of is the security at each of your locations. If you are driving a van or SUV, you might not want to be leaving a lot of belongings in the car in a hotel parking lot. You might end up bringing everything up to the room anyway.

One bag for each location sounds like....a lot of excess baggage.

We drove cross-country DC to SoCal and back last year with our toddler. We had one big suitcase we'd bring into the hotel that had all our clean clothes. Dirty laundry remained in the car in another suitcase.

You need less clothes than you realize. You can wear the same pair of pants or shots for multiple days (assuming you don't spill on them). You only really need a fresh shirt and underwear.

Now that our kid is older, we'd be able to pack a lot lighter.

The best thing: we have a powered cooler that we kept in the trunk space of our Subaru Outback. We also had cold food and drinks in there. It was easy to pull, open the trunk, and grab a cold yogurt for our kid. No need to deal with ice. We'd usually stop at a supermarket every other day and replenish the fridge, grab more milk for our toddler, etc.

Are you traveling with kids?

I remember my mom doing something very organized back in our childhood when we took a 5 week long car trip around the US. We had a family with 2 parents and 4 kids between ages 4 and 12. She found (well actually, sewed!) duffel bags just large enough to fit clothing for all six of us for one day. Then packed 7 duffel bags with all our underwear, socks, shorts and shirts etc. And one extra duffel bag had our PJs and toiletries

So each night she just grabbed two duffels. One with out night time stuff and the second one for the next day. We put the dirty clothes back into the duffel bag that had our clean clothes. She was super organized so the colors went in the order of the rainbow, red-orange-yellow etc. So when all 7 duffels were through, we stopped at a laundromat and did the wash, then repacked.

Each of us kids also had our own personal tote bag that we were responsible for as well for anything else we wanted in the motel room or camping spot each night.

I’d use packing cubes and bring a laundry bag

We are soon taking a road trip where we will be stopping at multiple locations for two nights each stop. I’m thinking of, instead of individual suitcases/bags, packing those Thirty One-style open top tote bags, one for each location with just the clothes we need for everyone for those days, and a separate bag with toiletries. The totes can the. be used for dirty laundry.

But, if there is a more efficient way, I’d love to hear it! Give me your road trip packing hacks, please!