Life Overseas

Anyone who has spent any appreciable amount of time away from home will be familiar with the almighty nightmare which packing can turn into at very short notice. Avoiding this deep misery is a matter of forward planning, and if you take the time to spread the task over a longer stretch of time you can make sure that it is done correctly as well as not concentrating one of the more soul-destroying aspects of traveling into the hours before you leave. The ideal situation is to be packed by bedtime the night before you set off. By “bedtime”, you should understand this to mean normal bedtime, not 3am for a 6am start. If you are going to be driving the next day you should be aiming for an early night.

Think of all the things that packing means to you. There is the ultimate microcosm of what packing entails; a situation which arises approximately just after it becomes too late to turn back, when you suddenly think “did I remember to pack my cell phone charger?” Usually you will have – with many people it is one of the first things to go into the luggage, as long as you have not had to charge your phone the night before (in which case, ideally you will have packed it in the morning just after you took your phone and put it in your pocket). But the dawning realization that you have forgotten something is the spur for all advice to pack the night before – it allows you to do things at leisure rather than rushing around in a panic.

It helps to make a list before you begin to pack. Sit and really think about things. This may not be a particularly exciting experience, but where packing is concerned excitement is an optional extra. It may be quite a rush asking everyone in the house “HAVE YOU SEEN MY INFLATABLE PILLOW?”, but it is one you can do without when there is a road trip to be negotiated. Listing all that you need to take in advance of the trip allows you to pack it as and when you can – there is no point in going back into the luggage to bring something out because you still need it at home.

Whether you load the luggage into the car the night before you go is up to you. As a rule of thumb you should do it if the car is kept in a locked garage, but not if it is parked outside. If the car is stolen on the one night a year when all of your stuff is in it, that can only put a sour note on your holiday experience. If the luggage is in the car overnight, however, it can be a simple matter of lightly waking the kids and getting them to go to the bathroom before loading them into the car where they can sleep away the first few hours of the trip – shortening the journey for them and allowing you to get a jump-start on the day.