Get Organised for Travel

In some studies, a massive 89% of people report that while travel is enjoyable, it is also stressful and difficult to plan. Would you be part of this 89%?

If so, I have just the blog post for you! Here are some things to consider, as well as an appropriate timeline to turn your travelling experience into a joyful one, from the planning stages to when you step back inside your home.

Your trip is booked! Now our focus is on the planning phase, to ensure a smooth departure and a beautifully stress-free time away.

6 months - 3 months before you go:

  • Is your passport in date? What about your family members?

  • Do you need to book in any vaccinations to ensure you’re medically protected in your destination country?

One month / a few weeks before you go:

Planning each day with a simple note on my phone

  1. RESEARCH PHASE - I like to create a new note on my phone, which contains a list of the days we’re away. For each day, I make a note of our location and activities we anticipate doing each day, as well as any restaurants we’re interested in trying. Depending on the country we’re visiting, I make reservations at this time too.

  2. Save your favourite restaurants, attractions and hotels on Google Maps. Doing this in advance saves a lot of time when you’re away - hours will be lost to researching options when you’re trying to relax on holiday.

  3. PETS - make care arrangements for pets if they are not travelling with you.

  4. INSURANCE - Ensure you have appropriate travel insurance in place.

The week before you travel:

Use up the items in your fridge to avoid wastage

5. USE UP THE FOOD ITEMS IN YOUR FRIDGE: Create a meal plan to avoid food wastage, and use up fresh produce. Happy meal planning!

6. CREATE A NEW FOLDER ON YOUR PHONE HOMEPAGE: For apps you will rely upon at your destination. I needed to download a number of apps for my recent trip to Japan, and having them stored in one folder was such a time-saver during my time away.

7. CURRENCY: Purchase the desired amount of currency at your local travel exchange. Airport kiosks typically offer rates that are 5% to 10% worse than the actual market rate. You can keep an eye on the currency conversion rates away through using your phone calculator; you don’t need to download an additional app for this purpose. For a tutorial on how to do this, please check out my Instagram Reel.

8. If you’re travelling to a city, I would highly recommend the free app CityMapper to help you with trains, buses, taxis and walk routes. It works well in over 100 cities, and the app automatically switches cities when you arrive.


A few days before you travel:

9. PACKING: Use the KonMari tidying order of categories to help you pack:

  • clothing (including shoes, swimwear, bags and accessories)

  • books (include magazines)

  • paperwork (passports, tickets, confirmations etc.)

  • electronics (travel adapters, travel iron, travel hairdryer/steamer, laptops, iPads, phones and headphones etc.)

  • stationery (pens, notebooks etc.)

  • bathroom products

  • makeup

  • medical

  • children’s items (clothing, books, toys)

  • other

I like to lay everything out on my bed as you can see in this reel…

For a full guide on how to ‘KonMari your suitcase’, read my blog. It’s one of the most frequently visited blogs in my whole blog catalogue!


11. CARRY-ON BAG: Consider packing a spare outfit and swimsuit in your carry-on luggage, to prepare for the unlikely event of your suitcase getting lost.

Interestingly: globally, airlines mishandle about 6.9 bags per 1,000 passengers, which equates to a mishandling rate of less than 0.7%. However, the vast majority of these bags are only delayed rather than lost forever. Your actual chance of permanently losing a bag is only about 0.03% to 0.04% (or roughly 1 in 3,000 checked bags).

12. FOLD your items and stand them upright. Don’t be fooled into purchasing packing cubes and clever suitcase storage options. Through experience, I believe folding is the best way to save space in your suitcase and this is mathematically true according to experts at Which? Travel:

‘Our results show you can forget the hype around vacuum packing and compression cubes. Even rolling our clothes didn’t give us an advantage. Instead, we found that folding was best. We fitted 129 garments across all four bags using this technique – that’s 16 more pieces of clothing than vacuum packing.’

13. Check-in online if you’re flying: Checking in online can save you anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour at the airport, depending on whether you are traveling with checked luggage. That’s time back in your day for a chilled out coffee and slice of cake before you set off!

Let me know if you found this post helpful in the comments, and more importantly, tell me where you’re heading off to. I’m always on the lookout for traveling inspiration!

Katrina HassanComment