#2 Domestic Tourists & Clothing Organization

Welcome to the second post in the Domestic Tourists November Blog Series.  Today's post will be all about how to pack clothing for a long term move or cross-country trip.  This may seem simple, but there are plenty of tips, and tricks to help minimize space, and save you a ton of hassle and time, and we want to let you in on the secrets that we used to pack for our own trip.  

Roll Your Clothes
Not only will your clothes be wrinkle free, but this will save you a lot of room in the long run. By rolling your clothes instead of folding them you can stack clothes more easily.  I did this in our overnight bag (we only packed one small workout bag for our trip clothing), and everything fits perfectly.  This doesn't have to be done for just individual pieces.  You can pack an entire outfit in one roll to save even more space.  We have enough room for four days of travel, and then some.  This also includes our own plastic gallon size toiletry bags.  

Clothes Can Be Heavy! 
In my previous post i let it be known that i paired down from 7 storage containers to 4 storage containers.  Most of those containers were clothes....lots of them, and half of them were winter clothes because i was coming from Pennsylvania, and didn't know what to expect in California outside of summer.  Winter clothing can be extremely heavy (sweaters, sweats, anything with more weight than a t-shirt)  Be sure to do your research about the area you are traveling to.  On our way to Pennsylvania for example we will be encountering beginning of November temperatures across the country which will vary from (40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's) which is way off from the current California forecast which remains in the mid to high 80's.  This means that we needed to pack a variety of clothing, from hoodies, and jeans, to t-shirts, and shorts.  By pairing down i literally got rid of bagfuls of clothes that i hadn't worn in the last two years.  I either donated these clothes to The Salvation Army, or i gave them to a neighbor who i knew was around the same size as myself. These simple actions will not only make you feel better (because donating is awesome!), but it will take a significant amount of weight off of the car, and provide more room for other items.

Shoes Are The Worst!
Not only do i absolutely hate shoes (because of that i wear flip flops as far into the winter as i can), but they are a serious pain to pack if you aren't using boxes to store them in.  As much as i despise shoes, and even shopping for shoes, i do have quite a collection.  However, none of them are ones that can't get ruined or are high end.  My personal solution for this was to take a clean mesh laundry bag, and fill it with my shoes.  Not only does this allow for the shoes to be able to air out (i drive with my windows down most of the time even in the winter), but the bag fit perfectly on the ground behind my seat.  This prevented me from needing to add a storage bin back into the packing equation.

Random Items & Accessories
This might sound crazy, but i had an entire storage container full of scarves, socks, wash cloths, and other random pieces.  I made this storage bin the random items bin.  If it wasn't clothing, and it didn't fit in any other bag or box it went in this bin.  It is the equivalent of the "junk drawer" that most people have in their kitchen.  I am perfectly okay with this as i know that everything is still in its place, and will make it to the destination.  

The Overnight Bag
We have literally packed the basics.  These are the actual clothes that we will be wearing throughout our trip  I also packed several gallon size zip lock bags so that we can put our dirty clothes in them.  This way the car won't start to stink, and our clean, and dirty clothes are separated.  Apart from the items below the only other thing in our overnight bag are toiletries in gallon bags.

Emily
Flip Flops (i always wear flip flops which means no socks for me!)
4 t-shirts
1 pair of Jeans
1 pair of Leggings
1 hoodie (which will most likely just sit in the back seat for easy grabbing)
4 day's underwear
1 tank top (for sleeping)
1 pair of pajama shorts (for sleeping)

James
Sneakers
4 pairs of socks
4 t-shirts
1 Hoodie (back seat)
1 Pair of Jeans
1 Pair of Shorts
4 days worth of boxers (sleeps in boxers)

Packing clothing is in my opinion the hardest part of packing.  You need to figure out how to fit a whole lot of stuff into small spaces.  We hope that this post has been helpful for your travels.

How do you pack your clothes?  Let us know in the comments below!