A little about packing

Our bags, ready to go!

I want to talk about packing today. It IS, after all, a big part of our trip. We do it every single week.

It’s not the most enjoyable part, as you figure when you watch the interview with the kids (here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3). If you could see their eyes rolling as they answered those questions….

Still, it’s not something we can skip.

On the day before we leave, we do laundry and clean the house. We don’t deep clean, just put things back in place, vacuum, mop and leave things as they were when we arrived. It usually takes around 1 hour, but depending on the house and the mess, it might take a bit more or less. If we’re in a motel, or paying the cleaning fee, we only put what we moved back in place.

It’s also the day when we use up all the food we have left. We usually do the laundry in the morning and the rest is done at the end of the day.

Usually, the clothes are dry by the end of the day, so we put everything inside our packing cells and the cells inside the bags. When that’s done, we place all the bags near the door and go to bed. Make everything fit inside the packing cell is the part that takes up most time.

In the morning, we put everything in the car, double check the house (to see if we forgot something and if everything is in place) and leave. We’re really good at it now so we do it in around 30 minutes. It used to take up to one hour for the first month.

We carry:

– Clothes and toys – in each person’s backpack and handbags

– Stationary stuff – paper, scissors, pens, pencils, erasers, sharpener, Blutack, boards – they all go in one bag. It used to be full, but now it would probably fit in one supermarket plastic bag

– Kitchen bag – one thermal bag with all our cooking things, like oil, salt, flour, sugar, etc. It would probably fit inside 2 supermarket plastic bags. It’s basically all the stuff we couldn’t use up.

– Kitchen box – this one contains pasta, zip lock bags, tea, baking paper, etc. Basically, all the stuff we over bought but it’s still closed off and won’t make a mess in the car in case it tips over. It’s about the size of 2 shoe boxes. It used to be overflowing, but now it’s barely full.

– Toiletry bag – full of the stuff we still have left, like extra soap bars, shower caps, nail polish remover and things we rarely use.

We have 2 bags that were used on the roof of the car, but as we let go of our things, we kind of didn’t need them anymore. Now they’re using up space under our bags in the trunk. Luckily, they fold up nice and small.

Our backpacks are also super full because they’re full of winter clothes. We’ll give away half of everything when we leave Auckland.

Of course, there’s the unpacking, which consists of removing everything from the car and placing them in the right place: kitchen stuff in the kitchen, bathroom stuff in the bathroom and the bags go to each person’s room. No taking clothes from the bag into closets. We don’t do that. We keep them as much as possible in the packing cells.

In this video, you’ll see us struggling with the roof bag still, haha and packing in the morning. On that day, we had a late check-out so we were able to do that.

We hope you enjoy it and subscribe to our Youtube channel! Tell us if you’d be interested in a video with packing tips!