It's the night before the holiday. There are four open suitcases on the landing, somebody's crying about a missing teddy, and you're trying to remember if you packed the chargers or just thought about packing them.
Holiday packing goes wrong for the same reason every time: the list gets made from scratch, in a hurry, the night before. The fix is to write it once, properly, and reuse it.
“The best packing list is the one you only write once.”
Split it by person, then by bag
A single long list is hard to use when four people are packing at once. Split it: a section for each person, and a shared section for the things the family needs (first aid, chargers, documents, snacks for the journey).
Then note which bag each thing goes in. When it's time to find the suncream on the first day, you'll know it's in the blue bag without unpacking three.
The things everyone forgets
After a few trips, you'll notice the same things go missing. Put them at the top of the list:
- Passports, tickets, insurance documents and the European Health Insurance Card or GHIC
- Every charger, plus a plug adaptor
- Any regular medicines, Calpol, plasters and antihistamines
- The comfort toy, and something for the journey for each child
- A change of clothes for each child in the hand luggage
Start the week before
Packing is the last step, not the first. The week before is when things like travel insurance, the pet sitter and the out-of-office quietly need doing. Give them a checklist of their own, and a date for each item: order currency on Monday, confirm the cattery on Tuesday, check passports well before that.
Check passport expiry dates months ahead, not the week before. Some countries need several months left on a passport to let you in, and the rules vary, so look up your destination on the GOV.UK foreign travel advice pages.
Let kids pack their own bag
From about six or seven, children can pack their own bag from their section of the list, with a grown-up checking at the end. They're more likely to have what they want, you've got one less bag to do, and nobody can blame you for the missing swimming goggles.
After the trip, fix the list
The two minutes after you unpack are when the list gets better. What did you not use? What did you have to buy there? Cross off, add, and save it for next time. By the third trip, the list is practically perfect.
A shared list works well for this. In Noa, everyone can tick things off as they pack, and the list is still there, ready, for the next trip.