It’s time to use up those vacation days you’ve been saving and visit some bold new destination where you can eat something new, shop somewhere different, and most of all, relax—just make sure you read up on our travel advice first. Sometimes vacay sounds fabulous in theory, but without the right travel tips, planning can be so stressful and time-consuming that it ends up ruining the vacation itself—or at least, provides a major deterrent to trying something new and exciting.
To help make your trip ridiculously easy, we put together 13 tips that will help you plan your trip, pack for your trip, and, best of all, enjoy your trip—with way less stress. Impress your friends with your trip-planning skills, and use these killer packing tips to make sure all your fabulous outfits and makeup arrive intact.
Planning
1. Use an “Incognito Window” when searching for flights and hotels. Some companies will boost the prices just because you’ve been searching the web for prices.
2. If you’re looking to buy a flight ticket, wait until 3 p.m. on Tuesdays. Studies indicate this is the cheapest day/time to do it.
3. Whenever you’re searching for flights/hotels online, google the words “promo,” “discount,” “coupon,” or “corporate code” with the destination’s name. You never know what little deals might be lurking out there!
Packing
4. Nothing is more annoying than having your phone, laptop, and/or iPad chargers tangled all over your suitcase. Organize these pesky little chargers in a spare glasses case.
5. Throwing all your jewelry in a baggy and going on your way will only cause frustration when you go to grab a necklace and it’s knotted with others. Use a pill container to keep them separated (and avoid tangles!).
6. Rolling your clothes instead of folding them will save tons of baggage space—which means you can pack more outfits! Yay.
7. Put a shower cap around your shoes to make sure the dirty soles don’t end up getting surrounding clothes dirty, too.
8. For any delicate items you want to pack, wrap them in tissue paper. This will keep them from getting wrinkled or crushed.
9. For any items that you don’t want damaging your clothes or electronics—like toothpaste, makeup or shampoo—use a Ziploc!
10. After carefully wrapping all your beauty items (and packing them in plastic bags, as needed), place your beauty products in the middle of your suitcase to cushion them and avoid breakage.
11. To protect any fragile products (i.e. glass foundations, fragrances), pack them inside your sneakers since the cushion can help to protect them. If you aren’t opting for sneakers on your vacation, wrap each fragile item inside a pair of rolled socks.
12. Protect your compact powders by surrounding them with soft things like sponges or sweatshirts. And definitely don’t put them at the bottom on your bag.
13. For an extra layer of protection on any bottles filled with liquids, wrap your products in a plastic cling wrap. To be extra safe, duct tape any caps or pop-top openings.
