Road Trip Must-haves, and a way to organize them!

As teachers, we all bring our own skills into the classroom – for me, that includes high levels of organization. It makes sense that this would also play a role in other parts of my life. I’ve learned to make organization work for me, and that was definitely true when prepping for our latest road trip. I had to share a genius road trip hack that was such a lifesaver!

When we take a road trip I like to make sure we have a stash of all the things that you don’t know you need until you REALLY need them. In the past I’ve thrown these all in a pouch and stashed them in the car, but I’ve found that I don’t actually use them because it’s such a chore to sift through everything and find what I need. This little trick changed that and I truly used so many of these items this time around.

Here’s the “before” of everything that I dumped from the zip pouch that was still in my car from our last trip:

I sorted all of it into groups that made sense (first-aid, hair, etc.) and put them into the pouches in this roll-up cosmetic bag:

I could easily see what I had, and find what I was looking for! The best thing about this particular bag is that the smaller pouches velcro to the roll-up piece, so you can take just one pouch if you need to. Here’s what I included (with affiliate links so that you can add them to your cart) – the items I use the most are noted with an *

• Medicine (see below)
• Band Aid Hydroseal Blister Cushions*
• Thermometer
• Large bandages
• Eye Drops
• Band Aids
• Babyganics Sunscreen stick
• Kids Dramamine
• Mini Wet Brush
• Bobby Pins
• Hair ties
• Manicure set*
• Kleenex
• Lotion
• Buggy Bands
• Small garbage bags
• Ziplock Bags*
• Grocery Bags
• Twist ties
• Masks
• Bath and Body Works Hand Sanitizer*
• Reusable straws
• SPF Chapstick
• EOS Lip Balm
• Gum
• Floss

I was looking for a way to take the medicines we use regularly, without packing the entire bottle – and I didn’t want to buy another pill organizer. I found this little case and added some labels using my much-loved Niimbot label maker. Voila! Excellent medicine case!

This was all so helpful, and it made me feel really confident about heading out on a trip (which is hard when you’re taking a young child)! Now that We’re back, I’m trying to decide if I should keep all of this in my car all the time, or use the cosmetic bag for something else, because I have a ton of other ideas – what do you think?