Three Things Thursday: Travel Edition

This week has been all about recapping our fun Memorial Day weekend travels. As I mentioned in my two previous posts, we traveled to 2 different states and 4 different cities for J & T's wedding festivities this week. It was quiet an experience traveling so much in such a short time and still being relaxed and able to enjoy it all. So for this week I wanted to share my three new packing essentials that I found super helpful this week.

One: A Steamer

I absolutely hate ironing, but I'm also very particular about having wrinkle free clothes. My mom has been telling me to get a steamer for some time now, but I've always been a little skeptical the smaller ones out on the market. So, when I was at Target last week buying some last minute essentials for my trip and saw this steamer on sale, I did hesitate a bit at first. 

However, I thought what better time to try it than now? I had to pack so many outfits for this trip and they were bound to get wrinkled no matter now well I packed. If it didn't work then I knew the hotel rooms would have an iron anyways. I didn't even bother to try it out before packing it. I have to say, although it is a handheld steamer, it is a bit bulkier than others. But since I was planning on checking in a bag anyways, it didn't matter much to me. Plus, I love Target... I know that if I don't like it I can easily return it.

Conair Steamer via Target

I pretty much ended up using it to touch up most of my outfits, plus a couple of Chirag's. My brother-in-law loved it as well. You have to be a bit careful using it on Indian clothes since steam than sometimes tarnish the embellishments on your outfit. It worked well for me overall, however some of the reviews stated that it stopped working after a few tries. So far, I have used it on 6 different outfits, and it's priced really well compared to other handheld steamers out there. I probably won't pack it for every single trip, but I do think if you are traveling for a special occasion then it's a must. So if it continues to work I do plan on keeping it. 

Two: Packing Cubes

I have been hearing about packing cubes for sometime now. I've been wanting to give these Eagle Creek packing cubes a try, but I just never got around to ordering them online. Luckily, trusty old Target had a great alternative I was able to purchase in store, literally the night before our trip. I bought these on the fly. I didn't have as high of expectation from these, but they did the job. These are slightly more flimsy than the Eagle Creek ones, but I do like the mesh top and the different sizes. 

Packing Cubes via Target

It really made packing so easy and really helped when I had to pack and re-pack so much during our trip as we went in between different cities. I was able to keep one of the packing cubes strictly for "to wash" clothes and so it was nice to keep clothes separated once worn. I also think these would be super helpful if you have kids and planning on packing for them all in the same bag. If you haven't tried packing cubes before I would definitely recommend giving either one of these version a try. I plan on ordering the Eagle Creek ones for my next trip.  

Three: Outfit Pictures

I'm sure this may sound silly to some people, but for me this was extremely helpful this trip. I laid out each and every single outfit, with shoes and accessories and snapped a quick picture on my iphone before packing it up. See this post. It really helped me be well prepared and a lot less stressed when getting ready... especially since most nights we were going to bed around 1-2am and getting up around 6am! As you can imagine my brain was not functioning very well on less than 4 hours of sleep a night. The night before, I could easily look at the iphone picture and know right away what I had planned on wearing and feel relieved that I already had thought of all the little details. I would highly suggest trying this out on your next trip... I promise you, you'll be glad you did! :)

FYI: None of the links in this post are affiliated.

So, those were my top three from this week. I hope you found it helpful! Are you interested joining #3TT? Please visit the hosts: Salma, Raj, or Nisha's blog, for all the details on how to join the linkup.


What are some of your travel essentials?