Packing for Costa Rica

So we're headed to Costa Rica in a few days.  I decided to take my mom's advice and start packing early.  No packing the night before and pulling an all nighter.  So, on Saturday  night, I started by making a big list.  The list is always the hardest, but if done right, I'm not scrambling and worrying about forgetting stuff.

Then I started piling stuff on the bed.  The most time-consuming part of packing is clothing.  I blogged before about packing for trips and I'm using my "pack by day" method again.  Here's the trick.  I figure out what we are doing each day, then pick outfits for me, Maki and CJ for each day.  These outfits include everything we need: underwear, socks, shirt, pants, socks.  The pile for the day goes into the suitcase as a pile.  I'm even considering putting post-it notes on the piles so that Maki can figure out who wears what.  :-)

This method is fabulous because it means you are only pulling out what you need, no fishing through piles of t-shirts, pants, socks, etc. and pulling everything out of the suitcase.

Now, of course it might rain and we need a second change of clothes. Or plans change.  Or someone gets sick and needs to change.  In this case, I have extra clothing in another suitcase; I am packing 3 sets of extra clothing for each of us, more for CJ.  The second suitcase also includes our books, CJ's toys, electronic plugs, etc.  This suitcase gets unpacked and re-packed more often.  I love this method.  It's time-consuming but I do it for every trip now and it keeps me sane.