Going Home Packing List

 

Before leaving your holiday or business destination, check your going home packing list.You need your suitcase and suitcase keys and any strap used to secure or help identify your suitcase.

Colourful peacock feather wheeled suitcase, for fast identification. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

You need.

1 Fill the car with petrol if leaving a country where petrol is cheaper. For example, leaving Spain for England. 

(In Singapore you are not allowed to leave with a low tank and fill up in Malaysia. Check local regulations.)

2 Have your home door keys ready. Make a note of were you left them, with a neighbour, in an outside pocket of a suitcase, an inside pocket of a jacket, with your travelling companion. If you cannot send yourself an email or WhatsApp, because there is not connection, make a note on your phone, or use your laptop's Word document, or simply make a note in your diary for the date of return. To avoid informing potential thieves, you might disguise your note.

3 Have home country money in one place ready for buying milk or paying the taxi from the airport. Have the foreign country money handy to remove the weight from your pocket, donate to charity at the airport, or save for your next trip 9noting where it is stored, eg beside your passport back home.

4 List vital things to do on return. For example, paying bills, gardening, watering plants, confirming babysitting or gardening, stocking up with food, voting!

Wishing you smooth sailing, literally and metaphorically.

Save notes on packing in the lid of your suitcase or the back of your bedroom door.

Save useful posts with a bookmark or printing them and leaving a copy in your suitcase. 

ROOM CHECK LIST

1 Check bedroom, bathroom, balcony.

2 Check bed area, under bed, in bed, under pillow, under duvet, bedside table, under bedside table.

3 Check fridge.

4 Check all cupboards, wardrobes, sliding drawers, wardrobes again for jacket, top shelf for hat,.

5 Check around hotel. Anything in a hotel safe, hotel pool, locker, left for safekeeping at reception, loaned to a fellow traveller or colleague.

6 Return hotel keys. 

7 Check you have passcode to get your car out of the hotel garage.

8 Ask for a packed lunch, pick up your ordered packed lunch, have a last coffee, or last toilet stop near reception.

9 Check the number of suitcases, plus hats, coats, jackets, umbrellas, maps, camera bags, laptops, phones.

10 Stow in the car boot (Americans call it the trunk) all valuables out of sight. 

Please share links with your family, friends and colleagues.