Clothing 
Toiletries For many people, a long-awaited vacation is the best time of the year. Packing a suitcase can be exciting, but it often raises the question: what should you bring on vacation? What do you really need, and what will just take up space in your bag?
Many popular tourist spots have plenty of stores where you can buy supplies and things you forgot, but explaining to the staff what you need can be tricky. So what should a vacation shopping list include?
The most important thing is… your travel bag!
Sometimes you’ve gathered everything that’s perfect for the trip, only to find you don’t have a bag that can hold it all.
Investing in a good suitcase is key, so you don’t have to worry about your luggage while you travel and relax. Just make sure it suits how you’re getting there. When you drive your own car, you’re not very limited, but at airport check-in the same bag can cause more trouble than it’s worth.
There’s an impressive range of travel bags to choose from, but medium-size hard-shell models are the most popular. They give you enough room to pack clothes and everyday items for one person for at least a week.
What to bring on vacation and how to pack it
Another factor that largely affects how long your vacation shopping list can be is the way you pack your suitcases.
To save a lot of space, you can roll your clothes instead of folding them. Rolled items fit snugly together, so they also make a great protective layer for electronics or more delicate clothing. Rolling also helps you skip the ironing, and as everyone knows, that’s nobody’s favorite vacation activity.
Categories for your vacation list
A vacation shopping list should be divided by what each item is needed for, so it works for every family.
When you travel with kids, for example, you can’t forget something to keep them busy if the weather turns bad, while for singles this won’t matter at all. It’s the same with tech gadgets. Some people are fine with a compact camera, others need room for tripods and a drone. So think ahead about what you really need to have a good time.
Before you finalize your vacation shopping list, it’s also worth finding out what your hotel provides. Most hotels, even mid-range ones, offer laundry, dryers, towels, kids’ toys and other things that take up a lot of space in a travel bag.
What to buy on your first shop in a rental kitchen
A rented apartment comes with a kitchen and nothing to cook in it. Shop for the first evening only, not for the whole week, because you don’t yet know what that kitchen can do.
Work through it in this order:
- Open the cupboards first. Salt, oil, sugar, and sometimes coffee are left behind by whoever stayed last.
- Check that the fridge is cold before you fill it. The line for perishable food is 40°F (4°C) or below (FDA), and a rental fridge left standing empty is often set higher.
- Buy one dinner you can cook tonight, plus breakfast: something to fry, something to go with it, bread, butter, milk, coffee or tea, and fruit.
- Buy spices and oil in the smallest size on the shelf. Anything bigger stays in the cupboard when you leave.
Shop again on day two, once you know whether the oven works and whether the one decent pan is a skillet or a pot.
Toward the end of the week, cook what’s open instead of buying more, and don’t count on carrying the rest home. Great Britain bans cheese, milk, butter, yogurt, pork, beef, and lamb in travelers’ bags, even from the EU (gov.uk), and the EU blocks meat and milk arriving from outside it (European Commission).
Your vacation list should focus first and foremost on documents and medications. They matter most, and often they’re all you need to sort out everything else. You can pick up a swimsuit at a supermarket, but few doctors abroad will write a prescription for specialized medication.
Passports, photo IDs, tickets, a supply of medication and payment cards: get these ready at the very start of packing.
What to carry with you and what to buy when you land
Carry what a pharmacy abroad can’t sell you, and buy the bulky, cheap things there.
Medication goes in your hand luggage, in its original labeled pharmacy packaging, with a copy of the prescription and a covering letter from your doctor. That’s the advice from the UK’s National Travel Health Network and Centre, which also suggests putting a few spare days’ worth in the hold in case your hand luggage goes missing (TravelHealthPro). Check what your destination allows before you pack it, because a medicine that’s routine at home can be restricted there, and the country’s embassy is who to ask. Liquid medicine is treated as an exception at US checkpoints, as long as you declare it to the officer (TSA).
Sunscreen works the other way around. One adult needs about 1 ounce, enough to fill a shot glass, every single time, and it goes back on every two hours (American Academy of Dermatology). A week by the water runs through more than you want to carry, so take one bottle for the first day and buy the rest at the destination.
With a baby, carry the formula your baby actually drinks and buy the diapers and wipes there. Formula, breast milk, toddler drinks, and baby food above 3.4 ounces go through US checkpoints if you tell the officer at the start of screening (TSA). UK airports set no legal limit on baby food and milk for the journey, though every container gets screened separately (gov.uk).
Food for the road and the fridge you leave at home
Empty the fridge before you empty the house. In the last few days, cook or freeze whatever has a date on it, shop only for what you can finish, and take the trash out on your way to the car.
Then leave the freezer full. If the power goes out while you’re away, a full freezer holds its temperature for about 48 hours, a half-full one for about 24, and the fridge keeps food safe for about 4 hours with the door shut (CDC). Bottles of water fill the gaps and buy you that extra day.
For a long drive, pack a cooler and keep it in the car with you rather than in the trunk, which runs hotter. Perishable food shouldn’t sit out of the fridge for more than 2 hours, and only 1 hour once it’s above 90°F (32°C) (FDA). That’s the whole life of the sandwiches you made at breakfast.
Flying asks a different question. Is it solid? TSA sorts honey, gravy, and creamy dips and spreads onto the liquids side, while dried fruit, gum, and fresh fruit and vegetables go through as solids (TSA).
