Ok, so you’ve booked an amazing cruise – brilliant! You’re really looking forward to some much-needed time away, and the kids are bouncing off the walls.
You’ve made all the arrangements, booked the dogs into kennels, bribed a sibling into coming to water your plants, and got your packing lists ready.
Finally, it’s the day before your cruise. Your suitcases are packed, you’ve got an early start in the morning, and the only thing left to do is… somehow cram it all into the car.
Uh oh.
Now, the size of the problem will depend on several things: your starting location, your vehicle type and the makeup of your family. This is how the picture looks for us:
- Starting location: Cumbria
- Vehicle type: 5-seater Peugeot 3000
- Family: 2 adults and 3 kids, who insist on getting bigger every year!
All of this means that, if we’re cruising from Southampton, we have around a 6-hour car journey, with all the seats filled, and limited space to put everything. And on our last cruise, we had 7 suitcases and 5 rucksacks between us!
If you live just half an hour away from the port, have one child and a van, your picture will look very different. But for us, the car journey is a big deal.
So how do we manage? We do this journey, or similar journeys, quite a lot, as we also have family who live on the South coast. So here are our 5 Top Tips for packing your family car.
1 – Get a Roof Box
It’s an oldie but a goodie. We got one a couple of years ago, once having a 7-seater car had become impractical, and it has been a gamechanger on many a holiday.
Ok, so you can’t fit lots of large suitcases into it (it’s actually better if you put things in smaller, softer bags to use the space to best effect). But even one large suitcase removed from the boot creates a lot of extra space.
And for smaller items like rucksacks or bulky coats, hand luggage and food, it works very well to get these items out from under your feet.
Just make sure , if you do put your food in, that you can access it easily at service stations!
(Note: Make sure your roof bars and box are fitted properly – you do not want your roof box with all your possessions in to go flying off on the motorway! Companies such as Halfords can fit or check it for you.)
2 – Play Suitcase Tetris in Advance
As always, one of my favourite tips is to get yourself sorted well in advance of your holiday. Don’t leave it until the night before departure to try to fit all the cases in the boot, and realise too late that they just won’t go in!
Find yourself a spare few hours, perhaps a month before your trip. Pull out the exact set of suitcases/luggage that you’re going to be using, and take them to the car. (Remember to pad out soft bags so you know what they’ll be like when full!)
Now, play car boot Tetris. You have time to mess around with different combinations, without the panic that it all has to be done asap. Try different formations: items lying on their sides, upright, even upside down! Work out what you can and really can’t fit into the boot.
If you’ve done this in advance, you have time to consider different luggage options, perhaps even buying or borrowing a different set of luggage items that will better suit your car. Or maybe you can borrow a bigger car for the trip? Either way, you have time to think, plan, and resolve any issues.
If you won your game of Tetris, congratulations! You have just saved yourself a load of stress on your travel day, and can pack that boot in a jiffy!
3 – Consider a Multi-Car Solution
On a recent cruise holiday, we realised that we were going to have to drop the dogs off at their kennels on our journey down to the port, and wouldn’t have time to come home again.
Now, our two dogs are very large retriever crosses, and no amount of creative packing tips will enable us to squeeze them into the car along with us, the 3 kids, and all the luggage!
So what did we do? We decided for the first third of the journey, to the location of the kennels, to take two cars. One car held the dogs, the other one the luggage and children. One of us drove the dogs to the kennels and dropped them off, then parked the spare car in a secure location nearby for the duration of the holiday.
They then met up with the second car, and we continued in that car the rest of the way to the airport. On the way home, we simply did the reverse!
Of course, this one may not be possible for everyone, but think creatively. It doesn’t mean you have to own two cars.
Could you enlist a family member or friend to help you out, at least for part of the journey?
Could you perhaps hire an extra car for the day? Many car hire companies now allow you to pick up in one location, and drop off in another.
What about making part of your journey on public transport?
There are lots of options, if you simply have too much to go into one car.
4 – Don’t Make Seating Assumptions
This is something a lot of people do without thinking: make assumptions before they even begin about who will sit where in the car. Perhaps everyone in your family has a favourite seat, or simply always sits in the same place.
But if you have a lot of luggage to pack into a not very large car, perhaps it’s time to get rid of those assumptions, in order to create more space.
Of course, this will differ depending on the makeup of your family. But, for argument’s sake, let’s say you also have two adults and three children in your group. Obviously, one of those adults has to be driving the car, and has to have enough space to do so safely – that’s non-negotiable.
But where does the other adult sit? It doesn’t have to be the other front seat. The footwell of the front seat is often a large, underused storage area. If you have a smaller child with shorter legs, it might make more sense to put them in the front seat.
This way, they have adequate space for their car seat, if they need one, and you have the whole front footwell free to be packed with bags. (Remember to check guidance and laws regarding children travelling in the front seat if considering this.)
Or perhaps you could put the smallest child immediately behind the front passenger seat, and move that seat forward, creating more space for luggage behind it?
Maybe it would make sense to have the largest person on one side in the back, with their legs beside the door, and space for a bag in the footwell next to their feet?
Again, try this in advance with your family. Get everyone out to the car, and play around with the different seating arrangements, until you find the best way to wring every centimetre of space out of your vehicle.
5 – Mark Out and Maximise Personal Space
Sarah has one brother. When she was little, and the family went on long car journeys, she and her brother would argue so much that her parents resorted to building a wall out of luggage on the middle seat between them!
Extreme perhaps, however this not only decreased the arguing, but also meant that each of them had a clearly allocated space for their belongings.
Obviously, this is much harder to do with three children in the car. But the same principle still applies. Having clearly marked personal space means that everyone has boundaries during the journey, which helps them to feel more comfortable.
It also means, if you/your children are sharing their space with items of luggage, that each person can arrange this within their personal space, in the way that feels most comfortable to them.
For example, one person might want their bag underneath their feet, or on the seat beside them, whereas another might want to squeeze it in beside their feet on the floor. This option gives everyone the power to choose for themselves.
Try using the stitching on car seats to mark out places, or even use masking tape or drape coats (obviously without blocking anything for the driver!). Don’t feel silly about doing things like this – the most important thing here is that you and your family travel in the most comfort possible whilst keeping your luggage intact – it’s not a ‘Car Organiser of the Year’ competition!
Within people’s personal spaces there are many in-car items that can help them to make the most out of it for long journeys. Put in your parcel shelf, try storage pockets for the backs of the front seats, or hang things from the hooks next to the doors. As long as the driver can see all their mirrors and drive safely, anything goes.
We hope these tips help you out for your next family car journey. If you have a great tip of your own, send it in! We’d love to hear how your family solves these problems.