The Benefits of Pre-Trip Organizing

You’ve picked your destination. You’ve plotted your route. Now it’s time to wedge everything into wherever it fits and hit the road, right? Wrong! Taking the extra time to get your vehicle organized before your trip has numerous benefits:

• Less stress and frustration. Digging around for sunglasses while everyone is napping. A phone charger that doesn’t quite reach. Snack wrappers everywhere. A box of markers barely out of the grasp of the youngest kid. All of these micro-stresses add up and can dampen the mood of even the happiest traveler.
• More time. When you’ve carefully chosen which items to bring and where to put them, you will spend less of your vacation time searching the trunk for elusive items, or even worse, making expensive and time-consuming stops to replace what’s missing.
• Easier food options. Having well-organized, pre-packaged food options ensures that you always have healthy (and less expensive!) food and drinks available, regardless of where your path takes you.
• Entertained children. If you’ve traveled with kids (or adults!) of any age, you know that boredom can quickly spiral into something worse. Having a well-organized vehicle can help passengers keep themselves entertained and engaged.

Wondering where to begin? Read on for our space-by-space ideas for whipping your chariot into shape before you hit the road!

Organizing Your Vehicle, One Space at a Time

Before loading your car for your road trip, you’ve got to start the same way you would with any organizing project—taking everything out of the space you are organizing to see what’s there, making smart decisions about what can stay and what should go, and only then organizing the rest. If you need a refresher on removing excess clutter from any space, revisit our blog for a step-by-step guide!

The various spaces in your car fulfill specific functions, so make sure you are prioritizing which items make the most sense for each space.

• Center Console: The Domain of the Driver. The center console is the only space that’s truly accessible for the driver, so make sure that it has everything they need within reach: sunglasses, phone charger, lip balm, gum or mints, quick access to a playlist or podcast, water bottle, etc.
• Glove Box: The Domain of the Co-pilot. The driver gets the glory, but it’s the co-pilot who makes the road trip happen! The co-pilot often serves as navigator, drink opener, squabble solver, tech guru, snack distributor, and more. We recommend using separate bags or pouches to keep categories of items organized and easy to find in the glove box:
  • Extra cords for various gadgets
  • Health supplies (hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, headache and stomach meds, band-aids, neosporin, tweezers, etc.)
  • Important documents, such as your insurance and registration information
  • Sleep supplies for nappers (eye masks and ear plugs)
  • Pen and paper
  
• The Backseat: The Domain of the Passengers. Accessibility is key—backseat passengers need to be able to reach their activities and snacks without unbuckling. A few things that might help:
  • Back of seat organizers can keep a wide variety of items within reach. Many folks have had good luck with repurposing a door shoe organizer for this!
  • A box or narrow crate in the center can be a game changer for helping kids keep track of their items—and limit the amount they are packing.
  • Many vehicles have an abundance of cup-holders! A few plastic cups from the kitchen can help passengers make use of this valuable space—think crayon storage, headphones and cords, or snacks!
• The Cargo Space: The Storage Domain. If you love the game Tetris, now is your time to shine! Use the space in your trunk or cargo area as strategically as you can, being mindful of when you will need access to each item. Place your most-likely-to-need first items closest to the bumper, so you don’t waste precious time moving everything out and then back in to reach something. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have a travel safety kit with you (especially if you are expecting difficult weather)

Tips and Tricks to BEEgin Your Journey

We’ve rounded up a few of our most-used items and ideas for organizing your journey.

• Daily Tidying. Every day, take the 15 minutes to clean out trash and debris, refill snacks and activities, and put everything back in its place. Bring the things you need to keep your car tidy: Wet wipes? Trash bag or can? Paper towels?
• Repurposing Items. You don’t need to spend a bunch of money buying gimmicky car organization products. Think about how items you already own can help you accomplish your goals. Don’t have a place to hang a grocery sack for trash? Stick a removable adhesive hook in an accessible spot. Need something to organize kid art supplies or snacks in? You finally have a reason to use that old shower caddy! If you don’t have time to divide out bulk snacks into smaller bags for the road, toss a package of coffee filters into the snack bag. Coffee filters cost pennies, hold their shape, and take up minimal space.
• A Place for Everything. The biggest chaos-makers in a car are those items that don’t have a place to live, so make sure that you figure out the most sensible spot for each item, and then encourage the whole family to put the item back in the same place every time.
• Frozen Water Bottles. We love it when we remember to freeze a few bottles of water before a road trip. They serve as ice packs while they are frozen, and then eventually become beverages!
• The Almighty Snack Bag. Being mindful about the variety of foods you bring—and how they are packaged—can save you time and money on the road. You will save money by not being subjected to that upcharge for convenience at your stops. And you’ll save time at your stops by putting an end to the endless browsing and indecision about what to pick.
• Mesh Bags. We never bombard you with countless organizational products because we know buying more things won’t solve your clutter problems. One of the very few exceptions is these mesh zipper bags , which keep you organized when traveling without adding a lot of extra weight or bulk.
• New-to-You Activities. If you have a road trip coming up, keep an eye out for activities that will keep weary travelers entertained. Whether it’s borrowing a stack of magazines from a friend, printing out instructions for new card games, downloading a couple of podcast episodes from a comedian, or pulling out a set of forgotten window clings for the kids, brainstorming for fun new ways to occupy your time will be worth every minute!

As you BEEgin your next summer adventure, we hope spending a few extra minutes before you leave will help you make the most of your time making memories, one mile at a time!

As with any organizational project, if you need help, you can always reach out to the closest Bee Organized location for the compassionate, confidential, and judgment-free support we are known for!