7 Tips for staying organized while traveling

The right accessories make it easy to clean up your packing act.

How to Stay Organized While Traveling

Make a simple travel resolution with these seven useful things this year to stay organized.

Elastic Grid Organizer

Avoid tangling in your carry-on compartments your chargers, camera cables, memory cards, and electronics. Hold all your electronics and travel needs available with a packable organizer like Cocoon's Grid-It for elastic retention. The varying elastic lengths allow you to organize everything from portable cameras to tiny headphones, gum, hand sanitizer, and lip balm charging banks.

Seat-Back Organizer

Family road trips are a blast until you realize that you need something in the trunk that you have packed away. It's easy with a seatback organizer to keep everything you'll need in view. The separated multi-pocket model of Autoark has a main bag that is large enough to fit inside drinks and snacks, and external compartments for all your smaller needs.

Hanging Toiletries Bag

Anyone with a large toiletries bag knows how difficult it is to keep organized and available all these small travel items. The alternative is a hanging version— you can hang it at the hotel to see all of your toiletries at once, and still zip it up and stuff it back when you need it. The unisex toilet kit from Mowham is sufficiently durable to be dubbed an outdoor organizer as well. It has high-density, water-resistant fabric and transparent lining that helps you to see when hanging inside its largest compartments.

Plastic Bags

For many packing cases, simple plastic baggies come in handy — dirty clothes, wet products, carry-on liquids, accessories, etc. Whether you are grabbing a couple of Ziploc kitchen baggies or investing in reusable multi-size packing envelopes, having any stashed in your travel suitcase is not a bad idea.

Satchel or Money Belt

It might not be a good idea to use your regular purse or wallet while you're traveling, particularly if it's too big or full of unnecessary items. Get a designated small satchel or separate belt of cash to use on your travels— this will allow you to prioritize what you need, leave the rest at home, and make you less vulnerable to theft. I'm a fan of small cross-body satchels like Tumi's Voyageur Tristen Crossbody with sturdy zippers. If you want something stealthy and small, hidden pouches that can go under your clothes or a jacket also work well, like the Neck Wallet of Zero Grid.

Packing Cubes

A trustworthy work horse is packing cube sets in the organization of your travel bag. I used long-lasting eBags packing cubes to separate clothes by type, keeping my toiletries and accessories separate. Packing cubes is the easiest way to turn your suitcase into a compartmentalized closet, making it incredibly simple to unpack at your destination.