3 Unusual items to put on your packing list

Whenever you prepare to leave on a journey, no matter how long or short, you should act like Santa in Bing Cosby’s immortal Christmas tune: make a list and check it twice. Go through the absolutely vital items, check off the things you feel you can’t leave home without, and make sure to read a few blog posts and last-minute packing tips – they will almost always remind you of something you forgot to pack.

And don’t be surprised by the unusual items – like the ones below – you’ll find on them. These might not seem necessary at first but they will likely prove to be very useful when away from home.

3 Unusual items to put on your packing list

1. Garbage bags

Garbage bags may seem counterintuitive to take with you on a trip when you’ll be lodged in a hotel (where the cleaning personnel tends to empty your trash cans long before you have the chance to fill them). The utility of garbage bags, though, goes way beyond their original purpose.

You can use them to separate your dirty clothes from your clean ones. You can wrap your shoes in them before packing them in your suitcase to keep the clothes clean. You can use them as emergency rain gear. You can use them to keep things dry and to keep wet things from dripping into your bag.

My recommendation: think of recycling garbage bags (I am trying to avoid using plastic as much as possible).

2. A universal plug adapter

This is one thing you should absolutely not leave home without. Some countries have wall adapters that are different from what you use at home – there are different standards used in the US, Europe, the UK, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Israel, among others.

Having a universal plug adapter certainly beats looking for an electronics store to buy a charger cable for your phone in a popular tourist town (and it’s considerably cheaper, too).

3. An inexpensive “emergency phone”

You may think your smartphone’s battery and the battery pack you carry around wherever you go will last you long enough to find the next power outlet to charge them. This may be true in most cases – but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for the unexpected. Thus, it may be a good idea to pack an inexpensive “emergency phone” in your bag – a “dumb phone”, if you like.

Today, some manufacturers still build feature phones with an absolutely basic feature set – they can call, text, perhaps even work as an FM radio, and that’s about it. These phones come with one feature that can be vital in certain situations: they have batteries that last longer – much longer – than any smartphone today.

Last year, Nokia released a handset called the Nokia 106 that can only connect to GSM networks (available pretty much everywhere) with more than 500 hours (almost 3 weeks) of standby time and around 16 hours of talk time. Having such a handset can mean the difference between safety and danger in situations when you need to call the emergency services but your smartphone battery is dead. The Nokia 106 costs around 20 euros – a small price to pay for your peace of mind.

TIP 1: Traveling somewhere? What do you need to think of besides packing? Here’s 20 things to do before travel.

TIP 2: Here’s my ultimate travel packing list which will help you not to forget anything important. You can even download the list in that article. Very useful for your next trip, trust me!

You may also like

Packing for a trip to the UK

Top 10 things to pack for a trip

Tips for short trips

What to pack for 3 months in Mexico

Posted in posts, tips Tags: packing