The case is open on the bed and the outfit for Thursday dinner hangs on the back of the door. Ahead: four nights with family, Wednesday to Sunday, in the guest room, your old bedroom or on the fold-out sofa. Here is a list for that weekend, and where each thing goes in the set.
The list for four nights
For a long weekend in late November, Wednesday to Sunday:
- Two pairs of jeans or trousers
- Two sweaters
- Four everyday tops and a long-sleeve layer
- The dinner outfit: a shirt or a dress
- Five pairs of socks and five pairs of underwear
- Sleepwear and a pair of thick socks for a cold house
- Dinner shoes and house slippers
- Gloves and a hat
- Phone charger, cables and the car charger
- Your toiletry bag
Where it all goes
- Large cube: the jeans, trousers and sweaters, folded flat, heaviest at the bottom.
- Medium cube: the everyday tops, rolled and standing in a row under the mesh.
- Small cube: socks and underwear.
- Large pouch: the dinner outfit, on its own.
- Medium pouch: sleepwear and the thick socks.
- Small pouch: everything with a plug.
- Large bag: the dinner shoes and the slippers, away from the clean clothes.
- Medium bag: empty, folded in the lid, for laundry.
- Small bag: gloves and a hat, where you can see them on the way out.
- Your toiletry bag: separate, on top.
Give the dinner outfit its own piece
Fold the shirt or dress to the size of the large pouch, lay it in and slide the pouch in on top of the cubes. It comes out first when you arrive and goes straight onto a hanger, while everyone is still saying hello in the hall.
A guest room, a sofa, a full house
In a guest room with an empty drawer, lift the cubes in by their side handles and set them down as they are. The mesh tops show socks, tops and sweaters at a glance, so you dress without emptying anything onto the bed.
On the fold-out sofa there is no drawer, so the case is your chest of drawers. Keep it zipped by day and open at night, and take from the cubes where they sit. Nobody steps on your socks at breakfast.
Worn clothes go into the frosted laundry bag as you change. The cubes hold only clean clothes until Sunday.
Driving or flying
If you drive, the pie dish rides on the back seat and the case goes in the trunk, packed the same way: shoes at the wheel end, cubes in rows, the dinner pouch on top. If you fly, the carry-on guide walks through the packing and the security line: how to pack a carry-on with packing cubes.
Sunday, packing to go home
Zip each cube shut and lift it back into the case by its handle. The worn clothes are already in the laundry bag. A cube you emptied collapses flat and goes in the lid. The dinner outfit goes back in its pouch, and the chargers pouch goes in last, after one look at every outlet in the room.
At home, the laundry bag goes to the machine and the empty cubes collapse flat and go back in the cupboard with the pouches and bags, ready for the next trip.
Traveling with someone? Read packing for two.
Want it drawn for your own trip or case? The pack planner lays the nine pieces out to scale and shows what goes where.
The set is three cubes and three pouches in Grey, Burgundy or Hot Pink, and three frosted bags. See the set.