Travel with Kids - Travel Laundry Bags

We are in the midst of Spring Break season and I know a lot of families use this time to schedule a fun family vacation.  In the planning stages it sounds fun and relaxing, but traveling with kids is totally different experience than adult travel.  There is a whole different set of necessities and items needed for a peaceful, relaxing and fun vacation.

In addition to all the toys, snacks and electronics needed for the car or plane ride getting there, there are also little things that can make your destination with kids a bit more tolerable.

When we stay in hotels, we always seem to have a dirty laundry problem.  Maybe it's just my kids that haven't learned how to live out of a suitcase properly, but we inevitably run into the same problems every hotel stay.  The dirty clothes end up getting piled up into a corner, or worse mingled back into the suitcase with the clean clothes.  By the end of the stay there is a pile of stinky dirty clothes to try to stuff back into a suitcase.  If I wanted to stare at piles of laundry, I could have skipped the vacation and just stayed home.

Some hotels provide the little plastic laundry bags that I think you are supposed to use for the in-hotel cleaning services, but we usually end up using them for our own dirty laundry to take home.  But they must be the thinnest plastic ever made because they ALWAYS end up busting open when we stuff them too full.

Enter these nifty little bags I made up for the boys.  They are just simple drawstring bags, sized about 18" x 24" with a cotton cord drawstring closure.  They will hold most of the kids dirty laundry for a 3-4 day trip and can easily be hung on a doorknob or chair to keep the hotel room nice and neat.

BONUS: Upon repacking, just toss the bag into the suitcase and you don't have to touch the dirty clothes and it will keep them separate from any unworn clean clothes.  (I tend to overpack with kids, and I hate having to wash everything when we get home because of contamination, LOL.)

If you want to make your own, free tutorials on drawstring bags are easy to find online.  Ours are just basic bags because I was in a hurry, but you can customize these and make them as simple or embellished as you like.  Color-blocking, contrasting lining, appliques or embroidered monograms would make these bags truly special as well as functional.  I used a cotton cord for the drawstring (it reminds me of a clothes line), but you could also use ribbon or make a fabric drawstring.  The possibilities are endless!

Or if you are not a seamstress, there are very cute ones for sale on Etsy.  I love this bag by Swoon.  Just search for "drawstring bag" or "laundry bag" and you'll get lots of handmade options!

Happy (and organized) traveling everyone!