When it comes time to embark on a trip that’s work-related or simply on a vacation that you and your family are taking, there a host of different things that need to be taken into consideration. You need to ensure that you sleeping conditions are taken care of, you’ll want to know what your plans for each day on your trip are going to be, having your emergency contacts updated will be critically important in case anything bad is to occur during the trip, etc.

However, among all of these things, one of the most challenging can actually be your suitcase. Even if you’ve got a large and roomy suitcase, figuring out how to properly pack it and organize all of your clothes inside of it can prove to be a real pain in the rear. No matter how many times you go on a vacation, it can be a consistent challenge when it comes to finding a way to organize your clothes in the most optimal manner. It can be easy to think that you’re the only person with this problem, but fret not.

The majority of travels, even the most frequent ones, still have trouble at some point when it comes to packing their suitcase. This doesn’t have to be an issue though. While all hope might seem lost at times when you just can’t figure out the best way to organize all of your clothes, we’ve got tips and tricks to help your pack your clothes in your suitcase in the best way possible.

Be smart with the clothes that you pack

When going on a trip, it can be quite easy to pack as many clothes as you possibly can to ensure that you don’t run into any wardrobe malfunctions or anything else along those lines. Before you actually start packing clothes into your suitcase, take some time to seriously think about what you need to bring with you. For example, if you’re going on a 5-day trip, you’ll probably need about 5 different shirts, and about 3 pairs of pants. You’ll also want to make sure that you’re choosing clothes in the same color family so that everything you’re taking with you will match.

Along with this, you’ll want to select clothes that are either knitted or made out of wool or cotton. These fabrics are much less likely to wrinkle during travel, so if that’s something you’re often worried about, packing clothes with these materials can do a lot to reduce that stress.

Rolling and folding

With softer items, such as t-shirts, underwear, knitted items, jeans, etc., your best bet is going to be to roll them up in a light fashion. You don’t want to roll these too tightly – as wrinkles will begin to occur if you do that – put a light roll with these items won’t do any harm to them and can free up your suitcase quite a bit.

In regards to items that are a bit on the stiffer side, such as dress pants, skirts, starched shirts, etc., you will absolutely want to fold these. Rolling clothes like these will result in nasty wrinkles that can often be quite difficult to properly get rid of.

Placement of your items

Now that you’ve got some of your clothes rolled up and others folded, it’s not time to actually put them in your suitcase. First of all, you’ll want to take the rolled up items and place them on the bottom of your suitcase. Since they’re rolled up and less likely to wrinkled, they’ll provide for a nice base for the rest of your clothes that are going to go on top. And, as you could probably guess, the folded items will be placed on top of your folded clothes. Being placed on top of the rolled items allows them to stay as nice and wrinkle-free as possible during your trip.

The layer you’ll need right away

Last but not least, you’ll want to add a third and final layer for the clothes you’ll need right away once you get to your travel destination. In order to do this, you’ll first want to take a dry-cleaning bag and use it to cover up the layer of folded clothes we just talked about. Once this is done, you can pack this top layer with the clothes you’ll need first before anything else during your trip – such as a swimming suit or pajamas to sleep in at night. This will save you from having to dig through your suitcase when you first get to your hotel, and can save for a lot of unneeded frustration.