{"id":39039,"date":"2025-11-20T13:41:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-fly-to-visit-my-in-laws-in-florida-once-or-twice-a-year-one-change-has-made-our-familys-trips-wildly-easier\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T13:41:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:41:41","slug":"i-fly-to-visit-my-in-laws-in-florida-once-or-twice-a-year-one-change-has-made-our-familys-trips-wildly-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-fly-to-visit-my-in-laws-in-florida-once-or-twice-a-year-one-change-has-made-our-familys-trips-wildly-easier\/","title":{"rendered":"I fly to visit my in-laws in Florida once or twice a year. One change has made our family&#8217;s trips wildly easier."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69176c36e1a9cbb014de3e4e?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Family wheeling suitcases down a street\"\/><figcaption>I (not pictured) have figured out how to make packing to visit our family way less stressful for me.<\/p>\n<p>Imgorthand\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I regularly travel by plane from New York to Sarasota, Florida, to visit my in-laws. <\/li>\n<li>Packing stressed me out until I realized I could store essentials at my mother-in-law&#039;s place.<\/li>\n<li>Now, my husband and I travel light, and I worry less about packing and checking bags.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A few years ago, my husband&#039;s brother and his family moved from our hometown in New York to Sarasota, Florida. Some time later, my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law followed. <\/p>\n<p>Now, my husband, our two daughters, and I travel to Sarasota at least once a year, sometimes more. <\/p>\n<p>I&#039;m always excited for my kids to see their grandmother and spend time with their cousins, and I enjoy hanging out with my in-laws in the warm weather, catching up on each other&#039;s lives. We shop, laugh, eat, and laugh again. <\/p>\n<p>I love these trips \u2014 but I used to <em>hate <\/em>packing for them.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Packing required too many lists and too much time<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Over and over again, I&#039;d pack a full suitcase filled with everything I could need: summer clothes, hoodies for the chilly air-conditioned Florida restaurants, bathing suits, shoes, a dressier outfit that I never wore but always brought just in case. <\/p>\n<p>And, of course, I&#039;d have my least favorite thing to pack: an abundance of toiletries for my hair, skin, and body. My Type-A, list-making personality didn&#039;t allow me to just throw these items in my bag. <\/p>\n<p>Instead, I&#039;d start with a list, then take an inventory of what I had and shop for anything I still needed. <\/p>\n<p>From there, I&#039;d write down what could go in my carry-on versus what needed to be in my checked luggage and organize everything into packing cubes and zip-up bags. <\/p>\n<p>This process usually took up to three days to complete. It was madness.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Then, my husband put me onto a life-changing travel trick<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One year, my husband had the brilliant idea to stop packing for these trips altogether. <\/p>\n<p>As soon as we arrived in Sarasota, he headed to Walmart, where he purchased a few pairs of shorts, underwear, undershirts, and some T-shirts and button-downs.<\/p>\n<p>Because his mom has the space to spare, when we left to go back home to New York, his clothes stayed in Florida. <\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69176c52abd5e944effac4e2?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Folded clothes at Walmart\"\/><figcaption>My husband realized buying clothes at Walmart and leaving them with family in Florida would save him a lot of time and space for packing. <\/p>\n<p>: Jeffrey Greenberg\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The next time we visited, after I&#039;d spent days packing and organizing, he simply put his iPad, a book, and some good ol&#039; New York bagels in a bag and off he went to the airport. It was awe-inspiring. <\/p>\n<p>Before our visit last Christmas, I took a page out of his book. I packed clothes and shoes, but <em>only<\/em> clothes and shoes. <\/p>\n<p>While there, I visited that same Florida Walmart and bought everything else I needed: a toothbrush, floss, face wash, shampoo, conditioner, hairspray, deodorant, and more. <\/p>\n<p>Once our trip came to an end, I left it all there at my mother-in-law&#039;s, tucked away in a closet. When we went down the next summer, I again only had to pack clothes. It was so much easier.<\/p>\n<h2>This hack has eliminated all the stress of packing for these trips<\/h2>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69176d4be1a9cbb014de3e97?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Siesta Key cityscape, canal view with houses and marina, Sarasota, Florida\"\/><figcaption>I look forward to packing light on my next trip to Sarasota. <\/p>\n<p>Delpixart\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I love that I can get ready for these trips so quickly now and that I&#039;ll never have to go through the headache of packing toiletries to visit family again. <\/p>\n<p>Next time, I won&#039;t even be bringing clothes.<\/p>\n<p>Our time in Florida is incredibly laid-back \u2014 we mostly stay in and visit casual restaurants. We go to the movies and sometimes to the beach. I don&#039;t need my favorite shorts, go-to T-shirts, or that just-in-case dressy outfit. I just need something to wear, <em>anything<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>For the next trip, I&#039;m packing only my devices and medicine, buying some essentials after we land, and leaving them there when we depart. When our daughters stop growing, I&#039;ll do the same for them.<\/p>\n<p>One day, traveling there will be the easiest thing I do all year. We&#039;ll throw a few items in our little carry-on bags, make a quick stop at the bagel store, and be on our way.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I (not pictured) have figured out how to make packing to visit our family way less stressful for me. Imgorthand\/Getty Images I regularly travel by plane from New York to Sarasota, Florida, to visit my in-laws. Packing stressed me out until I realized I could store essentials at my mother-in-law&#039;s place. Now, my husband and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}