My family of 5 recently travelled through Europe for almost 3 weeks, taking only what we could carry on the plane. I am going to share with you what I have learned from packing 5 suitcases for traveling with kids.

Before I begin I feel the need to address the ages of my kids right off the bat. I have seen blog posts about traveling with kids but most were very young children and discussed taking strollers and car seats etc. My children are 15, 11, and 9 years old. We didn’t have any large items like a stroller but we still had two girls that wanted to take along toys and their American Girl dolls so they too could experience Europe. After reading many blogs myself, prior to packing, and watching all the youtube videos and snippets that came across my path I still had to run through a trial and error of my own because really there is a plethora of information on the internet that will tell you each way is best.

I also found there was not a plethora of information on if a child can take a personal item and a doll or stuffed animal or if that doll counts as their personal item. I will address that and other TSA things I learned at the end of the post. With the carry-on’s I tried folding and rolling the clothes, I tried the ever so popular packing cubes, I tried vacuum packing and more and here is what I ended up with.

How to pack carry-on only for a family- 5 tips

1. Folding is best. In most cases folding, not in the regular store fold type of way but rather the Marie Kondo way of folding, is best. This is the way I have been folding my clothes for many years keeping my dresser organized and this proved to be the best way to fold most clothes so they stood up at the perfect height of one side of the suitcase. There were, however, a few instances where rolling was better. I found this to be true with a rather bulky/heavy dress of mine that rolling was best. I tried the packing cubes but 1. they aren’t cheap and 2. you actually lose space in the suitcase whereas without them you can fill every nook and cranny. Rolling all the clothes I found to take up way too much space. We also each packed a lightweight rain jacket ( which proved to be worth its weight as we experienced a few passing rain storms) these were all ones that folded down into their own pocket and zipped up for easy travel. They were so compact and made it easy to take out with us while we were out and about as well. The tiny umbrella I purchased because of how compact it was proved to be junk, don’t do it, just take a nice sturdy umbrella or wait and buy one at your destination if needed.
2. Fill the extra shoes. We had 5 people and, not including the shoes we were wearing, we packed a total of 9 pairs of extra shoes/sandals. Some of those shoes were easier to pack like my daughters flip flops or mine and my sons slide on sandals, but my husband took two additional pairs of sneakers and so did I and my son as well as our youngest who also took her favorite crocks. The key to packing the extra shoes was to be sure to fill them. Socks and underwear were stuffed inside all the shoes ( except for the slide on sandals and flip flops). Then the pairs of sneakers were mostly placed in the opposite corners of one side of each persons carry-on. We kept all clothing to one side of the carry on suitcase and the other side was for the odds and ends- shoes- everyones quart size bag of liquids, hair straightener and brushes, extra camera lens and batteries, European adapters, medications, etc.
3. Vacuum sealing can help. Okay so this is a tough one. If you vacuum pack something at home and then don’t have access to a vacuum in another country how on earth will you fit everything to get it back in the suitcase? My solution for this is that I used a simple very old school method of vacuum sealing. I didn’t do it for large items but smaller things like the socks that I needed to fit into the shoes, or some of the kids squishmallow toys that are soft and fluffy and so full of air. Basically anything that I could fit into a sandwich or freezer bag that was soft, I sucked the air out. Quite literally I sucked the air our. Easy and effective. I have a metal reusable straw and when the bag was packed I zipped the bag up all but where the straw was inserted and then sucked the air out and quickly sealed it creating a vacuum seal that I could easily recreate when we were repacking in another country to come home by just taking my metal straw along with me. This helped condense the space giving us just the right amount of extra room to fit everything.
4. Pack a collapsible check bag. Since we were packed to the brim when we left just to get everything there I knew we wouldn’t have much room for souvenirs. So we got a collapsible soft bag with wheels to use as a check bag for our return home. This obviously isn’t a necessary step but the one side of the carry-on we used to pack this was so helpful as we knew we were going to want to bring home more than one side of a carryon in souvenirs. This bag as well as my son’s sneakers and my husband’s took up one entire side of a carry-on however, when we were packing for our return flight home anything that couldn’t go on the plane- the Scottish Dirk, the liquids larger than 3oz. etc. went into this bag. We wanted to keep most of the souvenirs on our carry-ons incase anything happened with our check bag so three Scottish wool blankets, painting from Paris and all of the other souvenirs went into our carry-ons. To free up this space in our carry-ons anything we were okay replacing at home went into the check bag which was mostly clothes.
5. Pack collectively. By this I mean use all the luggage and pack what you need where you can fit it. While we each had our clothes and most of our personal items in our own bags, I moved things around and made room for items to fit wherever they could. This meant a pair of my husband’s shoes was in my son’s suitcase and zoom camera lens was in my daughters and so on. This was also the case for the quart size bag of liquids. This is something I would definitely do different next time. Don’t pack a lot of liquids that will be easy to buy where you are going. If you are able to make a quick stop at a pharmacy or market and grab some shampoo and soap I recommend doing it there and not wasting your space. I, however, packed sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner, soap, hair gel, face wash etc… for the entire family. I did this because 1. I was nervous that the prices of these simple items in Paris ( where we flew into and spent the first 3 nights) would be exuberantly expensive and 2. because some of these items I wanted to be sure I had like my curl cream and my daughters soap that I know her sensitive skin wont react to. What I found was that it was not horribly expensive but much the same to buy shampoo and soap there so for items that I am not particular about the brand, they can be purchased at the destination. We also packed collectively with our snacks for the plane as well. Everyone had a snack bag but since I have food allergies and it was a longer transatlantic flight I wanted to have some more substantial items so I had packed some applesauce pouches as well. We used one persons quart bag for this though I do believe this would be unnecessary as TSA did not stop me for taking a freezer bag with my extra applesauce pouches inside my personal item. Let me share a little more on that below.

Helpful information I wish I knew about going through TSA checks.

1. Packing liquid snacks. I have flown before but not on a very long flight. Some crackers, a breakfast bar etc was always enough to get me through. I had never been on a flight that served a meal before. But being that I have food allergies I didn’t know if I would be able to eat the in-flight meals and being that we were landing in a country I could barely speak the language I wanted to pack some extra items to hold me over for a quick breakfast if I needed. I didn’t go too crazy with the snacks just items like fig bars, breakfast bars, applesauce pouches ( which yes count as a liquid). As I mentioned above we used one persons quart size allowable liquids bag just for these applesauce pouches. And it was worth it. However in my personal bag I also had the extra food which filled a freezer bag and in the freezer bag I had extra applesauce pouches. I didn’t know if this would get flagged by TSA since it’s not in a quart bag and here was what happened. Both my suitcase and personal item got flagged! But it was not for that reason. They had contained “large electronics” that I didn’t think I needed to remove. As the agent was going through my personal bag he pulled out the freezer bag stuffed with food and though he didn’t ask I immediately told him, “I have food allergies so I wanted to be sure I had something I could eat.” He didn’t blink an eye and was already moving onto going through the rest of my items. In short, I do not think it is a problem to have food (liquids) in a freezer bag as long as they are each under the 3oz limit. Also a note this bag stuffed with snacks was so helpful as I would throw some in my bag every morning and everyday it came in handy to have a snack for the kids on hand even though they are older. In the event the TSA agent would have made me throw out my freezer bag of applesauce pouches we had the other quart size bag that was fine. There are certain food items that I steered clear of, like fresh fruits, but in future I will be trying this again and seeing what more substantial foods I am able to take with me.
2. A carry-on suitcase, a doll, and a backpack. To end this article of hopefully helpful information, I want to share something I had a hard time finding information on when searching. As I stated above our two youngest each wanted to take their dolls with them. These are 18 inch dolls. Would this or another stuffed animal type of toy count as their personal item? We flew from the US as well as flew from a small airport in Cornwall (England) and then finally from Edinburgh Scotland, here is what I found. The toy did not count as their carry-on or personal item. Before we left I made sure if we needed to squeeze the dolls in that the girls would have enough room to hopefully squeeze them into their own backpacks. However, this wasn’t necessary. We walked onto the plane, rolling our carry-on suitcases, with our backpacks on our backs, with our neck pillows snapped around our backpacks, with our headphones around our neck, with my hat on my head, and my blanket scarf around me (to use for warmth on the plane) and with my daughters dolls in their hands! It sounds like a lot. It was. It was also all helpful to have and I wouldn’t change it. On the way home from Edinburgh we walked onto the plane in the same fashion the only difference being we now were carrying an umbrella (not one of those collapsible kinds but a straight one that stands about 36 inches tall), and instead of my blanket scarf around me I just carried one of our wool blankets in its blanket belt. For our flight out of Cornwall I was a bit concerned as we had made a purchase just before arriving at the airport and there was no time or way to pack the gift bag with breakables in it into any of our bags. This didn’t matter. I carried it on in my hands in addition to my backpack on my back. As long as it can all fit under the seat area. Since it worked in Cornwall I figures I would try it in Edinburgh and opted to just carry-on my wool blanket and I had no issues.

To note: this is only my experience and when thinking of what items you can carry on the plane every aircraft/airline will have different rules. Be diligent in checking to see what your airline allows, these were simply my experiences.