Day tripping
Pack your backpack like a pro for the school holidays
The first day of the school holidays was a total disaster. I underestimated how tired we all were, I hadn’t made a plan and I hadn’t packed properly. I left the house for several hours with only my kids and my handbag - what a novice! My girls are 8 and 11 and so my changing bag packed full of baby stuff days are ancient history. But we all know that within minutes of arriving anywhere, kids of any age are either ravenously hungry or so thirsty they could die. Mine were both. I was ill-equipped. I needed a backpack, not a fancy bag.
This is not my first rodeo, I’ve already done 6 years of school holidays. But like a fool, I forgot how it works. Anyone else get an adrenaline shot of stress when their kids announce that they are desperately thirsty and you have forgotten to bring a water bottle?! I also find it really painful to have to spend loads of money on snacks and drinks that you could have brought with you. Don’t get me wrong, going to a cafe is one of our favourite holiday activities. But I don’t want to have to do it as an emergency stop when the girls are mysteriously starving less than half an hour after I have stacked the breakfast plates in the dishwasher.
Obviously I learned from my mistakes. The next day, I set my lovely handbag aside and grabbed a trusty backpack. It shall remain my bag for the rest of the school holiday season as I am not one of these people who can swap bags daily (as an aside, the way to do this successfully is, apparently, to have a small pouch like this for the essentials - phone, wallet, car keys etc - so you only need to transfer one thing each morning).
I did a big shop for snacks and tipped them all into a huge basket in the pantry so they are ready to grab and go. I retrieved all the water bottles from the floor of the car and cleaned and stacked them neatly in the cupboard. I found all the National Trust Cards and the coffee shop loyalty cards (those stamps add up quickly when you’re buying for three). I even thought about portable entertainment. Obviously there is such a thing as overpacking - but I don’t think I’m in danger of doing that any time soon.
So here is my helpful list of everything you might want to put in your day tripping backpack. What do you take with you? All top tips appreciated! Learn from my mistakes.
Everything you could pack for a day out with the kids
BAG: The bag is the starting point. It has to be big (enough) and have compartments. I really like this one from Passenger, £69.95. I have a few of their products for hiking and they are all really good quality. This pack looks like it could do beach, hills and city with ease.
I also really love these quilted Free People backpacks - especially the brown. They look less hardy, but more urban.
SNACKS: I currently love corn nuts and they are a really good trail snack for kids and adults. I won’t be doing walks longer than 6ish miles with my girls but tbh, they need a snack after a 20 minute supermarket trip. I really recommend buying in a truck load of snacks - they’ll get eaten. I’m even contemplating an outing to Booker. I’ll let them push the trolley and they can load it up with multipacks. Fun, right.
SWIM KIT: My girls really love being in water. We have several friends with massive paddling pools and lots of the walks we go on have streams to splash around in. I don’t usually bother with a towel but I find it really useful to have swimmers. I really want to get one of these waterproof, lined swimsuit pouches from So Souk, £32, to put the wet stuff in.
PENCIL CASE: I am so glad that my girls still want to draw. My older daughter is really into anime and will happily sketch for ages. A few sharpened pencils, some nice black pens like these, some anime stickers like these (the girls like to copy the images) and some paper will keep them happy and might mean a few moments of peace for me. I like a monogram and I think this pencil case from Cloth’N Card would work well for the summer and look cute next term. Plus, at £6.50 including personalisation (letters come in leopard print too), it’s a bargain.
TINY TREATS: Fiddles, TopTrumps, plastic figures, yoyos - grab a few little bitty things that fit in a pouch. It’s all about the pouches this summer! These ones from The Little Luggage Company (£20 for a set of 6) are sweet.
GOOD WATER BOTTLES: I wrote a piece for The Telegraph last weekend all about how to reduce plastic around the home and one of the best things you can do is get yourself some really good reusables. It is so tempting to buy plastic water bottles but I’ve really found them to be a false economy (they break) as well as potentially harmful. I love Black + Blum and have a couple of their lunchboxes - this steel bottle comes in two sizes (from £29.95), is really tough - great for all of our holiday adventures - and totally plastic free.
SUNSCREEN: no explanation needed. Lipbalm also helpful.
PICNIC BLANKET: If you can find a really lightweight one that you love, snap it up immediately. I have my heart set on one of these ones from Dock & Bay because they are MASSIVE but also fit into a tiny little (you guessed it!) pouch. Spendy at £60 but probably something you’d use for years.
HAIR TOGGLES: Or scrunchies or claw clips - we all have a lot of wild hair. Windy days and wild hair and ice cream just don’t work. I’ll take anything from Rockahula, and I especially like these vintage style hair ties, £4.
SANDWICHES: Honestly one of my best money saving tips over the holidays is to bring sandwiches out and about with you. I like making quesadillas in the morning and putting them into a lunchbox. They are somehow less faffy to eat than proper sandwiches.
CAPS: Don’t forget the hats. For everybody. I even have a little carabiner clip on my backpack so I can attach the caps to it when they inevitably are taken off. So much better than trying to stuff them in the side pocket and having them fall out and get lost.
Good luck with your day tripping, and remember, you can never pack too many snacks! V x
All excellent tips, and will definitely be borrowing some of these ideas! We also make sure to pack a book or some reading material (eg the Phoenix) for those occasions when we need to sit down quietly for a few minutes!