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There are plenty of folding methods and packing techniques for your clothes. They differ depending on whether we choose a backpack, a suitcase or a bag. Rolling your clothes, laying them flat, laying them in layers or packing them vertically. It is worth testing which clothes easily crease and how they react when packed differently. The following methods have some advantages and disadvantages but this article will help you choose the best technique for you and it will show you, step by step, how to pack your luggage properly.

Packing techniques

Rolling

This is one of the best techniques when we need to save a lot of space. It means tightly rolling the clothes and putting them in a suitcase in the form of rolls. 

✅Type of baggage: Backpack | Suitcase

👍 Pros of rolling: 

  • A great technique when you need to pack a lot of clothes - for example tshirts. You will save a lot of space.
  • Works perfectly with packing a backpack or when you use packing cubes.

👎 The downsides of rolling:  

  • Creases can appear on more delicate clothes.

How to roll the clothes?

Jacket

  1. Fold the sleeves
  2. Turn the bottom of the jacket inside out
  3. Fold the jacket three times, equally
  4. Flip it over and roll the jacket very tight
  5. Attach folded part to a roll

Trousers

  1. Turn the top of the trousers inside out
  2. Watch out: thougher materials are harder to roll
  3. Put the trouser legs on each other 
  4. Flipt the trousers over and roll them tightly
  5. Attach the folded part to a roll

T-shirt

  1. Turn the bottom of the t-shirt inside out
  2. Fold it three times, equally
  3. Flip the t-shrit over and roll it tightly
  4. Attach the folded part to a roll

Shirt

  1. Fold the sleeves
  2. Turn the bottom of a shirt inside out
  3. Fold the shirt three times, equally
  4. Flip it over and roll it tightly
  5. Attach the folded part to a roll

Towel

  1. Slightly roll the top of the towel
  2. Fold the towel from both sides
  3. Flip the towel over and roll it tightly
  4. Attach the folded part to a roll

Bundling 

If you plan to take a lot of clothes which may crease easily, then this method is for you. It is putting all the clothes on top of each other and then folding them, one after another.

✅ Type of baggage: Suitcase

👍 Pros of bundling

  • Allows you to save a lot of space in your suitcase.
  • It it a good choice when you pack a lot of clothes in different sizes - this way, the smaller ones can be wrapped with bigger parts of clothes, like jackets or hoodies.
  • Small number of creases on dresses and shirts.

👎 The downsides of bundling

  • It is time-consuming and not convenient whenever you try to reach for certain element in your suitcase.
  • This technique requires some skill and careful planning of the packing order.

How to pack clothes using "bundle" technique

General packing tips

  • Start with the most heavy things like jackets or coats
    • Add another layers in front of each other
  • Add long-sleveed clothes like shirts and sweaters
    • Slevees should cover each other
  • Put the trousers alongside the slevees
    • Fold them in half - they will fit perfectly
  • Pack t-shirts and trousers
    • Pack them alternately
  • Place the underwear in the middle
    • A bag with underwear or accessories will assure that there will not be any kinds of creases
  • Start to roll them very tight
    • Successively roll every layer until all the clothes are rolled

Packing order

  1. Outerwear
  2. Long slevees
  3. Trousers
  4. T-shirts
  5. Shorts
  6. Underwear

Folding

By far the most popular packaging technique. It means folding clothes in the same way as we do when folding clothes in the wardrobe after laundry. It's common, but not necessarily the most cost-effective in terms of saving space. Our luggage then consists of many larger and smaller rectangles arranged on top of each other. 

✅ Type of baggage: Suitcase

👍 Pros of folding: 

  • If you plan to take your clothes out of the suitcase and put them in a wardrobe immediately after arriving at your vacation destination - this is a good technique for you. 
  • This way, you can conveniently plan and pack the outfits that you will wear every day. Just choose underwear, T-shirt and pants for the day and put them together in one set. 
  • This is a good technique when we take clothes similar to each other, for example during a summer trip, because our rectangles will then be one sized and we will not waste much space. 

👎 The downsides of folding:

  • Unfortunately, folding doesn't save too much space - especially when we have clothes of different sizes. 
  • Creases appear on shirts, dresses or trousers folded with this method.

How to fold clothes?

Shirt

  1. Fasten all the buttons
  2. Fold the slevees and then fold them again in the middle
  3. Fold both sides of a shirt
  4. Fold the bottom of the shirt this way so you can fold the whole shirt three times in total
  5. Fold the shirt in half

Trousers

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  1. Lay the trousers evenly
  2. Put the trouser legs on each other
  3. Fold the trousers in half
  4. Fold them again - that's it

Folded back-to-front

This is a type of folding, where the clothes are folded into rectangles andare arranged vertically, not horizontally.

✅ Type of baggage: Suitcase

👍 Pros of back-to-front method: 

  • This way we can easily see the clothes we’ve packed without having to go  through the horizontally arranged layers. 

  • This method saves a lot of space, especially when we pack a lot of clothes such as t-shirts. 

👎 The downsides of back-to-front method: 

  • Creases are an issue that also occurs with this packaging method.

Vacuum packing

If you need to pack a lot of irregular, space-consuming items, such as sweaters - vacuum packing with special bags is a great idea for you. It consists in "squeezing" air out of luggage, thanks to which you gain up to three times more space.

✅ Types of baggage: Suitcase

👍 Pros of vacuum packing:

  • The space savings are huge!

👎 The downsides of vacuum packing:

  • Requires investment in special accessories.
  • Packing is a bit more time consuming.

Next steps of planning your journey

Here you will find some additional, free material which may help you organize your trip:

  • Pick the right type of baggage - depending on the type of your trip we have prepared a guide on how to properly pack a backpack and a suitcase.
  • Lower the costs of your trip - we’ve prepared 16 ways to both prevent you from spending too much money and allow you to enjoy your stay. See how to do this in this article.
  • Use travelling gadgets - there are plenty of useful accessories which may ease and improve your packing process. You can find this article here.
  • Pack in a right order - see the six-step guide which will tell you about the correct order you should pack the items.
  • See how to travel during the pandemics - 8 verified methods on how to protect yourself from coronavirus while travelling. Check what can you do and what you should avoid.