Packing Tip for Big Shoppers

It seems that many consider shopping a close second to the parks.If you are buying alot and worried about fitting it back into your bags for the trip home,go to Wal-Mart or any home store and get a box of vacume bags.These things are amazing.Fill them (the largest holds a queen sized sheet/comforter set and 2 large pillows),zip them shut and suck the air out of the nozzle (borrow vacume from house keeping).You will be amazed at how much the whole thing shrinks down.In the second largest size,I fit clothes for myself,DH and DD for a week and still could have fit more.They are re-usable too.I would recomend putting the full,pre-shrunk bag in your suitcase and shrinking it.Once the air is out is becomes quite hard and might be a trick to bend into your luggage.Good luck!

Packing Tip for Big Shoppers

I went to a ';how to pack '; presentation at my woman%26#39;s club and the speaker neatly packed a suitcase and then at the end produced a slightly larger empty suitcase and put her smaller suitcase inside it. She had a big empty suitcase for all her shopping that way- not sure if that is still valuable as a tip with all the luggage restrictions these days , but I thought it was awfully clever. She told us she makes an annual shopping trek to Hong Kong and brings the bigger suitcase home full of bargains.

Packing Tip for Big Shoppers

Good idea pixie, will keep that in mind if i go a bit too far on the shopping.

thanks will bear that in mind planning on a LOT of shopping this trip

When you only have 15 or 20 Kg luggage weight allowance it becomes a bit irrelevant as you can get 20 kg into a medium size suit case no sweat .

Unless of course you want to fit it all into a weekend case

i know one family that own a villa in florida and when the whole family visit (approx 12 adults) they send all their cases home with UPS . They reckon it works out at 50 dollars per 30kg. Alot cheaper than letting the airlines rip you off at the airport

louth male - I was wondering about doing something similar myself. I know I will have great fun shopping, but have to be mindful of the baggage allowances on the flights, so was wondering about sending some of my goodies home to the UK via mai or courier.

Ive been warned that if I send stuff through the post I could get stung with customs fees in the UK, if we were to use couriers would we have the same problem?

Pixiedust - thats a great tip for saving space, but its the weight thats the biggest problem for me!

hi manda1970 i think now i could be wrong that my friends avoid the custom fees etc because they own a villa in florida and there for have an address in the states. Im nearly sure this is how they avoid paying duty because technically speaking they are coming to ireland on holidays when in fact they are returning after being on hols lol if that makes any sence. Maybe checkout UPS or one of the bigger companies and find out what is involved. Any thing is better than being stung by the greedy airline companies

Hmmmmmm would I have to pay duty on dirty washing with UPS :-)

I could then bring all the shopping on the flight home with me.

Dont think I will mention this to Nikki....... she will do even more shopping, If that%26#39;s possible.

I do what Lulutoo suggests when I go- I pack an empty bag.

As for the UPS thing, I%26#39;d check it out via their website. Last time I tried to post something to the UK from the USA a few years back, it was more than $50 and it was a lot smaller than a suitcase.

A

XR759

You get 46kg allowance per person if you fly British Airways ...