How to Pack for Your First College Summer Break
Finally, summer break is almost here! While you are incredibly excited to go home for the summer, you are concerned. You brought so much to college, but you have to bring it all back home. How will you get your belongings home?
Whether you’re in panic mode or denial, you need to start getting on top of packing. You may not be sure where to start, because it’s your first time traveling home for a college summer break. Use these 3 trips to help your journey home go smoothly!
1. Determine how you will be going home.
In the midst of completing finals, you need to start considering getting home. If you live in a college dorm room, you must start preparing for the trek back home summer break.
If you own your own vehicle, you are likely using it to travel home. Do not wait until the day before leaving to clean out your car. You want to have a clear picture of how much room you have for your trip home. Having your car inspected or checking your oil levels is also not a last-minute task. You do not want your car to break down on the trip home.
If you are tight financially, think about offering to give a ride to another student. Not only can you be a tremendous help but you can also better cover with the cost of fuel. However, be sure you have space to bring another person’s belongings with you. You don’t want to offer and then renege.
If you do not own your own vehicle, check with your parent(s), who may or may not have plans to pick you up from college. Do not assume that your parent has plans for getting you home, especially if you are the first child to attend college. Your parent may not have thought through your travel arrangements or may have assumed you would take care of your ride home.
If you know a friend who lives close to home, consider asking for a ride. Offer to assist with paying for gasoline. Do not assume your friend is fine with you coming along for a free ride. Check how much space will be available for your belongings, limit your belongings to fit in your allotted space.
If you are flying home for the summer, check how many bags you are allowed to check. You likely have a weight, size, and amount limit. You will have to narrow down your items to bring only what is absolutely necessary.
Knowing how you will get home for summer break is necessary to beginning the packing process. Finalize your plans, so you can get packing!
2. Decide how much you bring home for summer break.
Different campuses have different rules about what you can and cannot leave during the summer break. Your campus is more likely to encourage students to empty their dorm rooms each summer. Check their guidelines before beginning the packing process.
Gather your suitcases, bins, and other storage containers. Seeing these containers helps you to comprehend how much you have to bring home. Even though you’ve collected more items throughout the year, you still have limited space for getting your things home. In addition, you can easily purchase or find cardboard boxes to store some of your items if you need the extra space.
Seeing your limited space may cause you to feel some panic. Don’t! Focus on one step of the packing process at a time. You don’t have to pack in one day or in only a few hours. By starting this process about a week before the end of school, you will eliminate a lot of stress.
If you live far from college, you may have to find places to store some of your larger college items. You do have a few different options. First, some universities provide storage for summer break. You can rent or purchase spaces to store your larger items (e.g., mattress pad) at your school during the summer. This can be a wise investment, especially if you consider that you will use this spot for more summers in the future.
Second, you can rent a storage unit with some friends. If you live far away from home and can take little home, you may want to consider renting a storage unit. While this can be costly, try to find other friends in your same situation to split the unit and cost.
Third, friends who live in your college town may be more than willing to store some of your items at their house. Be kind and considerate when you ask this friend, because you are likely really asking his or her parent to store your items. Keep your items consolidated to a few containers if possible, and offer to pay some money for this favor.
Many students leave school with more items than they came with at the start of the year. Don’t wait until the last moment to look for places to store your extra items. Your parent and friends will prefer you asking ahead of time.
3. Make a packing to-do list.
The end of the semester is stressful, so prepare yourself. Not only do you have hours of tedious studying, but you also have to pack your items for the end of the year. The packing process can easily pushed off until a day before the end of the semester, but please don’t do this to yourself.
Refuse to procrastinate or get overwhelmed by creating a to-do list. Think about what tasks must be completed before you actually pack your possessions. You can help yourself stay on top of your list by planning ahead. Here are a few preliminary tasks that will help your packing process go smoothly:
First, do your laundry. While you still need clothes during the last week of school, you can start cleaning some of your items before the last day of the semester. Remember, every other dorm student needs to wash their clothing too. You don’t want to be fighting for a free washer and dryer.
Consider what items you need to clean. Your clothes obviously need to be washed, but you also have a comforter, pillow covers, your mattress pad cover, and maybe curtains too. If you are storing these items, you don’t want to leave them unwashed for the entire summer.
Second, wash your dishes. You can easily leave a stack of dirty dishes to be cleaned the last day, but these last minute tasks are actually the ones you want to get out of the way. Your dishes are fragile and require some extra thought before packing.
Third, eat or give away your remaining food items. You probably have wiped out most of your food supply, but be sure to remove food items from your dorm room before leaving. You can probably find someone who would love your leftover food items, but you may be able to eat them before the end of the semester. Do leave perishable food in the room over the summer.
Fourth, donate or give away personal items you do not use. As you pack your clothes, you will find that you did not use certain clothes at all. Do not keep them year after year! You do not have space for them.
As you pack your other items, you will notice you barely use some of them. Do not keep these items either! You can try to sell them, but at the end of the semester very few people are interested in paying for more things. You can try to sell them to places like Plato’s Closet or Clothes Mentor, but this may take up more time than you have. You may be better giving them away for free or donating them to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Habitat for Humanity.
After you have prepared your items for packing, you can begin the packing process. Start by checking various spots in your dorm room. You can easily forget about a storage container or a cabinet in your room.
To prevent yourself from getting overwhelmed, create a packing countdown. Assigning a due date to have each area packed by will help you. For example, try something like this:
Monday: Pack desk drawer items.
Tuesday: Pack items on the top of the desk.
Wednesday: Pack dishes and other fragile items.
Thursday: Pack 2 drawers of clothing.
Friday: Pack 2 more drawers of clothing.
You can create your own packing countdown, but be sure that you don’t put off each day’s packing task. In some ways this packing checklist can help you have a break from studying for finals. Schedule packing time to benefit your finals schedule.
Remember that some dorms also have deadlines by which you need to be out of your dorm. You do not want to be rushing to get out. Instead, aim to have all of your items packed and your room cleaned way ahead of the deadline. If possible, you can pack your items up before the last required event of the semester.
Packing for summer break can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Using these tips you can prepare for the journey back home and stay on top of packing. You will not regret being ready to go when the last day of school arrives!
