1. You do not need a giant suitcase. That will be much too difficult to lug into hotels at every stop. I used a small, carry-on suitcase for clothes and shoes. I used my small Vera Bradley duffel bag for toiletries, makeup, undergarments, and accessories as well as a tote bag for things to do in the car, like my knitting. I carried my clutch purse within my Kavu purse, so I had both handy.
2. Pack smart. I used many resources from Pinterest, including this diagram of a useful packing scenario. I also think that using trial-sized bottles of my shampoo, soap, face wash, and eye makeup remover was an excellent idea.
3. Wear items more than once and use variations.
I chose to pack five T-shirts, two skirts, one dressy shirt I could wear with either skirt, one pair of jean pants, one pair jean capris, one jean skirt with black leggings, one pair of white shorts, one pair of jean shorts. I also packed undergarments and pajamas. For shoes I wore tennis shoes and packed dressy sandals and Chaco sandals. I also brought one long-sleeved shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, and my rain jacket.
I did not need all of that. In fact, it would have helped if I brought along another T-shirt and skipped either the long-sleeved shirt or the hooded sweatshirt. I wore one dressy skirt when we went out to a super nice restaurant and I wore the white shorts with a semi-dressy blue/white shirt and a navy cardigan when we went to a moderately nice restaurant.
I did wear some items more than once, like I usually do when at college, but I carried a laundry bag with me for items I did not want to wear again. When I got home, I just dumped the laundry bag into the washer!
4. Picnic.
We choose to eat out only at our prime destinations or when we were meeting friends: Lancaster, PA, Hershey, PA, and Niagara Falls, ON. At via destinations (along the way), we had picnics at rest areas and the occasional gas staton parking lot.
Before the trip, we went to The Fresh Market in our town and stocked up on fresh fruit, sandwich bread and fixings, a rotisserie chicken (that we ate one night when our hotel room had a full kitchen), snacks (like apple chips, hummus, and Raisenets), and water bottles and sodas. We carried these items in a large cooler in the backseat and got bags of ice at about every other main stop. We also had a small cooler to carry cold items or random things up to our room. Almost halfway through the trip, we stopped at an Amish farmers market to refresh our fruit supply.
Picnicking saved us money and time and gave us some fun experiences, like eating with the "Thinker" statue in Philadelphia, PA, which I found really funny.
You can see our entire trip route and more pictures on our TrackmyTour page here.
