Tips for Traveling with Vintage Clothes
Updated: March 22, 2022Whether you’re just starting to build your vintage collection or have been collecting for years, traveling with vintage clothes can be a lot sometimes. It took a lot of flights and road trips to slowly learn how to travel with vintage clothes. Even now, I feel like I am still learning new things as I travel with my suitcase primarily packed with vintage clothes. A lot of vintage clothes did not survive but only because I didn’t know any better so this is my way of hoping you don’t have to go through that as well. Some, if not most of these vintage items are getting harder to find so we treasure them and try to take care of them even more nowadays.
Here’s a list I put together from my own personal experience when it comes to preparing myself when traveling with vintage clothes and I hope this helps you too!
1. Portable Small Clothing Steamer
Wrinkles happen, if you’re a snob about it then you’re not cool! Sorry, not sorry! But, hey, when it comes to traveling, wrinkles are going to happen and for certain items, I’m okay with a slight wrinkle. But, some clothing items I just don’t want some obvious “this has been in my suitcase” wrinkles. Here’s my solution, a small portable steamer! You can get a fairly cheap one at Target. As soon as I check in to my hotel I hang my clothes and steam my clothes right away. That way the rest of my trip I don’t have to worry about steaming what I might or might not wear that day. Yes, it might take up a bit of space in your suitcase but to me, it’s worth it. Pack it with you and don’t plan on going to the store to find one wherever you’re vacationing at. Use that time to explore and enjoy yourself, not look for a steamer that you might not actually find. True story, I decided to leave my steamer and buy one where I was at and guess what? No steamer to be found for the next 5 days lol So yeah, pack a small steamer. You will have to refill the water quite a lot to steam your clothes but it’s worth it.
2. Mini Sewing Kit
Sometimes hotels will provide you with a mini sewing kit but I prefer to have my own. You never know when you might need to fix a quick rip. I was once getting in a taxi and stepped on my own maxi dress and luckily I had my little kit in handy. Fixed the tip in the taxi on my way to my destination and fixed! They have these TSA compliant ones at Target.
3. Safety Pins
I bought a package of safety pins of different sizes. Sometimes you need bigger or smaller ones! This will be something you might also want to carry in your purse if you’re wearing your vintage clothes to explore where you’re vacationing. Vintage clothes can be very sensitive, so a rip or tear might happen and you’ll need a quick solution. I was on my way to a dance party with a friend and as I got in the taxi, the seam of my dress came apart. LUCKILY, I had safety pics and my friend helped me pin the complete back of my dress! Never had I been so thankful to pack a good 10 safety pins or so. If not, I would’ve spent the rest of the night with the back of my mini dress coming apart lol This doesn’t take up too much space in your bag so why not throw some safety pins in there?! Either way, a skirt zipper rips, the button on your jeans come off, whatever the issue…a quick solution is your friendly safety pin!
4. Stain Removal Pen
I’ll be honest, I haven’t had to use this one yet but I was recently on a trip and a few dogs ran by me and I got some small mud stains on my nude tights and I was about to be in a film so the first thing that came to mind was why I took the stain removal pen out of my purse? I was able to get them off but that pen would’ve been a lot easier. So do yourself a favor and carry one of these especially if you’re planning on trying a bunch of delicious food and there’s a chance you might stain your one-of-a-kind vintage.
5. Pack with Compression Bags
These save a lot of space in your suitcase BUT keep in mind that if your travel includes moving hotel to hotel, this might not be the best option. You’re better off carefully curating your daily outfits and a few extra just in case you might need another outfit option. If you’re traveling for a special event and you have some pretty heavy-duty outfits and need more luggage space then packing with compression bags is a great way to go. You’ll definitely need to steam your clothes after but you’ll have plenty of space! I haven’t found this to be necessary for my travels but a lot of friends have used them and it’s worked out great.
6. Ditch the fabric suitcase; go heavy-duty
Just because you’re traveling with vintage clothes that doesn’t mean your suitcase has to be vintage too. It looks cute, I know, but let’s protect your one-of-a-kind vintage clothes. Google “hard side spinner suit case” and you’ll see a ton of options that fit your budget. I finally got rid of mine 4 years ago and I will never use one again. The last thing you want is to have your luggage get wet and it goes through and then you end up with stinky wet clothes. It’s a good investment, but honestly, you can find a good heavy-duty affordable one at Target in the sales section or check out some local thrift stores. I got mine on sale at Target years ago and they’re still going strong.
7. Plan your outfits
This took a while to perfect and I still have my moments but I do my best to plan my outfits for my trips. I make a list of all the types of activities/events and go from there. I then take photos of each outfit and make an album on my phone of all the outfits. I use that album as a way to pick which item I’m wearing every day on my trip. I do pack EXTRA outfits because you never know! I try and mix and match that way I don’t have to pack too much but let’s be honest…the more outfits the better lol But this does save time during my travels having all my possibly outfits ready and seeing how I styled them on my album in my phone. I’ll try and make a blog post about this one! But for now, I hope that makes sense! :)
8. Packing Cubes
If you’ve read this blog before then you might’ve noticed this section wasn’t there before. That is why because I had never used packing cubes before. I recently went on a trip and I wanted to only take a carry-on and my friend Breezy suggested packing cubes. I will now forever use packing cubes. Did I want to pay $45 for them? No. Do I regret buying them? Absolutely not. This was a great purchase! With packing cubes, I was able to stay even more organized, and looking through my suitcase wasn’t a pain in the *ss. I highly suggest trying these out! I’m looking forward to seeing how other brands and types of packing cubes differ but for now, I’m using these I got from Target which is doing great so far.