Packing Advice

Last night I had a dream that [Husband] and I were on the way to the airport for our honeymoon, his whole family was in the car, and someone asked if we had packed our suitcase. Suddenly we realized that we had done all the wedding planning and gotten through the whole wedding* and never packed our suitcase for the honeymoon trip. Whoops. This was a stressful dream as you can imagine. I have had a post of all the good packing advice received prior to our St. Lucia trip rolling around in my head for the last couple days and I do believe that was my brain saying," please write this out, we are tired of thinking about this." So here are the tips I got from my international globe-trotting/all-inclusive aficionado friends!

• Make two copies of your passport. Leave one stateside with a friend or family member and take the other with you. Keep the copy you are holding separate from your real passport. If something happens to you passport, it is apparently easier to remedy the situation if you have access to a copy.
• Ditto for you itinerary, leave a copy at home and take a copy with you.
• Take everything with you. Sunscreen was $26 a bottle at our resort. Enough said. I took a lot of extra toiletries we wouldn't necessarily travel with, but I was glad we did. We ended up using: band-aids, neosporin, peroxide, heartburn medicine and tums, none of which I typically travel with.
• Pack sun dresses for dinner that can double as beach cover-ups. Wear them to dinner once or twice and then wear them to the beach the next day.
• Get a small cross-body purse that you can take everywhere with you. I picked up a Le Sport Sac purse (6" x 10", maybe) and it was $20 well spent. It was great at the airport because I was able to put my boarding pass and passport in the one pocket and I could grab it easily. It was nice at the resort because I wasn't lugging a huge bag around and I could tuck it under the lounge chairs. We didn't go off resort really, but if we'd been doing touristy/walking around town stuff, it would be perfect because it's small, inconspicuous and you'd notice if anyone tried to grab it/mess with it.
• Take one "excursion" outfit. Shorts and t-shirt that would be good for a trekking around, a light hike, a day of fishing, whatever you think you might do that could require clothing other than a bathing suit and cover up.
• In your carry-on, pack a bathing suit, cover-up dress, and the 1-2 essentials you need to get through 24 hours or so, just in case your luggage gets lost. No one wants to wait for the first dip in the ocean/pool because the airline lost your luggage. :(
• Put everything in the room/hotel safe as soon as you get there. We put our passports, phones, and wallets in the safe and left them there the whole time. Especially at an all-inclusive, all you really need when you leave the room is the room key and your camera.
• Call you bank and let them you are traveling out of the country so they don't "fraud alert" your credit card and shut your bank cards off!

Those were the items I found most helpful. I haven't traveled much recently, and it's been decades since I traveled out of the country, so the logistical advice especially made the trip much easier for me. Anyone have any good tips to add? * the wedding was in Williamsburg and it was lovely, in case you were wondering.