If you are like me, summers are filled with packed cars and tiny airplane seats.  In fact, tonight I am leaving for a 2 week vacation to Viet Nam and I want to share with you, my top 11 things to pack for an enjoyable and safe summer vacation.  This list of items have been compiled from my multiple camping trips, a few RV trips, many new states and a cruise to Mexico. Enjoy!

1. Q-tips are a great tool for cleaning your ears, applying ointment to wounds and even removing lint from the lens on your camera.
2. Stomach Medicine like Imodium or Pepto-Bismol is the perfect solution to those new and exotic foods that you might encounter during your travels.  Bringing some of this medicine will help you or your friends to a speedy recovery, rather than searching for a store in a new area when your stomach is not agreeing with you.
3. Baby Wipes offer adults and children alike a quick way to feel refreshed.  Baby wipes can get the sticky off your hands when your soda spills on you and can clean up dirty outdoor chairs when water isn’t accessible.
4. Aloe Vera with Lidocaine is the perfect solution for those people with horrible sunburns.  The Lidocaine helps you deal with really bad burns and skin irritations by acting as a topical pain reliever and usually has a cooling sensation which makes traveling with sunburns more bearable.
5. A Sleep Mask will help you get some sleep in pure darkness even when the sun is shinning in your face.  This is a great product to have in your airplane carry-on and car trips because it is lightweight, easily fits in a small pocket and allows you to block out the light so that you can get a few winks before you arrive.
6. Travel Neck Pillow is what I use when I go on any long distance trips.  With a neck pillow I can relax my head to the side yet still provide much needed support to the neck so painful neck cramps don’t occur.
7. Extra Duffel Bag is the key to being able to bring all your souvenirs and dirty clothes back home, without leaving anything behind. What I do is pack  an empty, flattened duffel bag into my checked luggage, so when I start buying souvenirs, I can either put them in the checked luggage or in the duffel bag for safe travels back home.
8. A Copy of your ID/Passport and Credit Cards should be kept in a safe place while you are away.  One copy should be accessible to you while you’re traveling, in the vent you need to report a card lost or stolen.  Another copy should be left with your emergency contact back home.  This way, if  your copy gets destroyed and you don’t have your id or money, you can call on your emergency contact to give you whatever information you need to get you back home safely.
9. Hand Sanitizer, in any form, can be used right before you eat or rub your eyes.  There are times that fresh running water and soap are just not available, but you have spent the whole day touching rocks and  playing in the creek.  Protect yourself from getting sick, by keeping your hands as clean as you can when you touch food, your eyes, mouth, nose or ears!
10. Flip Flop Sandals are the best tool for those people who want to walk around the cabin, hostel or tent but don’t want to wear constricting shoes. Also consider wearing those sandals when you shower in communal stalls or have to walk to the beach or pool.  Wounding the bottom of your feet will very easily ruin a vacation as well as open yourself to serious infections.
11. Safety Pins are the ultimate traveling accessory that have so many uses, it’s almost a crime not to have at least one in your luggage!  Here are the ways that I’ve used safety pins in my travels; pinned cash to the inside of my clothes for safe keeping, removed splinters from toes, fixed a tear in my shirt, pinned a metal key to my bra strap when I didn’t have pockets, affixed a reminder note on a roommates evening attire and quickly mended a tear in my pocket where money was falling out.

I hope this checklist helps you prepare for the unexpected, so that you may have a fantastic summer vacation and safe return back home!  I would like to know what  items you take with you when you go on summer vacation.  Leave me a comment so that I and other readers can be more prepared for our future trips this summer.

- Desiree