The Ultimate Guide to Packing Quickly for a Weekend Campervan Trip

Whether you are new to vanlife, or a seasoned campervanning pro, there’s always something new to learn. You’ve probably had those “Next time we will…” or “Next time we won’t…” conversations with your travel partner, refining the way you pack and prepare after each trip. Every adventure teaches you how to make vanlife more efficient, with less stress and more time to relax. But figuring it all out doesn’t happen overnight - it takes time and experience.

After many years of family vanlife adventures, we are excited to share our tried-and-tested tips for packing quickly and efficiently for a weekend getaway.

1: How can I pack my campervan quickly?

A great tip is to clean and restock your campervan, or motohome as soon as you return home from a trip. Instead of waiting until the next time you are leaving for a trip to pack, restock your consumables as you are unpacking. This way, it’s always ready for your next adventure and you don’t even need to think about it as you leave. Replenish essentials like tea bags, coffee and toilet paper, so when the next weekend rolls around, you can head out knowing everything is in place and ready to go.

5 Tips for Easily Packing your Campervan for the Road

Do you want to know the secret to cooking easy meals on the road? For us, that’s keeping the cupboards stocked up with the basics. These are our go-to essentials.

2: Duplicate your essentials so you have a ‘van set’

Of course, if you only use your campervan for a few months of the year, this tip might not be relevant, or cost-effective. However, consider gradually building up a full set of everything you need for your home-on-wheels, and ensure the items are always kept in the campervan all-year-round. For example, cutlery, plates/bowls, toothbrushes and toothpaste, coats, warm clothing, underwear etc. Unless we are taking a long break from travelling over the winter, even our bedding stays in the campervan. With toiletries, phone chargers and other essentials always in place, there is no need to pack, or worry about forgetting anything before a trip!

3: Packing doesn’t need to be an all day affair

Thursday evening rolls around and you’re faced with the overwhelming task of packing for a weekend getaway - your mind racing with all the things you need to remember and don’t want to forget. We’ve all been there! But packing doesn’t have to feel like a last-minute scramble. While you can find more specific packing tips here, we’ve recently found it much easier to pack in stages, spending just 10 minutes a day in the days leading up to the trip. Instead of cramming everything in the night before, we spread it out over the week.

For example, if we are heading out straight after school on a Friday, I’ll pack clothes on Wednesday evening and then adjust the van’s contents depending on the trip. If we’re going wild camping, we probably won’t need four chairs, the pop-up tent and the outdoor table.

Packing doesn’t need to be a stressful affair! If you haven’t been away in your campervan, or motorhome for a while then the prospect of packing can seem daunting, but break those jobs down into much smaller and manageable tasks. Doing little and often will help you avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Click here for more Storage Essentials and here for our Amazon recommendations.

4. Make a meal plan

It only takes a few minutes to plan out what you and your family will eat over the weekend. In fact you can download your FREE Weekend Meal Planner here and find more campsite meal inspiration here. We like to make a quick meal plan a few days ahead of time, arrange a click and collect and then unload the food directly into the campervan the day before we’re set to leave. Thanks to the solar panels, we can keep the fridge running, so I typically do this about 24 hours before departure. It's a simple way to make sure everything is ready to go!

How do we store food in our VWT5 Campervan?

While I appreciate packing to go away takes time and effort, it can be done without stress. I find that just adding a couple of things that we are going to need to the van each day works really well.

We pride ourselves no fuss approach to vanlife, helping you make vanlife with kids easier and identify what is and isn't necessary when it comes to kitting out your campervan. For our Amazon recommendations click here.