You know that feeling when you come back from a trip and your house is clean and there is nothing for you to do when you get home except unpack your suitcases? That is my favorite feeling and I have some steps I go through to make this happen. A lot of these steps are for the day of or day before leaving, but there are also a few things I do in the week leading up to it.

Let’s get into it!

1. Don’t grocery shop

In our house during the week before a trip, I usually skip my trip to the grocery store. I don’t want to buy perishable food that will go bad while we are gone and waste our money. I like to use up everything that is already in the fridge and create meals with what I already have at home. All the leftovers get eaten and our fridge and pantry ends up looking pretty empty by the day we leave and I love it! I always plan my grocery trip or grocery pick-up the day or day after we get back.

Now, depending on the length of the trip and where we are going, this may be a step to skip. I may need to go grocery shopping for food for our camping trip or we may only be gone for a weekend and don’t have to worry about food spoiling. For the most part, I like to try to have very little food in our home while we are gone.

2. Do all the laundry

When I get home from a trip, I will have lots of laundry to do from the clothes we brought with us. So, I try my best to get everything that is left at home washed, dried, folded, and put away before we go. Of course there may be our pajamas and a few hand towels that don’t make it, but I like to do the bulk of it before we go so there is not a mountain I have to face when we return to our trip.

I say to make sure it is all washed, dried, folded, and put away because I don’t want to accidentally leave something in the washing machine getting smelly and gross during our whole trip. I double check that washing machine before we go so I don’t have an unpleasant surprise when we get home.

3. Clean/reset every room

If you have read through my nightly cleaning routine, you will be familiar with how I reset the rooms in my home each night. Before we leave for a trip, I make sure they are reset as well. Everything in my home has a place it belongs. In every room I pick up trash, dishes, and put everything back where it goes.

I also complete any weekly cleaning tasks that need to be completed before we leave. If we’re leaving on a Friday, I make sure our Friday task is done before we leave, which in our house is bathrooms. 

4. Take out trash

Before we go, I make sure all trash is out of our house and in the outside garbage cans. This is usually something I do the day we leave. I want there to be nothing in the house that could smell up the house or attract ants or other pests while we are gone. No matter how long we are gone, smelly garage is not the scent we want to return to.

5. Shut & lock all windows/doors and close the blinds

Usually as we are starting to head out the door, we go through every room to make sure every window is shut and locked and every door to the outside is shut and locked as well. We also close all of the blinds just for an extra measure of security and to keep the house cool from the sun.

6. Turn off AC

We don’t run our air conditioning every day, but we still double check to make sure it is turned off while we are away. We don’t want it to be running while no one is home and wasting our money.

7. Have lamp on timer

This is something we have for everyday security, but we have a lamp by our front window that is on a timer from a smart plug from sunset to midnight. When we are going on a trip, we just double check that it is on so our house doesn’t look completely dark for the duration of our trip.

8. Double check each room

Usually after I have done my double-checks and have sat down in the car, my husband does one last double-check of the whole house to make sure nothing got left on or plugged in and to make sure all windows and doors are locked.

9. Set alarm system

Finally, we set our home security alarm system and head on our way. Our alarm is triggered if any window or door is opened and we also have cameras on the inside and outside of our house for peace of mind while we are away. 

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That just about does it for our house checklist to get it ready for a trip! I hope you found something in here that you can implement into your own checklist for leaving for a trip. This is a checklist that I have been tweaking overtime and I feel like I have recently perfected what works in our house and for our family. Don’t be afraid to try something just to see if it works and if not, you can always tweak it to make it work for you. 

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With love,

Victoria O’Brien