Are you an overpacker? Ruth Langsford certainly is, and she has some excellent packing advice – her bargain travel essential is a must-have.
“My friends always laugh at how much stuff I take on holiday, but whenever we’re away they always come to me and want to borrow everything,” she said in a recent Instagram video detailing her packing routine.
“Mostly they want to borrow this,” she added, holding up an extension cable she will 'never travel without'. It might not be the first thing you think to pack, but Ruth makes a very good point, saying 'in hotels and villas and Airbnbs, quite often the mirror’s over there and the plug’s over there'.
"So if you want to dry your hair, you need one of those.”
Clearly a fan of keeping her suitcase organised and pristine, it’s no surprise Ruth also swears by using packing cubes, just as woman&home’s digital editor Kerrie Hughes does, with the handy staple being one of her 12 travel essentials.
“These packing cubes are by my lovely friend Donna London, and they’re so pretty but also massively practical,” Ruth said of her set of four compression packing cubes.
Shop Ruth Langsford’s Travel Essentials
While you can take any extension lead on holiday with you, this one from Amazon is particularly handy thanks to its compact size, range of ports, and its braided cable, which makes wrapping it up neatly a breeze.
The same packing cubes used by Ruth, you get four compression packing cubes in this set, making it a great buy for keeping everything you want to travel with organised. And the mesh tops make it easy to see what’s inside at a glance.
Ruth's Alfa Italia Viaggio Travel Styling Kit is our new must-have for travelling. Gone are the days of hair tools taking up so much packing space.
“You zip it up and then there’s a second zip, and that compacts the bag right down – look at how flat that is,” she added.
Taking your best hairdryer and a full-size pair of the best hair straighteners on a trip with you can really bulk up your luggage, but Ruth has a workaround for this, too.
“This is fantastic,” she said, picking up a stunning orange travel bag, containing not only a “mini hairdryer” but also a pair of “little mini hair straighteners". It might be small, but Ruth says the hairdryer is 'really powerful'. A kit like this is a great way to ensure you can still style your hair as desired but save precious space. Don't need both, we've tried and tested all the best travel hairdryers and best cordless hair straighteners for all your travel needs.
