Pre & Post Holiday Organising
If you follow me on Instagram you will see that my family and I have just returned from another awesome overseas adventure. We spent just over a month travelling Italy. We went to 21 different cities / towns in 9 regions. We enjoyed Rome and places like the Colosseum, Christmas at a luxury farmstay in Puglia, did a cooking class, went to the football, visited Pompeii, the Ferrari museum, ate our body weight in pasta and gelato, went to an Italian theme park, and went skiing in the Dolomites. So many great memories made.
I have always shared my holidays in stories, as aside from many people liking holiday content, I know from the hundreds of DMs I receive during these times that they inspire people. So many of those that follow along and my clients will say “Gosh you’ve inspired me to cull back my shopping this year and save and book a holiday”. And whilst each holiday I do lose approximately 200 followers over the month I’m away it doesn’t bother me as travel and experience over things is a core value I walk without necessarily coming out with talk about it online.
But the lead up to and return from holidays is where my organisation skills shine just as much as when I’m organising someone’s home.
So here I am sharing with you some of the key things I did before and after my holiday to ensure I could enjoy myself and also transition smoothly back to routine minus the holiday blues.
Before I left:
Arranged a house sitter to care for my dog.
Updated the Google doc I have with all the information about my house and my dog for my housesitter whilst I am away
Booked my cleaner to come;
- The day before we flew out (so I could focus on getting packed and organised to leave, but the house be fresh for the house sitter).
- For half way through out holiday (this was about the 5th of Jan. As my house sitter was continuing to work full time whilst we were away I did this to ensure our home stayed clean as I have a dog that lives mainly inside my house).
- The day before our return; so the house was freshly cleaned allowing me to focus on the washing and catching up for 2 daysArranged to pay my house sitter extra to take down my Christmas decorations.
Also due to the time of year, I did do some of my ‘back to school’ tasks for my son before we left so it could be a less frantic return.
Strategically ran down our fridge and pantry and ensured the night before we left a clean fridge with nothing potentially going off in our absence (mindful to keep things easy for our house sitter)
I know it is common that people talk about the deep clean of the house and frantic mode that can strike when you are packing for a holiday. So this is where I was grateful for knowing that I had my cleaner booked so I could focus on packing and wrapping up some final loose ends in my business before we left.. But if there is one element I stay so close to right up to packing, it is making sure that I have all of the washing up to date.
So that I have all my fav options available to pack if I want to take them.
To minimise the amount of washing awaiting me when I get home when I will have a steady amount of washing that will come out of the suitcase.
When I returned from holidays it was 1am QLD time, but I was wide awake. And if there is something both my husband and I do as soon as we walk in the door (after we have showered our dog with love and apologised for leaving her for so long); It's to unpack the suitcases. I shared this with a timestamp on my instagram stories and the amount of people who commented on my discipline. This really isn’t discipline to me, it’s honestly just how my husband and I instinctively operate once we are home. We love our holidays but generally when we get home we are ready to get back to routine and have ourselves set up to get back into it.
I had given myself 2 full days before returning to work in my business. I split these days distinctively into two lists that also help me to keep busy and distract myself as I navigate jet-lag and get my body clock back on track.
Day 1
I didn’t leave the house. I simply washed, folded and ironed at a leisurely pace all day.
My husband did the grocery shop and unpack and started the regular meal prep. Even though through our holiday we go to laundromats every 5-6 days we hadn’t been for the last 6 days of our holiday which included our ski gear. Keeping in mind this was a Winter holiday, even 6 days meant 8 loads of washing upon return!
Having just this first day at home after over a month away was bliss.
I also;
Cleaned my makeup brushes
Wiped out the suitcases and toiletry bags
Tubbed up into the storage container the clean Winter thermals, scarves etc to be stored in the garage
Collated and consolidated all the travel items such as international adaptors, travel scales etc to the ‘travel drawer’
Day 2
Errands. Feeling good about the unpack and washing done, I had set aside this day for all the “running around tasks”.
Getting my son his back to school haircut
Dropping the winter coats to be dry cleaned
Picked up some click and collect product orders for upcoming home organising projects
Went to the pharmacy and post office.
Beauty appointments….. One of which was my eyebrows but the other was something so lovely I have never done before but purposely mentioning here as I will DEFINITELY do this again in future. I had been given a luxurious facial voucher from my friend Dee before Christmas and whilst my goal was to use this in November, my schedule just didn’t allow for this. So I booked it for this ‘day 2’ as a ‘post long haul flight hydration boost’ for my skin. It was HEAVEN and I can not recommend this enough.
I then returned to organising projects the next day and truly felt so good to get into 2026!
Navigating Jet-lag
I don’t always suffer with jet-lag but if there is one destination that has wrecked me in the past it’s Europe. However this trip I put into Chat GPT my flight and timezone details for both the trip over and the trip home to generate a proposed “sleeping plan”. Overall I found this helpful even if I couldn’t always adhere to falling asleep exactly at the proposed times. I tried. Lol.
But the best tip it gave me was understanding about the role dehydration plays in longevity of jet-lag. So this trip I made sure to be smart with taking electrolytes on the long flights and was diligent with taking these also during the holiday and once I was home. I can safely say that this has made a huge difference to how my husband, son and I recovered this time.
Creating Photobooks
Being a Home Organiser I often discuss the topic of photo organisation on Instagram and over the years I’ve had some great recommendations from people. One of my favourites last year was I had half a dozen people tell me that they actually create their photobooks on their phone whilst they are on holidays. Steadily doing uploading and documenting as they go so the books are ready to be ordered when they get home. This has stayed with me and I attempted this this holiday and succeeded.
I used the time on trains and buses between cities to upload my fav photos from the destination we were just leaving and on the flight home I went through refined some of the captions and details I wanted included. Of all the organised things I do before and after a trip, this was such a great feeling to have done. So if you’re reading this and you’re one of the people that messaged me this. Thank you so much. Game changer.
*Note: I use OnceUpon App for my photobooks.
My Travel Go-To’s
Sharing travel stories means that I am frequently asked in DMs about what my fav travel products, bags and gadgets are. I have created a ShopMy board with links to all my favs for you to check out to help you get organised for your next holiday.
I also have created highlights on my Instagram page with my holiday stories for those of you wanting different itinerary inspo.
And to those that asked me questions around creating great itineraries all of your family will enjoy here are my final tips;
Before you start planning watch some YouTube videos on your destination country as a family.
These videos can generally inspire each of you differently.
Next get each person (even kids) to give you their “Top 3 Wish list”. This can be cities, activities, food spots, anything.
These wish lists can often give you a good basis for planning and building out your itinerary.
I also like to consider a variation of the following; attending a live sport event, a zoo and or theme park, museums, researching local food, unique community events.
Happy Organised Adventuring