Quick-fix carriers

•  A plastic-bag filing system

Various sizes of self-sealing plastic bags provide an easy way to stay organized when you’re on the move — small sandwich bags for receipts and large freezer bags for pamphlets, brochures, maps and other memorabilia you collect along the way. The more bags you bring, the more organized you will be. For instance, you might want to use separate bags for each place visited, for each type of receipt (restaurants, hotels, shops) or for each day of your trip.

•  Pack big bags

It really does make sense: you can fill up garbage bags with dirty laundry when you travel. Heavy-duty bags are especially handy because you can just put them over your shoulder and head out to a laundromat. On a picnic or car trip, garbage bags come in handy for rubbish. And if you’re not particularly self-conscious about looks, you can even cut a couple of slits for your arms and one for your head and wear a garbage bag as an improvised raincoat. It may look a little odd, but it works.

Note: if you forget to pack bin bags, the plastic laundry bags found in many hotels will do all these things (except for the raincoat — the plastic is too thin and the bag is too small).

•  A handy coin holder

Don’t discard torn pantihose — they can come in handy as a coin holder when you’re on the move. To keep all the coins you get as change from cluttering the bottom of a purse or weighing down your pockets, tuck them into the foot of a pair of old pantihose, tie the top in a loose knot and store this moneybag in your suitcase. You won’t have to lug around a lot of extra coinage, and since the loose change will be in one place, you can easily clip into your coin reserves as needed.

•  Little moneybags

Foreign currency can flummox even the worldliest traveller, and it can take a while before you start feeling comfortable with unfamiliar coins and notes. For easier sorting, put notes and coins of various denominations into self-sealing plastic bags — a different bag for each denomination. When it’s time to pay for something, you won’t have to sort through a pile of mixed currency.

•  The case for taking a pillowcase

Nothing adds a comforting feel to unfamiliar surroundings like laying your weary head on one of your own pillowcases. This nice touch of home takes up little room in your suitcase and it can do also double duty as the following:

1. A protector To stop knitted garments such as jumpers from snagging on other items in your suitcase, slip them into a pillowcase.
2. A laundry bag When the pillowcase becomes dirty, put your dirty clothes in it. Clothing will be less prone to mould and mildew when kept in a pillowcase than it will in a plastic bag, and you can just empty it before throwing it into the wash when you find a laundromat.