The beach is my ultimate happy place. The breeze, the crashing waves, the warm sand, what's not to love?? Whether it's adult time in a chair drinking something cold and reading a book, or family time covered in sand making castles, I cannot turn down time at the beach. We are about 2 hours away from the nearest beach and we love to take day trips in the summer and if work schedules and finances allowed it, we'd take a week long beach vacation every year! We have been having some pretty warm weather around here and with Memorial Day fast approaching, I thought I'd share some of the things on my "must pack" list for a beach vacation! Some of these are major must haves if you are taking kiddos and others are great for anyone going to the beach! So if this is your first beach trip as a family, or your 50th, hopefully I can help you pack some extras that will make your vacation more enjoyable!
Let's start off the list with a mama must-have! Since discovering this product last spring, I cannot live without it, especially on hot summer days spent at the beach or pool. The IT Cosmetics Your Skin But Better CC+ Full Coverage Cream is amazing! Not only does this stuff give you a fresh, beautiful face, it is lightweight, hydrating, and has SPF 50+ in it! It lasts all day on my face and I have yet to burn when wearing it! Instead of slopping on some oily sunblock to head to the beach or pool each day, use this and look extra good while being protected from the sun!
Most of you might be wondering why I take baby powder to the beach. Well my friends, it is the trick to quickly and easily get sand off of wet hands! Just pour a little baby powder into your hands, then lightly rub your hands together (like you are washing them in the sink) and the powder will absorb all of the moisture, the sand will fall to the ground, and you will be left with sand free hands! We mostly use this to clean up quick before we have snacks, but it has also come in handy on day trips to clean off feet before we get in the car to head home! I found a small bottle in the travel section at Walmart awhile back and it has lasted us a long time! This is a permanent staple in my beach bag!
This next item is a MUST for families on a beach (or any) vacation-a collapsible laundry basket! For years taking trips with kids, we could never come up with a good solution for the dirty laundry, so it usually landed in a pile on the floor (hopefully in a corner out of the way). Obviously it's difficult to take a regular hamper or plastic laundry basket with you if you are flying to your destination, so I picked up a collapsible hamper and it has made life SO much easier (and more organized) on vacations!! This thing is super lightweight and folds flat so it can be laid at the bottom of a suitcase for airplane trips, or tossed anywhere in the car if we are driving to our destination. This one is a great size and has held all of the kiddos dirty clothes for a week long vacation.We all now have a place to put the dirty clothes and I do less yelling about the clothes all over the floor! Win-Win!! At the end of the vacation, its easy to toss this back in the car to wash when you get home or just have one place to go to when re-packing suitcases. When it's time to replace ours, I will definitely be grabbing one like this that has a zipper and lid so we don't have to worry about the laundry falling out on the ride home.
Next on my list is a small plastic box with a sturdy lid. I don't know about your kids, but when mine go to the beach, they love collecting sea shells and they all MUST go home with us (so I can throw them away a week later when they have forgotten about them...)! This little box is perfect for holding all of the shells the kiddos collect over the week and want to take home! I keep it in the hotel room and just take a plastic bag to the beach each day. They fill up the bag during the day, then I can rinse and dry the shells off in the room and put them in the box. It keeps them better protected on the way home than a plastic bag and seals up well so I know the lid isn't going to fall off randomly and end up with shells all over the place. I got this one at the dollar tree and it works perfectly!
While you are picking up the hamper to use for dirty clothes, grab a second one to hold all of the beach toys (make sure at least the sides and possibly the bottom are mesh)! We used to use a canvas tote bag, which worked OK, but we had too many toys stuffed in it and it didn't dry very quickly, so it was kind of a mess. This hamper basket is perfect to hold all of the toys (even the big buckets and fishing net) and the kids can help carry it down to the beach each day because it has handles! The mesh sides allow all of the sand stuck to the toys to easily fall out and everything dries out pretty quickly. It also stands up, unlike the canvas tote bag we used to use and holds a lot more, so toys aren't always falling out. This was another Dollar Tree find, and while it's not the best quality, we are going on year 2 of using it and it should last through at least another summer or two before needing to be replaced. You could also get one at Walmart or Target (like the ones mentioned above) and spend a little more to have it last a few more years. Again, eventually I will replace ours with one that has some kind of lid so if it does get knocked over in the hotel room, the toys aren't everywhere.
This next item was something I also came across at the Dollar Tree and I'm so glad I did! They are large clips that we used to secure our towels and swim suits to the hotel balcony railing while they dried out. I'm always afraid to just let the towels hang over the chairs and balcony railing because I worry they are going to get hit with a strong wind gust and fly away! So these clips were perfect to ease my mind and let all of our wet items dry outside at the end of every day. They a much larger than a standard clothes pin, so they worked very well on the thick balcony railings, and at 6 for $1 you can't go wrong!
If you have a toddler who loves water, I have 2 words for you - Puddle Jumper. These things are amazing! When our girls were little we used the cheap, inflatable water wings that were so difficult to put on and take off (hello arm burn!) and seemed to spring a leak every time you really needed them. So we got one of these for Riley and it has been amazing! It works SO much better than the water wings because it also supports his chest to keep his face above water, its not inflatable so it won't pop, it slides on and off his arms easily due to the fabric covering, and it's US Coast Guard approved. We've had this going on 3 years now and it's still in great shape! Hopefully we can work on learning to swim this summer and transition out of it! While we are always no more than a foot or two away from kiddo when he's in any kind of water, this makes swimming much more fun for him and makes it so we don't have to hold him every second and he can float around and play with his toys.
Good beach towels are a must! We've got several large ones for the adults, huge blanket sized ones to lay on the sand, and these fun hooded ones for the kiddos. Our girls are getting a little big for these hooded towels, but Ry is still young enough that I get to make him use one! :) These not only help dry their hair a little, but make it easier for them to keep on and wrapped up in because of the hood holding it on their head. Stay tuned for a tutorial on how to make these, I use a sewing machine but these are pretty simple and could be hand sewn if you don't have a machine!
Lastly, you need a big beach bag to carry all of the stuff!! I found this shop on Etsy and LOVE the bag I picked out! It's HUGE! It holds 5 beach towels, 2 extra large beach towel/blankets, and is lined with lots of pockets to keep sun block, snacks, wallets, cell phones and anything else we need organized and safe! We used to have 2-3 bags to get all of our stuff to the beach, but now we only need this one (and the big hamper of toys)!
I can't wait to get to the beach this summer (winter has left me quite pasty pale) and relax by the waves. I'm sure our first trip is not far off! Don't forget the sunscreen!!
-A
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