Our Beach Packing List

As we kick off summer this weekend we know many people, especially this year, will be taking road trips to the beach. We have done this ourselves many, many times over the years. We started when our kids were very young and just us moms took them for a few days to Galveston.

We did this for a couple of years before the guys started to get a little jealous of all the fun we were having and wanted in on the action. From then on it became a family vacation.

We ventured further afield a couple of the years going to the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area of Alabama. And for 2020 we are doing it again but headed somewhere new – the 30A area of Florida. We’re super excited to explore this very popular destination for ourselves. We’ve rented a single family home and will be able to practice recommended social distancing measures while we’re there.

Over all these years we’ve developed a beach packing list that we thought we’d share. You can download the list by clicking here. When vacationing with multiple families it’s a good idea to divvy up the supplies for each family to bring in advance. Especially this year, doing this and following a list will avoid extra trips to the store once you’re at your destination. We found one of our old lists where we did just that and even color coded who was bringing what – because we’re extra like that.

We’re also big meal planners – we’ve belonged to a cooking club for years where we get together once a month and make meals for the freezer – so planning meals ahead of time for a beach trip just makes sense to us. Bringing frozen meals that are already mostly prepared cuts down on trips to the store once you’re at the beach and cuts down on meal prep time and stress so you can enjoy the beach for more of the day. Here is our meal plan for the 2013 trip – it’s pretty basic, only breakfasts and dinners are planned and we divide these up for each family as well. We bring basic lunch supplies and everyone makes their own or eats leftovers – easy peasy.

Two things we never head to the beach without – our friend Nicol’s Bloody Marys and our homemade salsa. Here are the recipes if you’d like to give them a try yourself – we promise you wont regret it!

We hope these planning tips and recipes help if you’re taking a road trip to the beach this year. Bring on summer – we’re ready!