Samantha Brown's Helpful Hack For Dealing With The Dreaded Post-Vacation Laundry Pile

Going on vacation guarantees two things: great memories and a suitcase that mysteriously weighs a ton more on the way back. Whether you snagged a souvenir or two or went on a full-blown shopping spree, you're bound to haul back more than you left with. The overarching dilemma for travelers everywhere is trying to cram everything into your bag, especially when your dirty laundry seems to have doubled in size. Travel guru Samantha Brown, who can turn packing into an art form and has tips for everything from avoiding the hassle of checking luggage altogether to repurposing silica gel packets to protect your belongings, also has a smart hack for tackling that dreaded laundry mountain: Vacuum seal bags.

And no, you're not losing it. If you think your dirty laundry weighs more than your clean clothes, it's because it does. Even at home, a basket full of grimy gear is almost always heavier than one with freshly washed stuff. As it turns out, all that grime, sweat, dead skin cells, and dirt you've picked up throughout your trip actually contribute to the weight. So, it shouldn't be too much of a shocker that if you attempt squeezing them into regular packing cubes, you're still struggling to make them all fit. Vacuum seal bags, though? The "Samantha Brown's Places to Love" host notes that they can squish your dirty clothes down to almost nothing, leaving you with extra space for all those new goodies you picked up.

Samantha Brown knows the all-too-familiar dread of facing a mountain of dirty laundry at the end of your trip. In an Instagram post, she shared that these grimy garments can zap the joy right out of your vacation as your mind gets stuck on figuring out how to tackle them. "All the good feelings you have from your trip are just gone because you keep looking at your pile of dirty laundry," Brown noted. She found out, however, that vacuum seal bags, particularly the large ones, are a nifty solution. "Just keep it in here and throw this in your laundry bin and you will get to it when you can. Psychologically that just helps me deal," she explained.

When packing, Brown recommends arranging your clothes in a single layer before rolling out all the air and folding the bag up. But she also warned about getting too excited about all the sudden extra space — compressed clothes may look much smaller, but they weigh just the same. "Always want to be mindful of the weight, though, whether you are checking or carrying on... [It] gets heavy," she cautioned, adding that you also don't want to do this trick either for your clothes on the way out — unless you want to don a wrinkly summer dress. "I don't use these for clean clothes to pack my clothes going to my trip. It just leaves your clothes a hot mess," she said.

Packing your clothes into a vacuum seal bag is a breeze when you're flying solo, but if you're traveling with family, including children, managing everyone's dirty laundry becomes a real challenge. If you're the designated laundry wrangler, Samantha Brown has a tip to save your sanity: Bring at least two vacuum seal bags to sort the mess.

"Here's when it becomes even more convenient. I will bring two, and I will use one for lights and one for darks," she advised in another Instagram post. "Now, when I get home and I open up my bag, it's not going to be this like volcanic explosion of laundry that I have to work through for the next week." And the bonus? Brown noted elsewhere in the video that the vacuum seal hack can free up a good chunk of space in your bag." You really will get back 20 to 25% more space in your luggage for your things," she said.

By using vacuum seal bags and sorting by color, you'll not only save precious luggage real estate but also spare yourself the mental anguish of post-vacation laundry chaos. Instead of dreading the laundry woes you'll have to deal with when you get home, you can relax a little bit knowing everything's neatly packed and under control — at least temporarily.