Most hotels, and even hostels, provide ironing boards and irons for travelers' use. But who wants to spend time ironing when you could be enjoying a new place instead? Following a few simple packing precautions will help reduce wrinkles, cut down on clothing maintenance time and eliminate the cost of dry cleaning or renting an iron if you're unlucky enough to land in a place without one available for free.
Start with wrinkle-free clothing. Lay out flat anything that won't go on a hanger and smooth the wrinkles out of it. Place things that will go on hangers on the hangers--what does and doesn't hang is strictly personal preference--and smooth the wrinkles out of those clothes as well. Bite the bullet and iron the clothes now, if necessary, to make sure they start out wrinkle free.
Slip a dry cleaner's plastic bag over each item of hanger-bound clothing and secure the hangers to the provided clasp in your suitcase. If your suitcase has no hanger clasp, lay the plastic-bagged clothing across the suitcase, with the neck or waist pointing toward the lid and the bottom hem facing away from the hinge between suitcase and lid. Do this before you pack anything else.
Lay on the bed any shirts, sweaters or pants you can't put on hangers. Smooth the wrinkles out, fold any sleeves in toward the middle, fold each item of clothing once lengthwise, then carefully roll each piece of clothing as tightly as possible, working from bottom to top. If you have enough dry cleaner bags, place one or two articles of clothing in each bag.
Pack your rolled-up clothing and anything else you intend to put in your suitcase. Carefully place the items on top of your plastic-bagged hanger items. Make sure the hanger items lie in the bottom of the suitcase as smoothly as possible. Pack everything else in to fill out the corners and prevent shifting, then fold any remaining fabric that may be sticking out from the hanger items in over the items you just packed. Finally, secure the elastic straps inside your suitcase to help keep items from shifting during travel.
