Beach and city trips
Lists for trips where you sleep in a hotel, a ship's cabin or a rental and spend the day walking, swimming or sightseeing.
Beach vacation packing list
Swimwear, sun protection and the small things people forget on a week by the sea.
Weekend city break packing list (carry-on only)
One cabin bag, two or three nights, walking shoes and a dinner outfit that does not need its own suitcase.
Cruise packing list
Formal nights, shore excursions, cabin hacks and the layers you need when the ship's air conditioning is on full.
Europe summer trip packing list
Sightseeing in heat or showers, sockets that differ by country and a pickpocket-wise bag for crowded trains.
How to choose
Start with how you will carry your luggage, because that decides how much you can bring. The weekend city break list is built around one cabin bag and one to five nights, so it counts clothes tightly and tells you what to wear on the journey. The Europe summer list stretches to three weeks and assumes a rucksack or case you can carry up station steps, with a laundry stop around the middle.
The beach and cruise lists are for trips where one place is the point. The beach list is about sun, swimwear and children on a stay that fits in one case. The cruise list adds what a ship needs: dress-up evenings, cabin hooks, shore excursions and ports with different weather in the same week.
If your trip mixes several of these, use the one that matches the hardest constraint. A week of cities by train is a Europe list even if one stop has a beach, and a long weekend in a city is a carry-on list even if you check a bag on the way home.