Clean Travel Tip #2

If you love to preserve your vacation memories through photos, then you'll appreciate today's tip. It's a bit of a no-brainer, but I think it's still worth mentioning.

Whenever you go on a trip, if there's any chance at all you're going to want pictures of your room, (perhaps because your accommodations are especially lovely or unique), then you should snap those pictures before you do anything else. I'm talking about before you unpack any suitcases or flop on the bed or anything.

Why? Because no matter how hard you try to keep this place neat, it's never going to look as good as it does when you first get there. So if you know you're going to want to preserve it in your memories and your photo album, then stash all suitcases, carry-ons, etc. right inside the door, take a moment to walk around and snap some pictures immediately, then put away the camera and go ahead and move in.

At this point, you may be asking just how, exactly, this makes your room any cleaner. It doesn't, actually, but it's still good advice for the housekeeping impaired! Trust me, as you look through the vacation pics years from now, you'll be very glad that you took a moment to do this first.

I'm sure glad I did at this gorgeous place, the Hanalei Colony Resort in Kauai, where we stayed this summer. Talk about a beachfront location!