Must-have Items for Travel Sports Hotel

While weeknight practices and weekend games are a lot to deal with, travel sports take things to a whole new level. It’s an amazing experience, but the first season can be rough not knowing what to expect.

I assumed traveling would be similar to a vacation just with more stuff. Boy was I wrong!

But after the first one, I got a pretty good idea of how to better prepare for the next one. Somehow even searching the internet I wasn’t able to find a lot of good tips — so here I am documenting my list of what to pack for travel sports. I’ll keep it short and sweet because most of these things speak for themselves. I have linked the exact items I use from Amazon (these are affiliates links so I do earn if you purchase through them). If you’d like a quick print out of these items plus a general packing list, click at the end of the post to download one for FREE!

Packing Checklist for Travel Sports

• Portable Chargers — Not all hotel rooms have great outlet locations and you can take with you to the rink or field because the days are long.

• Gear Hanger — Life changing way to get all the sweaty equipment and clothing out of the way! You can hang in the closet or even off a door and everything is accounted for. No losing of socks or pads!

• Snack Bags — Seems like a no brainer but be sure to grab some pre-portioned, easy to carry snacks such as protein bars, meat sticks, fruit snacks, chip bags. These come in handy for either yourself, your kids or a teammate’s younger sibling that may start becoming destructive at any moment.

• Water — Bottles or just a big gallon. Most hotels have ice machines but water is just out of the tap. If you’re in a new city it probably won’t taste as good as home or just at all…

• Variety of charge cords (HDMI, lightning, usb-c, usb-a + wall outlet) — If you have a iPad or laptop you can buy cords that allow you to connect to a TV usually through HDMI. Gives you an easy way to relax at night watching something familiar or to entertain the family.

There are some other things depending on the hotel and their rules I recommend as well. Check to see if your hotel has a pool. Most I was surprised had indoor pools that entertained the kids for a good while and tired them out! So pack a bathing suit just in case. Some have space or allow for knee hockey, mini soccer ball or one to go outside with. The goal here being to find some ways to fill the downtime and make it fun without necessarily defaulting to movies or screen time.

Click here to download the packing list

Any other travel essentials you’ve found really help? Drop them in a comment below!