When you’re packing for a regular holiday, you’ve only got yourself to take care of. Essentially, you could chuck some pants and your passport in a knapsack and be okay for a week. But a group holiday is a different beast altogether; a group trip’s success lives or dies by some key essentials. Luckily we’ve got you covered – here’s your packed guide to the 10 things you need to take on every group trip.

someone trying their best to pack a suitcase

1. A speaker (or three)

As the old proverb goes, ‘wherever groups of people be, you need speakers, two or three’. And if that’s not a saying, it should be, because imagine a scenario where you finally get away with your mates and the only way to listen to music is huddled around a tinny iPhone propped in a pint glass for ‘amplification’. Yep, case closed.

2. Multiplug and adaptor

A good friend of packed once told us that the secret to his long term relationship was always taking a multiplug extension cord on holiday and we can fully relate. With a multiplug extensions cord, your group can all charge from the power of just one adaptor and you become the hero of the trip.


3. Suncream and aftersun

Suncream becomes a shared currency on a group holiday. You’ll be swapping and passing it around like Pokemon Cards in the noughties, so just accept that you need to bring a couple of large bottles of a slightly higher SPF than you think, because you’re not harder than the sun. Aftersun is less vital, but chat to anyone who’s ever been a little too sunkissed and then applied Banana Boat fresh from the fridge, and they’ll tell you it was the best moment of their trip.

Will Ferrell with bad sun burn drinking a cocktail

4. Chargers

Phone chargers. Speaker chargers. Camera chargers. Electric toothpaste chargers. If you need to use it, bring the thing that makes it work. Trust.

woman explaining that she does not want her phone to run out of battery


5. A pack of cards

‘Cards’, you might scoff. ‘When do you think we’re going away, 1954?’ But until they invent a drinking game that’s as sociable, silly, and likely to work with no wifi as ‘Ring of Fire’, you’re going to want to bring a pack of cards.

A man with a playing card on his forehead


6. Toothpaste

Sure, you could just sneak a sliver of everyone else’s every night, banking on the fact that someone in the group will be more responsible than you and will definitely, 100% bring enough for everyone. But that’s the kind of thinking that leads to the destruction of society, so just bring some of your own and share it ungrudgingly when everyone else forgets it, okay?

7. Monzo/Revolut/Transaction free debit card

Traditional banks charge you every time you take money out or pay for a round of drinks in a bar. Let’s face it, the pound is weak enough without literally throwing your hard-earned cash away. Monzo, Revolut, whatever you use, just make sure you bring a sensible travel debit card.

Leonardo D'icaprio throwing money away

8. The right shoes

Imagine being the reason that your whole group can’t climb a mountain, is denied entry to a bar or misses scuba diving. Check what activities are on the cards and pack accordingly.

9. Medicine, lots of medicine

Think hangover cures, insect bite cream, dicky tummy saviours and, optimistically, condoms. It’s always better to be over-prepared than underprepared.

man wearing sun glasses with a roll of condoms

10. Passport and boarding passes

Group holidays are the things you look back on when you’ve got no time left for tequila shots at sunrise. Don’t be the only one left behind.

So that’s it. packed’s guide to the essential items you need on every group trip. And in the words of Baz Luhrmann’s famous song: ‘If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.’

And toothpaste.