Despite having worked in the travel industry for over a decade, I’ve always found flying, specifically the airport, a stressful experience. I’m one of those nervous airport nerds that has to arrive three hours early. I always make sure I know where my gate is before doing anything else. And yes, I’m constantly checking where my passport is in my bag, even saying it out loud to myself.
So as you can imagine, now travelling with two tiny children has added a whole new level of stress to the already strained experience. There is the almost-scientific strategic packing of snacks, travel toys and other paraphernalia. But, most dauntingly, the burdensome task of now being responsible for three passports.
For our first flight as a family of two adults and two children, I thought storing all four passports in a pocket in my travel tote would do the job – I travel with the July Everyday Tote. It’s a fantastic underseat bag that usually does the job, but between the nappy changing mat, a water bottle, toys and bottles, it meant I had to awkwardly rummage every time I needed our passports and tickets, which was especially tricky when also carrying a baby. Note: The jungle of holding baby, wrangling other child, collapsing pram and showing the flight attendants your tickets as you board the plane, while trying to not hold up the line of other passengers, is always the hardest and most stressful part of the whole airport experience.
I needed something quick and easy to grab, that was big enough to hold our passports and tickets all together. The solution? This family passport organiser from Stackers.
Passport organisers and travel wallets are nothing new, but from my research, few offer the ability to store multiple passports. And the ones that do are often real leather, and thus quite pricey.
The style I travelled with is the Stackers Wave family passport holder, which is made of faux leather and canvas, and features a wave shaped compartment. This little design feature makes it easy to store and grab tickets, while the card holders above are great for keeping any travel visas, ID cards or lounge access cards you might have. On the left are four slots for holding passports, plus you could easily store more in the wave compartment if you have a larger family.
In the middle is a band for storing a pen, which comes especially handy when having to fill in arrival forms onboard (annoyingly not all countries have digitised this process – my home country Australia being one of them).
All zips up smoothly with a strong metal zip. At the back is another zip up pouch that is long but thin, designed for storing cash.
