First-Aid Kit Checklist: What to Pack

A first-aid kit is not a topic of its own, it is a piece of luggage. It has a weight, a place in the suitcase and an order in which you can reach it. That is what this page sorts out.

What belongs in your first-aid kit is for your doctor or your pharmacy to decide. What is here is how you pack the result: how much of it comes along on which kind of trip, where the bag sits, and what stays in the carry-on.

The base stays the same, the size does not

Three things come first on every trip: the medication you take anyway, a small set for cuts and sore spots, and the tools you cannot improvise on the road — tweezers, scissors, disposable gloves, a thermometer.

After that the size comes down to a single question: how far is the nearest pharmacy, and when is it open? In a city it is within walking distance and the bag can stay small. At a campground, in a vacation rental up a hillside or on a day hike, it is not.

Sorted by trip type

Short trips and city trips. Your own medication for the days of the trip plus a reserve, adhesive bandages for new shoes, and whatever you cannot easily get at the destination. A city rarely needs more. What else goes in the suitcase is in the city trip packing list.

Camping, motorhomes and hiking. Here the part for cuts grows: more adhesive bandages, dressings, a cold pack, tick tweezers. Plus a container that stays shut and does not get wet — in a storage compartment it lies next to everything else. The matching list is the camping packing list.

Beach and family trips. Sunscreen does not belong in the first-aid bag but on top of the day pack, because it is used daily. Everything meant for the children goes in one place and gets labeled, so nobody has to search for it later. The rest is in the family packing list.

Flights and travel abroad. Prescribed medication travels in the carry-on, not in the checked suitcase. The original packaging and the leaflet stay on it instead of being decanted — on the road, the name on the box is the only record of what you brought. Whether your destination asks for a certificate is worth settling with your doctor before you leave.

Where the bag sits counts as much as what is in it

A complete first-aid kit in the bottom compartment of a suitcase is not one when it matters. It belongs somewhere you can reach in the dark and without unpacking: a side pocket, the lid compartment, the door pocket of a motorhome. If you travel with other people, say out loud once where it is.

In a car or a motorhome, temperature comes on top. A closed vehicle in the sun is not a storage place, and if a medication has to stay cold, the cooler bag is part of the luggage. How it is kept cold is a question for your pharmacy.

The list that stays

The first-aid kit is the part of your luggage that changes least between two trips — and still the one people assemble last, because it shows up in no travel plan. That makes it the best candidate for a list you keep instead of rewriting: put it together once, then top up after each trip whatever ran out.

Packliste keeps that list and brings it back for the next trip. How to build a list that survives this is in how to make a packing list; what the app can do beyond that is under Features.