How do I pack a car boot for a family holiday?

A car boot packed for a fortnight is a load, not luggage, and the car behaves differently because of it. Two things follow from that: the weight has to go in the right place, and the car has to be set up for carrying it. The third consideration is purely practical — the number of times a boot has to be unpacked at a service station because the snacks are at the bottom.

Safety

What you'll need

• The car's handbook for load limits
• A tyre pressure gauge
• Boot organiser or crates (optional)
• Bungee cords or a cargo net (optional)

Step by step

1. Lay everything out on the drive before loading anything.Same principle as packing a case: you cannot judge what will fit or what to leave until you can see all of it. It also reveals the four bags of things nobody actually needs.
2. Load the heaviest items first, low and as far forward as possible.Against the back of the rear seats and on the boot floor. Weight behind the rear axle and high up is what makes a loaded car feel vague, wallowy and slow to settle after a bump.
3. Keep everything below the level of the seat backs.Anything stacked above that line can come forward into the cabin in a crash or a hard stop. It also blocks the rear window, which you need.
4. Fill the gaps with soft items.Coats, towels, bedding. A tightly packed load does not shift, and things that do not shift do not rattle, break or end up under the brake pedal.
5. Keep the journey items in the cabin.Snacks, drinks, wipes, spare clothes, medication, entertainment, sun cream, the wet-weather layer and the documents. If it is needed before arrival it does not go in the boot.
6. Keep the spare wheel, jack, triangle and vests accessible.You need them at the worst possible moment, usually on a hard shoulder in the rain. A load packed on top of the spare is a load that has to come out onto a live carriageway.
7. Check what the car is allowed to carry.The handbook gives a maximum load and often a maximum roof load. A family, four cases and a roof box can genuinely exceed it, and an overloaded car stops badly and is an offence.
8. Set the tyre pressures to the loaded figure.The door placard almost always gives a separate higher figure for a fully laden car and hardly anybody uses it. It is the single biggest improvement you can make to how a loaded car drives.
9. Check the headlight aim and the mirrors.A heavily loaded car sits nose-up and dazzles oncoming traffic. Many cars have a headlight levelling dial — use it. Adjust mirrors after loading, not before.
10. Secure anything that could move.Bungee cords, a cargo net, or a divider on an estate or hatchback. In an SUV or estate with no parcel shelf, an unrestrained load has a clear run into the back of everyone's heads.
11. Load last what you need first.At the destination, the first bag out should be the one with the kettle, the bedding or the baby's things. Think about the unload while you are doing the load.

Tips

• Soft bags pack a boot far better than hard cases because they take the shape of the space. For a car holiday they are usually the better choice.
• A boot packed to the roof with the parcel shelf out is not a full boot, it is an unsafe one. Take less rather than stacking higher.
• Photograph the packed boot when it works. Next year's load takes half the time.

Common mistakes

• Stacking above the seat backs — In a crash or an emergency stop those items travel forward into the cabin at the speed the car was doing. It also blocks the rear view entirely.
• Leaving pressures at the everyday setting — A fully loaded car on unladen pressures feels vague, wears the tyre shoulders and takes longer to stop. The loaded figure is on the placard and takes five minutes to set.
• Packing the snacks and spare clothes in the boot — Every stop becomes an unpacking exercise on a service station forecourt, usually in the rain.

Questions people ask