Hanger tricks for travel


When staying someplace for a few days or more, it can be really nice to get some of your clothes out of your backpack or wheelie bag and let them breathe.

But when you’re staying in a non-private room, such as a hostel dorm, or staying as a guest in someone’s home, hangers and places to hang those hangers is usually at a premium. Even proper hotel rooms often have very few hangers.

(Photos coming as soon as I get some of this stuff to demonstrate.)

Hang multiple garments on one hanger

This may be a good way to solve the problem.

The idea: pack round plastic shower curtain rings. Hang them on the bar of a pants hanger. Slip your garments through the rings.

It should work for casual tops such as camisoles, tank tops, bras, bathing suits and maybe belts, at least.

I’m thinking of using this trick to hang my bras, socks, tights, stockings to dry after hand washing them.

Oh! Combine this with one of my definitely-pack-this items — a large safety pin.

Instead of trying to stuff your entire one-piece swimsuit, tank top, or your thicker sleeveless shirt through the ring, put that safety pin through though one strap, then through the ring, and then through the second strap.

This enables you to have several garments on a single hanger.

Plastic shower curtain rings don’t take much room in your bag and it’ll only cost you a dollar or so to try it — if you shop dollar stores. (I love dollar stores in the States and have seen similar stores in several countries.)

Skip the shower curtain rings for some things

You may be able to simply use one large safety pin per garment and clip them directly to the hanger.

Two garments on one hanger — a lighter packing solution

This tip comes from the book Last-Minute Travel Secret: 121 Ingenious Tips by Joey Green.  It doesn’t solve a lack of hangers but it helps with the space issue or with working out where to hang things around your room.

You know those round metal key rings? You either already have more than you know what to do with or you can buy them very inexpensively in any hardware store.

Joey’s tip:
“Closet Space Savers. Slip a key ring over the neck of a hanger, and hook a second hanger on the ring.”

[By the way, I’ve used those key rings in another way as I traveled and Joey mentions this tip as well. When a zipper pull broke off of my Eagle Creek backpack, and I hadn’t bought spares yet, I slide my spare key ring through and was able to continue using that section. It remained in place for a few years.]

If you try these tips…

If you do try any of these tricks, let me know how it works for you.


DISCLAIMER: I can’t take credit for all of this idea. I saw the basic idea of the shower curtain ring in this article on organizing which credits Sara Pedersen, of Time to Organize and Hip2Save. The safety pin parts and hanging anything but tank tops and scarves is mine. And the dual hanger trick is Joey’s.

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