13 reasons to pack safety pins for your travel! 2

Safety pins are small items that can do much for you as you travel. As they take up so little space, there are no-brainers to bring along on your trip. (So are paperclips, which I’ll cover later.)

A safety pin can do much more than just your clothes together when the seam is ripped or button is lost.

Here are some real ways safety pins have helped me — and might help you out as you travel.

You may notice I actually show you more than 13 ways. That’s because right after I posted it, I realized another way, and then another…

Safety pins are great travel helpers for:

1. Turning a regular hanger into a skirt hanger. Just put a pin through the top left side of your skirt, then clip it to the hanger. Repeat for the right side. (Or vice versa.)
2. 

   Hanging something to dry.

   Hang clothing to dry when there are no places to hang a hanger from. Find any handle or protrusion that’s high enough off the ground and pin the item to it as I have in this photo. I recommend keeping the wet items in the bathroom until they are not dripping anymore. Then you can move them, preferably to where there is warm air so they dry faster.

3. When you’ve got a shirt/top/blouse with a wide collar and it won’t stop sliding off the hanger, especially a wire hanger, use a pin to pull the left and right side closer.
4. Closing that darned curtain that always lets the light in where the pieces come together.
5. Use a medium-sized safety pin to pull the drawstring back through your hoodie or rain coat’s hood or for your stuff-able sling bag.
6. Pin the safety pin through the bottom your garment’s leg, hem, seam, etc to break static cling. (I have not tried this one personally as I have not had static.)
7. Of course, there’s the old trick of using a medium-sized safety pin to pull elastic back though when it’s come undone.
8. When you’ve lost weight traveling you may need to cut some of the elastic waisted skirt or pants and then hold the elastic together in order to sew it closed again.
9. Fasten your scarf into place so you won’t have to worry about it falling off as you explore, hike, sail, run, etc.
10. Pin your handbag closed to foil or deter pickpockets. This works if your strap has a loop of any sort.
11. Pin your pockets closed to foil or deter pickpockets.
12. Hold seams together while sewing up your well-worn clothing. Normally you’d use straight pins for this, but if you’re not carrying any in your sewing kit, let your smaller-sized safety pins help you.
13. As a zipper pull. But I’d recommend this only if absolutely necessary because if it opens it’ll hurt and maybe ruin clothing.
14. And yes, you can remove splinters too — after you use a flame to sterilize it. However, if that splinter is in your finger or toe, I recommend soaking it in warm salted water until it comes to the surface instead.

And a less practical use…

Piercing your ears. Well, it’s how my Parisian friend re-pierced my ears long ago on my second solo travel (a three-years travel adventure). I have a photo of that piercing somewhere in my old photos box.

Do you have other realistic uses for using a safety pin while you’re traveling? Let me know, please!