My DH insists that he has what he needs at each place and never need pack a thing, which is true for him, and my son.

My girls and I have doubles of all our toiletries at the summer house, and there is some clothing that is always kept at our summer home. But we still usually pack a tote bag each time each way, since there are specific things you may want either place, and while my DH maybe happy to buy 4 white golf shirts, we ladies like to mix it up and don't buy multiples.

We keep extra clothing, PJs,, jackets, and swimsuits at our lake condo, both summer and winter things, plus toiletries and makeup. But I still pack a small bag and so does DH with specific things we might want to wear.

I always take some of my makeup too as I think it needs to be replaced at the lake if it has been there a while. I just went through a bunch of it and tossed some old things.

We have a winter home, but same thing. We keep doubles of everything. The only things I bring back and forth are my computer. Although now that we have the baby and he outgrows things, we do bring clothes back and forth for him since it wouldn't make sense to keep extras at each house when we don't know what size he will be in.

I have a lot of duplicate things that I leave at the second home - hair products and a bunch of "old" clothes and some shoes but not my good stuff. I bring my cosmetic bag and hair dryer back and forth along with some "good" clothes and shoes. I could get by without bringing clothes if I didn't go out anywhere. I have a hairdryer there but since I bought a new more expensive one I bring it back and forth - not about to buy another $80 hairdryer. I've been doing this so long that I have a routine and never seem to forget anything.

I leave a lot of duplicates at my other place. Even in saying that, I still find we take a lot with us, mainly because we don't remember if we have certain items there. The next time we go up, I will take pictures of the closets and cupboards that I'll keep on my phone before we return. This way I will know exactly what I should bring. It's mainly the clothes that I don't remember.

I kept a lot of duplicates at our weekend house. Personal toiletries, pjs, robes, slippers, etc. I usually kept clothes I didn't wear as much there. Since I didn't like them, I would pack a small bag with clothes to wear and then take them home every Sunday night. LOL.

Now we spend 6 summer months on the east coast and 6 winter months on the west coast. I still have duplicates of a lot of things. I do pack a big suitcase with the clothes I wear 80% of the time!

When we bought our second home one of my specific goals was that every Friday before I headed down I wanted to only have to toss my laptop and whatever book I might be reading into the car then head out.

So I duplicated pretty much everything from toiletries to my bed and bedding ;). It was so nice to have one less stressor in life and so lovely to walk in and relax without worrying I'd forgotten to bring X or Y. Not to mention having exactly what I knew I liked in both places. I didn't buy a second wardrobe, but I did take enough of my casual stuff along with nightgowns and underwear that I never needed to pack clothes either.

Having duplicates at the second house is a lot easier.

We've owned our other place for 25 years but we use it year round so it makes sense to have duplicates of clothes and toiletries. It makes it much easier when we decide at the last minute that we want to go up especially since we need things for winter and summer weather. We keep the pantry stocked and condiments in the frig so that we can go up anytime and just make a quick stop perishables. We also installed a whole house generator so we don't have to worry about power outages and food spoilage.

But - I still find myself packing a bag - laptop, iPad, sometimes an outfit or 2 or items that I want to take up and leave. DH throws his meds in a tote and is ready to walk out the door. It's really annoying.

I do keep a spreadsheet of pantry items and spices and the like so I know if I need anything for cooking.

We have all toiletries, night wear, coats, gloves, hats, hairdryer, some shoes, casual wear, etc. We do take a small bag with the outfits that we plan to wear. It is really very simple.

This pandemic really makes me want a beach house!! That is all, 😂! Oh, and I‘d probably bring most clothes, but keep toiletries there.

I’m serious...I need a change of scenery. If we can’t travel like we usually do...I want a place at the beach so we can get away.

We tend to empty our house out each year as I’ve given it to friends to use in the past. Now, though, I think I’ll just kee duplicates of the essentials

We have duplicates of toiletries, hair dryer, etc. I have a wardrobe that is mostly castoffs from my closet at home. My kids had clothes there too when they were young but now they pack clothes when they go. We have a large leather tote bag that we very creatively call “the R.I. bag” — it sits in my closet at home and we toss anything that’s destined for the beach house in there. Usually if we are going for a weekend, I only need to bring my kindle and maybe my good sneakers.

Most of my bathing suits and coverups are there too, since we rarely go to the beach when we’re home. I think we only have 2 beach towels and 2 beach chairs at our regular house.

That's funny, we have the "Maine box." It goes up and comes back. In the interim, it gets filled with anything that has to go in the opposite direction.

I used to have castoffs at the summer home, but we spend enough time there that I decided I deserved real clothes; plus they have a lot of great outlets.

Sueb - you sound a lot like me. I have a tote bag in my closet that carries various things back and forth including a bunch of hard copy recipes. Sometimes I have stuff piled next to it in which case I fill a Trader Joe’s grocery bag with that stuff.

Nini - I completely understand what you’re saying - the change of scenery has helped us keep our sanity especially when it was still too cold to do much outside.

Wow, so envious...can’t imagine owning/affording two homes. Good for all of you!

Oddly, I haven't felt like going to our summer house. Its earlier then we'd go anyway, except for meeting with the gardener for a buying trip.

Our house in CT is really excellent for stay-cation, as there is so much to do here right at home. Between the pond, the kayaks, the fish and the pool, the craft room and game room. Oh and all the organizing and deep-cleaning chores. I can't imagine anywhere else where we could be on week 10 and not be crazy.

We don’t have the lake house any longer but when we did I took practically nothing. It was a shared house between DH and his sibs, spouses and and our kids, fifteen of us in all. We kept it stocked with everything anybody would need, plus kept kids’ t shirts and shorts and bathing suits and water shoes and sneakers in every size. We rarely ate out and if so it was at an ultra casual restaurant at the marina. I took a couple of pairs of shorts and t shirts for myself and the kids took what they traveled in and wore the “lake clothes“ when they got there. They all slept in a big room / kids dorm, usually in the shorts and tees they put on when they came in for the day and had baths (or outdoor showers). When they got up they put on bathing suits, ate breakfast on the deck, grabbed a towel from the big basket and were out again for most of the day. No one wore makeup and everybody wore ponytails. It was meant for fun and relaxing. We all have such fond memories of that place!

kswl that sounds so nice!

We always keep clothes and toiletries at our second home. Especially lounging clothes and seasonal essentials (like swimsuits). However, since its a pied a terre and we usually combine trips with side trips to other city location (we usually travel via London or Paris), I usually have "going out" clothes and other pieces when visiting with friends. It is nice to have that variety, especially on longer stays.

We sold our "mountain vacation home" in October. We had been going there for twenty years. This summer we are going back to the same town to rent, but won't have to do all the chores associated with having an aging cabin. Trying to think of what all we will need to bring a for three month stay... It will be a different summer, that's for sure.

We have a place in the Poconos, and have toiletries and clothing there, except underwear, because of lack of drawer space, so that's what we bring, plus any obvious meds, etc. Makes life easier.

Thank you everyone,

It's interesting to see the commonalities. I have done what most of you seem to do and have a few things there (mostly castoffs), but not enough to stop myself from packing way too much and often not what ends up being needed.

And, yes, to the lake bin sitting in the back porch. I was just thinking I have to get a nicer looking something than the ugly blue rubbermaid we are using since it is on display either here or at the lake for bringing things to the city.

Taking a pic is a great idea. I do that for the food stuffs. I can never seem to remember if there are eggs or did I buy salsa. Especially important now as we are discouraged from shopping at the one small grocery that is there.

I think what I need to do is cull the castoffs to make way for things I will actually wear and feel comfortable in. That way I won't feel as much need to bring - or so I hope. My make up (TBH, all I'm wearing these days is mascara and undereye coverup) is down to a 3rd so I'll just order new and take the almost done to the lake.

We have always been grateful to have a place to escape to, but never more so than now. Our place is teeny tiny, but it is on the lake and very peaceful. We are both still working from home and it is incredibly hard not to work all the time. Recently, I realized I had worked for more than 40 days without taking a day off. We had talked about getting wifi at the lake, but decided we want to keep it a work free zone.

I've enjoyed hearing about your vacation place routines.

ETA: Since this is the first thread I've started in a long time, I just realized that the OP gets to choose the "Best Answer". I had no idea how that worked (but find it annoying in the extreme.)

Mtn, same — we keep talking about going to RI but kind of worried they might throw rocks at us as we drive in with our MA plates. I’m dying for a change of scenery but so far we’ve only talked about going and haven’t made a plan. DD has some things going on at home so we couldn’t just head down for the summer as a family.

mtn, your CT home is like a resort, I can imagine it is not a bad spot to isolate! We have a tiny yard but we are so happy to have it right now, and glad I splurged on comfy outdoor furniture last year!

Our lake cabin is a short (45 min) drive from our main home, we use it year round. Duplicates of most items are in both places, although I rarely wear make-up while at the lake. And I rarely wear tank tops while at the main home.

I keep a soft cooler in my trunk for carrying perishable food back and forth. Alexa keeps separate shopping lists for grocery needs.

We’re currently at the cabin, mostly because of this...taken last night.

We have a 2nd home at the Jersey shore. It's only 50 minutes from our primary home but I keep doubles of everything there. However, I do bring some clothes back and forth and the beginning and the end of the season. We take vacations in the off season where I need the warm weather clothes so the last few weeks I've been bringing things back.

CT's numbers are better than Maine's right now, but that's probably due to seasonal influx. We have Maine plates on 2 of our cars so can "sneak in". DH was talking about it last night but i said its too cold; he asked Alexa who ratted me out and said its going to be 80 there today!

kswl - your lake memories sound much like my DH. HIs grandparents had a rustic seasonal cottage that they built in the 30's. Somewhere along the line electricity and indoor plumbing were added. He went there with his parents and his father's four siblings, spouses and lots of cousins. Though his cousins were high school and college age when I met him, I got a taste of summer family life at the cottage and it was amazing. He and his aunts, uncles and cousins were close throughout life - I think because they grew up spending summers together. At one point as people got older and had their own families they (including us) owned five different lake cabins on the same lake. As the senior generation has passed on, the next generations have kind of gone their separate ways and we have moved to a different lake with more privacy and nature. I will always have many fond memories of our time with his family at the lake.

3katz, that is exactly what our summer community is like. My great grandparents built a seasonal cottage in 1906. It was rearranged a bit in the hurricane of '38. My cousins have cottages here and my parents still use the old family cottage, which is shared by my mom and 2 of her siblings. (Each has it for a month in the summer.) Over the years, a bunch of us have bought our own cottages. We grew up in cousin packs and its been fun to see our children doing the same.

I'm gonna have to have a talk with my great grandparents and grandparents. What a bunch of sluff offs! No cottage, lake or seaside. No rugs. No silver. Sheesh.

Love it, jojoco!

We already lived near the beach in Los Angeles, and so our second home was in the desert in Cathedral City, 5 minutes from Palm Springs. Since we have essentially moved here as of mid-March, we have duplicates of everything here, including pretty much everything for the kitchen, as we are eating all of our meals in the house. We feel safer here than in L.A. as it is much more sparsely populated here, and people are better about social distancing here. I imagine that the beaches in L.A. could be getting crowded by now, but we have a nice sized pool here, and I really prefer that to the ocean, especially since the Pacific is always cold, although I do have summer and winter wetsuits, in case I do want to go in the ocean. We even have duplicate bikes here, and I always leave my laptop here, as I do not want to carry it back and forth. To share files, I store them on Dropbox, and I paid a fee for extra storage, which I believe is $100 for a terrabyte per year. I have not yet put all of my photos there, but I have stored quite a few of them, and I have others on thumb drives, which I do take back and forth. I also take my camera back and forth, but I do leave extra glasses here, since I have several extras.

The main thing we take back and forth is food, and we have a large Yeti cooler for that. I don't want to lose perishable food when we go from one place to the other.

We had originally planned to partially rent the second house, but that has not been possible, partly because of a moratorium place on new vacation rentals by Cathedral City, and partly because tourism to Palm Springs is down 90% this year. The season is almost over, as June through September are pretty hot. However, I was here last July and August, and I enjoyed it - no need to heat the pool, as the water stayed at least 87° without heating. I'm not heating it now either because we are having a heat wave of 110°+, which is near the record for this time of year. We have two air conditioners, but it is difficult to get the house below 76° with this kind of heat. Ceiling fans in all the major rooms help.

Our second home is very much a year round home in a beach community, and we go back and forth year round (1.75 hours). I have tried every combination of scenarios and have settled on leaving some clothing there and bringing my dressier clothes, jewelry and make up. I have all the hair and skin care essentials there. We go out a lot when there, precovid, of course. Our best bikes and cycling clothing stays there, with backups here.

We have a fully stocked kitchen, pantry and freezer there but we still manage to bring a couple of cooler bags back and forth. Cooking is something we enjoy so we have outfitted the kitchen with the same things we have have at our primary house.

We have drop zones in both houses and keep lists so we remember what needs to go back and forth. It seems as though this time of year requires lots of lawn and yard care items to go. Again, we have most of what we need there and have a lawn service in the summer, but we are always doing a bit of maintenance ourselves.

I grew up going to a "summer home" in NH, near all our extended family and it was wonderful. I have so many fond memories of that life. DH and I love the ocean so that is where we chose to put down our roots for a vacation home. Now one of our daughters hopes to purchase a lake house, so we may have the best of both worlds.

• 4katz, yes, the whole point of that place was to just relax together. It wasn’t an old house though. DH’s mother was never completely happy with their main residence an architect designed for them (in the 1970’s) so she designed the lake house herself. It was spacious and welcoming, with an open plan kitchen and living area that was decades before its time. There was a large freestanding stone fireplace dividing the living and dining areas and the ceilings were 12 feet tall with windows and transo s everywhere to promote breezes. Dining open to the kitchen consisted of three 50” round wrought iron tables, with lots of chairs that went back and forth between the tables depending on who wanted to sit with whom. The same type and number of tables were on the deck. That place could, and did, accommodate huge celebrations of extended family. The house was on a point in a protected cove, and a 20 ft section out from the sea wall on one side of the dock had been fenced off underwater to make a safe swimming area for the little kids. Most of our kids learned to swim there. It was a great place to set off fireworks on the 4th of July and Grammie always dressed up like Uncle Sam and made a special appearance during that annual party. One cousin always brought a big sheet cake decorated with blueberries and strawberriies that looked like the flag. At Grammie’s recent death most of the shared memories centered around the lake. It was her happy place and she was in her element there.

Like most everyone, I keep a strong supply of stuff at our lake place. But like others, I think it's time I transition from cast offs to real clothes. We were up last weekend and all my leggings are the stretched out "not good enough for yoga" ones that slide down my ever expanding Covid tummy. I tend to take make up I'm bored with or is almost empty, and play around with different shampoos and the like. The number of times I put on make up or do my hair are minimal. I generally look homeless while there.

We also have a shelf in the garage and a Go Bag where everything gets shoved. Except the boat registration stickers for 2020. Has anyone seen them???

I generally look homeless while there.

LOL. This was why I decided to get rid of the castoffs. We used to have a lakehouse, and it was more remote than our beach place and by the time we sold the lake house there was only one nice restaurant and even there it would be odd to dress up. That was the home of the castoff. At our current summer place, we dine out a lot and we like to look nice.

lobby - I also have a large collection of castoffs at the lake that I really need to purge. I hate to admit they've been accumulating for 20 years now.

Our beach house is an hour’s drive from our town house. In local nomenclature it’s our country house. Anything outside of Honolulu and nearby districts was considered country and that description continues today. Like nearly everyone else, we have our “Laie box” that contains anything from clean linens to small tools to food for the feral cat. Then we have our “Laie bags” for clothes. We bring the same clothes every time so we just wash whatever is dirty and restock our bags so they are ready to go. This year I upgraded my clothes to include one clean (No stains, no holes) pair of capris and a nice top. We keep toiletries, snorkel gear, kayaks, stand up paddle boards, sun protective shirts and leggings, pantry and fridge staples and condiments in the house and food in the fridge that will keep until we come out again. I also take pictures of The food in our fridge. It’s funny how we have all developed similar ideas of what works best.

We go out about once a week for a few days at a time. We can’t stay away from our town cat too long as she is 13 years old and very needy!

Our house has three generations of memories, a huge deck and plenty of space to spread out or gather together. The ocean carries the ashes of parents, aunts, uncles, our dogs and even our friend’s dog. Although it’s a family beach home, we rent it word of mouth to groups of friends who come for several months at a time. Our gangs come from Nova Scotia, California and Philadelphia. Often there is a bedroom reserved for me and DH. ;))

And speaking of the homeless look......one day DMIL had a friend drop her at the recycle so she could dispose of some cans. She took the bus home. While waiting at the bus stop a homeless man came up to her and told her “you can come with me, mama. I’ll take care of you.” Ahh the memories.

ETA: I’m not sure that it was clear in the story above that DMIL was at the beach house, in her beach house attire. Not her normal state of being!!

It’s funny how we all have that bag or box that travels back and forth. Regarding clothes, I usually don’t have anything on the dressier side at the lake. Those type things I carry as needed. I do have 3-4 light jackets or sweatshirts down there. Many times a guest gets chilly and I have happily loaned one. I do have to be careful with cast offs and purge those regularly, especially my exercise wear.

I throw together a few outfits and have sweaters, jackets etc. at the lake. Unfortunately, we can't enter Maine right now as we have Ma. plates. Our car with Maine plates is, sadly, in Maine. lol

Yaya, if you go to Maine with out of state plates, do you have to quarantine? Connecticut doesn't mandate, but "strongly urges" a 14 day quarantine to non-residents. Ironically, the infection statistics are much worse in my part of CT then at my home in PA. We're lying low here more out of fear of CT exposure than of bringing it to CT. We have PA plates on our cars and no one has said anything to us about that.

I am enjoying these responses very much, but in typical houzz fashion, I cannot thank anyone and it seems there are some comments I can't like either.

Maine currently has a 14-day quarantine mandate for out-of-state visitors. Businesses in Maine have squawked, eg https://bangordailynews.com/2020/05/29/politics/janet-mills-campground-restrictions-violate-constitutional-rights-department-of-justice-says/