Before COVID-19, I had been making the over 1000-mile road trip to Colorado every winter and spring break since second grade. 

Over that time, it’s gotten easier to relinquish the pain of everyone I know heading to warmer locations in southern areas. This year, I’ve started to hear more people than before heading to areas out west to ski. 

I’ve gathered some easy travel tips and tricks during my vacations, and I think it’s only fair that I share from my experiences since so many travel essentials lists are geared towards warm destinations.

Silicone Travel Bottles

I hate when I open my toiletries bag and find that my shampoo and conditioner have exploded onto my other belongings. Everything becomes sticky and an absolute mess to clean. I would usually use small travel-sized bottles, so not only did the cleaning feel like a waste of time, but the product also felt like a waste of money. 

My savior from these wastes has been silicone travel bottles. I find that it’s worth the extra time of moving some product from my full-sized bottles into silicone ones just so I have nothing to clean later. The silicone offers the ability for the air to expand within the bottle at a higher altitude but not explode. 

CeraVe Moisturizing Cream

If CeraVe only had one buyer in the world, it would be me; I love CeraVe. As a religious user of this brand, it’s no surprise that I would recommend their product for dry skin. My skin is usually not dry in Michigan, but the colder air when I am vacationing immediately transforms it. 

While any CeraVe moisturizers would likely suffice, my personal favorite is the moisturizing cream, not the moisturizing lotion. The lotion is too lightweight for the scales my dry skin likes to form. 

Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm

Again, I may be biased toward this brand, but it always keeps my lips from being chapped. The harsh, cold wind attacks my face if I don’t wear a fabric face covering while skiing and expedites my inevitable chapped lips. Keeping a Burt’s Bees lip balm in my ski coat pocket makes it easy to combat it when I stop inside to eat or get hot chocolate. 

I haven’t found any specific flavor of this lip balm to be better than the others for chapped lips. Despite this, I am completely against the basic, unflavored one. Why choose something boring when you could have fun for the same price?

Neutrogena Clear Face Sunscreen

Even though I am going on a ski trip, I will be wearing and reapplying sunscreen. When I don’t, I end up getting atrocious goggle tan lines. I’m not facing up at the sun, but the sun reflects off of the snow and gives me a natural blush that is anything but nice. 

I like to use the Neutrogena Clear Face Sunscreen with a higher SPF because I really don’t want my face getting tanned or burnt around my goggles. The specific type for acne-prone skin is preferable for me so I know that I’m not clogging my pores by keeping my skin safe. 

For everyone traveling to a colder destination like myself, these are my favorite and most essential products for a radiant spring break.