My Top 3 Dollarama Finds for Travelling

 

By Dave from Airport Direct

Travelling gears can be expensive, but sometimes they don’t have to be – if you know where to look.

For those of you who don’t know, Dollarama is a dollar store (well, most things are not $1 anymore), and it very much can be categorized as the Canadian version of Dollar General. It’s an iconic Canadian chain alongside other icons such as Canadian Tire, Zellers, and Rona. To me, walking through Dollarama feels like walking inside Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. And because Dollarama has a high-turnover, rotational inventory, every month you’ll most likely find very different items than the month before. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a bunch of useless items, and a bunch of very useful items from Dollarama. Today, I want to share my top 3 favourites for travelling:

1. The hanging toiletry bag:

The hanging toiletry bag was one of the good gems I found at Dollarama. It wasn’t exactly for a dollar (most things are not $1 anymore), and I believe I paid $5 in total – which was still a really good deal. The size of the toiletry bag is small enough to fit inside a carry-on bag, and the inside of the toiletry bag is big enough to store my small shampoo bottle, cleanser bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss picks, moisturizer, contact lens, and contacts cleaning solution.

But the most useful feature is the hanging hook as pictured below:

The hanging hook is especially handy when you’re inside a hotel or Airbnb’s bathroom, and there isn’t enough counter space to put all of your toiletry items on. Or, there simply isn’t a clean/sanitary space for you to set your toiletry items on. You can hang this on the bathroom door knob, towel rack, or even the door hook. As you can see in the photo above, I can access all of my items when the bag is in its hanging position. I can even use the hanging bag as my mobile toiletry shelf. If you’re feeling crafty, you can even velcro or sew-on a small dental mirror to the bag for putting on makeup or flossing up close. Definitely worth every penny of the $5 I spent, as I take it to almost every trip!

 

2. The $1.50 Travel Bottles with labels.

Forget spending $20 on Amazon for a pack of small travel bottles. Just head on over to your nearest Dollarama and you’ll find just as good quality bottles with labels, for a fraction of the price. These tiny bottles are especially useful because they keep your liquids (such as shampoo and sunscreen) under 100 mL, which is the limit to bring on an airplane. As you can see in the photo below, the kit comes with a transparent pouch which makes it easier for airport security to see, without having to ask you to take things out. The kit comes in a variety of bottles including a spray bottle for perfume, some clip-lock bottles for shampoo, and a small twist lid container for small items – which I use to store ear plugs and another one to store my SIM card and SIM needle (yes, I am one of those people who like to get local SIM cards and local cell plans when I travel – more on that in later blogs). You also get a bunch of other small bottles in the kit, but I usually find myself taking just 3-4 bottles when I travel.

 

3. The toothbrush holder/portable cup.

This item from Dollarama is a must have, and I’m surprised most other stores don’t carry this. It is a toothbrush and toothpaste container with a lid that also serves as a portable cup for rinsing. I have tested the capacity of this, and I found that I can fit up to 4 toothbrushes and a medium-size tube of toothpaste in it. You now have a sanitary container to keep your toothbrush in place, and a portable cup for rinsing. All in a compact unit. Two birds one stone.