This tool will change my traveling life.

Considering the chaos that is traveling with two (soon to be three!) kids under the age of 7, I’m a huge fan of tools that help organize family travel.

I’ve blogged about some of these tools previously. My new fave: The Qliplet.

Essentially, this tool is a carabiner on steroids. It’s a heavy-duty clip for consolidating bags or other items and holding them to larger objects. It also has a super-strong rotating hook that can be used for other stuff—everything from (more) totes to jackets to milk jugs (really) and more. The hook also can be used to support the carabiner.

The device went on sale at a discounted rate through an IndieGoGo campaign (from parent company, Lulabop) this week. I got to review device earlier this summer and found it useful, durable, and helpful, all at once.

I certainly put a prototype of the Qliplet through some paces. First I took it on a daytrip with the girls to our local children’s museum, and attached it to my backpack to carry L’s water. Next I clipped it to our jogging stroller and attached it to a different backpack while I took R on a run around the neighborhood. After that, just for fun, I hooked it to the back of our buggy and tried to see how much weight I could put on the carabiner part of the tool. I gave up after it easily handled 35 pounds.

The story behind Qliplet is pretty neat; the tool was invented by a mom and former professor of entrepreneurship as a way to manage the needs for lugging additional stuff after the birth of her first child. The inventor’s name is Mina Yoo. (You can learn more about her here.)

In all, the tool seems like a good investment. I’m sure I’ll be using mine frequently once we start schlepping a newborn everywhere later this year.

I’m looking forward to enjoying how much easier the tool makes my traveling life.

What are your favorite family travel tools and why?