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Wash Your Laundry When You Shower Travel Tip

Traveller Tip #4- Wash Your Laundry While You Shower Meknes, Morocco September 23, 2007 Laundry piles up. No matter how dirty a vagabond you are, and no matter how little clothing you carry with you, a bag full of soiled laundry is not fun to lug around, and it is a daunting task to clean [...]

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Traveller Tip #4- Wash Your Laundry While You Shower
Meknes, Morocco
September 23, 2007

Laundry piles up. No matter how dirty a vagabond you are, and no matter how little clothing you carry with you, a bag full of soiled laundry is not fun to lug around, and it is a daunting task to clean an entire load at one time (what would wear if you are washing all of your clothes?). It is also a drain on your travel funds to always have to pay someone else to clean your clothing for you- and laundry service is often times ridiculously expensive no matter what country you are in. To subvert this end, I have devise a little rule that I follow diligently:

Always wash your clothes while you shower.

So every time that I go into a shower to clean my body, I bring a couple articles of clothing to wash as well. It is not too difficult. I simply use the same bar soap that I use for my skin and I wash my clothing like it was another part of my body: arms, legs, shirt, pants . . .

If you shower once every two to three days then you will only have to clean a couple articles of clothing at a time, which is not too much work and takes little more time than washing your body alone. In this way, your laundry load is perpetually going through a wash cycle and you never have to delay your travels with a “laundry day” or the hassle of finding a cleaning lady.

Wash laundry in the shower yourself tip

Also, another word of advice: don’t ask for permission to clean your clothes at hostels or hotels EVER. For whatever reason, lodging houses often do not like for travellers to clean their own clothing (often times it is because they like to charge you 5-10 dollars for this service). Just bring a few pieces of clothing in with you when you shower and then indiscreetly hang them out to dry in your own room (use a bed post, a doorframe, widow sill, coat hooks etc . . .). If you are only washing a few things at a time then this will not be a problem.

[adsense]Doing a little bit of work everyday also helps to keep your spirits up while travelling long hauls On the Road. You don’t feel as lazy or burdened by the knowledge that you are eventually going to have to wash that ever accumulating bundle of laundry in the bottom of your rucksack. Plus, you always have clean clothes to wear!

So this is my piece of advice to all of you beat and battered wanderers.

As always, take it or leave it.

Walk Slow,

Wade

Filed under: Budget Travel, Clothing, Travel Tips

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3699 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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  • Sharrye January 22, 2012, 10:55 pm

    This is years late but kudos on the advice. I always think like that about underwear but I’ve never considered it for other articles of clothing.

    What material were your pants were made of? In another post, you said you traveled with 2 pairs of jeans and t-shirts but jeans take forever to dry, especially with humidity. Do you wear khaki? If so, what brand would you recommend?

    Thanks.

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    • Wade Shepard January 22, 2012, 11:17 pm

      Usually I wear jeans or military fatigues. I usually wash them selectively because, as you pointed out, they do take a while to dry. So usually I will wash them in the morning of a sunny day in a place where I have access to a proper clothesline.

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      • jack February 14, 2012, 5:23 am

        I will chime on with this to say that jeans do not need to be washed every day and if you do you are wasting your jeans. Take an old toothbrush and some soap to any stains on them in the evening and then hang them out to air out. If they are smelling bad come morning then you need to wash them. If you are like my wife and freaky about bad smells, I suggest taking a small spray bottle fabric softener mixed with water and spraying it on them just to give it a better smell. Jeans can be wore for a week or so while traveling between washings, depending on how dirty you are.

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        • Wade Shepard February 14, 2012, 12:19 pm

          Very true. I have two pairs of jeans, and wash only one pair in rotation each week. Yes, the wife is a good tester as to when you need to wash your clothes haha.

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