Round The World Tickets
Doing laundry on the road
Since most of us normally take trips that last no longer than two weeks or so, the issue of laundry while on the road doesn’t really come up often. After you make the mistake of packing way too much for a multi-week trip, you catch on to the idea that you can bring, say, 7 or 8 outfits at the most, and then have them washed once a week for as long as you need. But on a RTW trip you hear of people packing only 4 or 5 days worth of clothes, and then doing your laundry in hostel sinks every few nights. As it turns out, this isn’t nearly as cool or as possible as it sounds.
But before we discuss doing laundry on the road, let’s talk about packing and your choice of garments. You really should choose most of your gear based on the idea that you’ll wash it yourself, and more importantly dry it yourself too. Jeans are automatically out because they are hard to wash and even harder to dry. You’ll want as many of your items as possible to be such that they can dry in 8 hours while hanging in a dark (and maybe even damp) room. Do yourself a favor and spend a bit extra on socks and trousers that are meant to dry quickly, and you’ll be glad you did.
So even though you will have clothes that can potentially dry quickly while hanging in a hostel room or other such place, you’ll realize after the first time or two that doing your own laundry in a hostel sink takes way longer than you’d think it would, and also ages your clothes about five times more quickly than having them professionally washed. Go ahead and bring some of those dry packets of Woolite or whatever so you can wash some of your clothes now and then, but don’t assume that this is how you’ll do it each time.
The good news is that finding places to do laundry on the road is easier than you might expect. If you are staying in hostels you’ll find that some of them will let you use their machines (for a small fee) during the part of the day when they aren’t doing the sheets and towels, and at the very least every hostel will be able to tell you where to find the nearest Laundromat or full service “fluff & fold” place.
More good news comes with the fact that these services tend to be quite cheap in most countries you’ll probably be visiting as well. In Northern Europe or Australia you might have to seek out coin Laundromats and spend a couple hours there on one of your off days, but in most of the world you can get a load of laundry done in a short time for about the cost of two beers in a bar (which can be as cheap as US$1 each in some countries). You’ll discover this is money well spent most of the time, even if it means having to actually skip out on buying two beers in order to pay for it.
One thing you should be prepared for is doing partial loads in a sink in order to buy yourself another couple days to get to a better location for the next full load. Sink-washing 2 t-shirts and 2 pairs of underwear isn’t so bad once in a while, but when you have to wear them the next morning just to try to get them even a little dry with your own body heat you’ll be plenty ready for a proper wash done by someone else soon enough.
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