What do you do about dirty clothes?

[Claybe]

We are on our first trip that is longer that 5 days. We will be gone for 10-12 days and haven't had this issue before. What do you do with your dirty clothes? Seems like a weird question I guess but...
1. Where do you put your dirty clothes? It seems like there is no logical place to hang our dirty clothes bag (we have the C with the bed in the back corner) and there isn't anywhere to build a hamper???
2. Do you wash your clothes? Where and how often? We are not staying at any campgrounds with these facilities and won't go to a laundry mat.

[ron_dittmer]

When going for 4 weeks at a time, we use city laundrymats, never campground mats. They are too dirty from unwashed sleeping bags, to muddy hiking shoes in the dryers.

[Strabo]

ksg5000 wrote:
We put out dirty clothes in laundry bag which we store in the shower. The only clothes that require daily changes is underwear etc - the pants, sweatshirts etc get re-used. We bring enough to avoid laundromats if all possible.

X2

[kirbymurphy]

Whilst in Kissimmee we washed (warshed in STL) our clothes in a laundromat just down the street from the War Birds Museum. Leafed through a tourist brochure then hit the museum. Just use your driving time to locate washer near an interesting locations.

[BruceMc]

As my memory was from a long time ago regarding the term "Laundromat" and I was having a little discussion with myself about whether the term applied to machines or the facilities, I did a little research & found the term was used for both Westinghouse washing machines and a chain of self-service coin-operated laundries:

laundromat (n.) Look up laundromat at Dictionary.com
"automatic coin-operated public laundry," 1946, originally (1942) a proprietary name by Westinghouse for a type of automatic washing machine; from laundry + ending probably suggested by automat. Earlier words for public clothes-washing places in U.S. were washateria (1935), laundrette (1945). Launderette is from 1947. The Westinghouse machine was popular after World War II and was available with coin chutes and timers.


And yes, we wash our towels!

[BruceMc]

We're nude RV'rs. Like Eric on the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, we always carry our towels. A proper nudist/naturist always sits on their towels.

That said, we do carry and wear clothes as necessary. Others have suggested various ways of handling this issue - and as we have a smaller RV, we take what we need for up to a week, then find a campground laundry if needed.

BTW, I grew up in a coin-operated laundry which was our family business. The term "Laundromat" is actually a copyrighted brand for the first coin-operated self-service laundry. However, like Kleenex or Hershey bar, it caught on over the years and became a common term.

The answer is 42. B^)

[suprz]

Claybe wrote:
Have any of you used the portable washing machine that you can find at camping world?

We purchased a panda portable washer that is big enough to sit in our shower to do shirts, towels, underwear, etc. maybe a pair of jeans in a pinch, we wash them when we get into a campground and then just ring them out and hang them on the towel bar in the shower to dry

[CharlesinGA]

Get a GI type laundry bag, it can breath and you won't have damp or musty dirty clothes. I have one I have carried for years on any type of trip I go on.

Charles

[Cousin_Eddie93]

I have nice little suction cup hamper that hangs from inside our bedroom closet mirror. That part of the closet is rarely used thus the hamper works real well and can easily hold several days worth of clothes out of sight until we wash them.

[Healeyman]

While not everybody can do it, I installed a laundry chute in the bedroom that dumps into a laundry basket in the basement.

Soap and quarters are kept in the basket so that when full, we just pull out the basket and head for the laundromat.

Tim

[Bea_PA]

NOT a good idea to use a black garbage bag, use a popup hamper or mesh bag for storage instead. My cousins dad very helpfully put her 3 kids clothes out for the trash after they came home from a trip.

[ron_dittmer]

As many others have stated, we use a pop-open spring/net hamper like the one pictured below. We store it in the shower and move it to the bed when showering.

As far as where to launder our clothes, we avoid campground laundry facilities like the plague. After a good rain, all the tent campers load up all the dryers with all their soaked, smelly, dirty sleeping bags, dirty & smelly coats, and even soaked dirty hiking shoes & boots. The driers can actually have piles of soil in them from the abuse. You'll find yourself washing the dryers before you can use them, and hopefully you'll have something on-hand to wash them with.

[murphysranch]

When we travel with our three young grubby Grands, I do alot of hand washing. I clip the clean stuff to those free hangers from Kohls, and let them air dry. One of the Grands periodically wets the bed even with diapers, so I hand wash that until I find a laundromat or CG with washers. ALL of our Laundry goes into a collapsible trash can.

[mlts22]

navegator wrote:
mlts22 did the frozen food taste of smelly jeanns? or did the jeans taste that good?

Inquiering minds want to know!

We use a laundromat and before that I had a paint bucket with a lid that I placed the cloths and some detergent, tied it to the roof rack in the morning, threw the used water out at lunch time placed clean water and final rinse at dinner hung on rack ladder overnight, clean cloths by morning.

navegator

I never got close enough to the neighbor's freezer to even know. Just some things are to be left unasked.

On a different subject, I do like your five gallon bucket method. With a hitch mounted cargo rack (perhaps a CarPod that has high sides and a locking top, to ensure nothing will fly out), it would help ensure clothes get well agitated on legs of a trip.

[navegator]

mlts22 did the frozen food taste of smelly jeanns? or did the jeans taste that good?

Inquiering minds want to know!

We use a laundromat and before that I had a paint bucket with a lid that I placed the cloths and some detergent, tied it to the roof rack in the morning, threw the used water out at lunch time placed clean water and final rinse at dinner hung on rack ladder overnight, clean cloths by morning.

navegator