While no one really wants to do laundry while on vacation, it’s a very easy way to pack less and save room in your suitcase – and in our case, the van. We used just one suitcase, albeit a big one, for our family of five on vacation to the beach. How did we make it work? I knew that at the mid-point of our vacation I would be spending a few dollars to do a load of laundry. I also did a load the night before we left, with anything from the last few days.
Bring your own detergent, fabric softener, quarters, and a laundry bag. This is so important to successful “vacation laundry” trips. If you can, pack all of your laundry needs into the laundry bag then you can just grab and go. Tide Pods are great for travel because they are preportioned, and you only take what you need. One pod per load, so pack however many you will use into a plastic baggie and keep in a place where it won’t get smashed. Tide Pods are great because one little pod is everything you need – detergent, stain remover, and brightener – so you don’t have to pack along a million different bottles and sprays.
Plan your laundry trip for the evening, when all the fun of the day is over. The laundry facilities I used took a total 1.5 HOURS to do one load (30 ish minutes for wash, the rest for dry). We were very lucky that the Summer Sands Motel in Wrightsville Beach has on-site laundry on the second floor (which was also the floor we stayed on), so I easily lugged the full laundry bag down and did a load.
Call ahead to see how much the laundry machine costs. We needed $1.00 in quarters for both the washer and the dryer. Now, on Wrightsville Beach there are a TON of ATM’s… but no business wants to exchange bills for quarters, so bring your own. I suggest bringing a buffer – so if you plan to do two loads, bring enough for three. Especially if you have kids, you understand that clothes get messy quick, or get peed on.
No matter where you are staying, calling ahead to discuss if they have washing facilities and how much they are is vital. This is how you will discover if you need to pack extra clothes or whether you can pack light. If you are staying in a hotel or in an RV park then the likelihood of them having washing facilities is pretty high. It is just a matter of what you need to bring.
As you packing to come home, and the morning before you leave, start filling that laundry bag. Don’t pack your dirty clothes with your clean clothes and wind up rewashing things once you are home!
If you really want to “hack” your laundry, when you are filling that laundry bag for the trip home, go ahead and throw a Tide Pod right in there. Then when you bring that bag inside, dump the entire contents into the washer and start it up while you finish unloading and unpacking. Not a gigantic time saver, but it gets the “re-entry into the real world” off a little smoother.
We kept the laundry bag right outside the bathroom. It was a central location and everyone knew that if you had something that needed washed, it needed to go in there. If you have everyone on board right away, you won’t be running around complaining that people have left dirty laundry everywhere. Ahem.
When you do a load of laundry right before packing to come home – pack those clothes right from the dryer. I honestly didn’t bother sorting but just folded and rolled and placed in the suitcase until it was all packed. Socks and underwear went into large zipper plastic bags with the air squished out. I kept out one outfit per person for the trip home (comfortable clothes since it meant 12 hours in the van), and made sure one outfit for each child was near the top of the suitcase in case we had an emergency and needed a clothing change on the way home.
So how do YOU manage laundry while on vacation and when you come home? I’m on top of the laundry because I immediately started washing a load when we got home and had completely caught up before we left. Woo!