Tell me your dirty laundry...

[hohne]

...clothes are for the weak...

[Pick]

The campground I am currently in has 3 coin operated washers and 2 dryers. Almost never have to wait to use them. I either go early in the morning, or late at night.

[crazylev]

I've solved the laundry problem: I just don't wear clothes when I camp! This also keeps several sites beside us empty. And now that I am losing a bunch of weight from the holiday madness, the view should be better...

Before settling on the solution above, my wife and I have one of those netted draw-string bags. If your laundry is damp, this bag allows air to sort of let things breathe.

On our trip out west for a month about a year and half ago, we stopped to do laundry at the laundrimat. My wife did the wash, and I folded and drank Belgium beer.

Jonathan

[Tin Hut]

Try the Irish beer next time. Enhances the laundry experience even more.

[phred]

Originally posted by biggerbadbrad
I've contemplated the idea of installing one of those apartment size washer/dryers. Has anyone ever tryed this? Do any of the higher-end TT's or MH's come with them? I know the dryers only spin dry so hanging the clothes somewhere to completely dry out may be an issue. But I would go to extremes to avoid spending time and money in another noisy and crowded laundromat. Or is this just part of the camping experience that I should learn to grin and bear?

bbb

Airstream sells motorhomes with an optional one-unit washer/dryer. They run about $1,000 and work best with small loads. Drying is lengthy because they only have 120 volts available (not 220 volts like at home). Your own washer/dryer sure is nice when traveling for extended periods.

Fred

[thenewkid64]

Originally posted by Porky Pig
It will be jeans and t-shirts for me the entire time. I figure I'll be able to go at least two weeks (if not longer) worth of wearin' before we have to go mingle with the teaming masses at LaunderLand.

A word of advise:

Sort thru all of the clothes you are taking and standardize on 2 colors. We did Blue and White when we full timed. This allows you to take it to the laundromat and use the industrial size machines (2) and your wash is done in one load each. Then you can split it up to dry. We could do all of our laundry in less than 2 hours and would go 2-2.5 weeks between trips.

[Janet H]

We have a mesh covered, collapsable, wire framed, laundry basket. You can get them at target.... It works on the same principle as sun shades - coil and fold. It expands as it gets fuller and is square. It fits in the bottom of the wardrobe closet.

Laundry safety tip: Slightly used laundry is usefull for padding extra beer/champagne bottles - besides who would think to look (protection from marauding bands of thirsty beer plunderers). Just be sure to remove bottles before dumping clothes into washing machine...

[gryphon]

We use a large rubbermaid container. We keep it outside under the awnings and use it as a table while we camp. When it is full I take it to the wash house. When we are on the road we use it to store breakable stuff and stuff we don't want bouncing around the inside.

Works for us.

Tom & Betsy

[Porky Pig]

Originally posted by thenewkid64


A word of advise:

Sort thru all of the clothes you are taking and standardize on 2 colors. We did Blue and White when we full timed. This allows you to take it to the laundromat and use the industrial size machines (2) and your wash is done in one load each. Then you can split it up to dry. We could do all of our laundry in less than 2 hours and would go 2-2.5 weeks between trips.

I'm with ya Brett ... all my T-shirts are either black, grey or white. See? No color at all!

[Moonshot]

Gryphon said:

We use a large rubbermaid container. We keep it outside under the awnings and use it as a table while we camp.

Intriguing idea, Gryph. I guess you cover this container with a table top. If done right no one would even know there was dirty laundry in there. I like it!

Without a lock on it a bear might come along, knock it over and strew your undies all over creation.

We keep our mesh bag in the bathroom closet until it gets too full then it goes into the truck bed, but by then we are either headed home or to the laundromat anyway.

Scott

[overlander63]

Originally posted by biggerbadbrad
I've contemplated the idea of installing one of those apartment size washer/dryers. Has anyone ever tryed this? Do any of the higher-end TT's or MH's come with them? I know the dryers only spin dry so hanging the clothes somewhere to completely dry out may be an issue. But I would go to extremes to avoid spending time and money in another noisy and crowded laundromat. Or is this just part of the camping experience that I should learn to grin and bear?

bbb

Brad, Sears makes a 110v washer and 110v dryer, apartment-sized, that you may be able to work into yourt Soveriegn. If you do this, I think I would have a dedicated power outlet for the dryer. You know, from the "pole" to the trailer, and straight into the dryer. Now that I think about it, when I was a kid, my parents had a "roll around" washer and 110v dryer combo, the washer had a special hookup to connect to the sink. The whole works was about 24"x36" and about 6" below kitchen counter level. Would wash a pair of jeans, a shirt, and your underclothes. That would fill it. I haven't seen one in years, but it might be worth looking into.
In case enquiring minds want to know, we keep our dirty laundry in a laundry bag in the shower, unless we are using the shower.
Terry

[Pahaska]

When undershorts and undershirts reach end of life, I take them to the trailer for one last wearing. I wear them once and they go into the trash. Sure cuts down on the amount of dirty clothes.

[overlander64]

Greetings Photobitstream!

Sounds like you'd make a good wife, Seriously, I know many women who would find that kind of behavior appealing. I've always done the laundry in the family to get out of cleaning the bathroom. I do most of the cooking so we can have edible food. My wife is , well, challenged in the kitchen.

It goes with the territory - - being a Free Wheeler means balancing all of the tasks of traveling. Since I generally spend a little more than two months on the road during the summer, I try to streamline as many routines as possible. I actually learned the laundry trick while traveling with my family between RVs. While I was in college, and for a couple of years after my graduation, my mother and her sisters loved to travel but didn't want to drive so we took a number of vacations moteling-it. Made for some wonerful memories - - our last trip together was in 1985 (my mother was 70+, middle sister was 80+, and the eldest sister was 90+) when we were on the road for nearly a month touring the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states - - the eldest sister insisted upon visiting Pike's Peak to repeat a trip that she and her late husband had made on their honeymoon in 1920 - - I drove the family in my mother's new Oldsmobile up to the Summit House on Pikes Peak where her eldest sister reminisced for more than hour about her 1920 trip - - even had a small photo album from that 1920 trip to compare the sites to 1985. One my aunt's actually developed the idea of the multiple laundry baskets - - only she used mason jars for the soap/bleach/softener - - the idea went back to her 1920 honeymoon trip.

Kevin

[biggerbadbrad]

Thanks for the terrific responses Smily, Phred, Argosy20! And for the not so terrific ones too...Crazylev, Hohne, Tinhut. Ewe!

bbb

[markdoane]

Originally posted by Pahaska
When undershorts and undershirts reach end of life, I take them to the trailer for one last wearing. I wear them once and they go into the trash. Sure cuts down on the amount of dirty clothes.

That's the method my step-daughter used. Until she got in a car accident in Paris. The nurses at the hospital were very polite. Now they think all americans wear holey underwear.

Remember what your mom told you when you left home.

[hohne]

...you wanted a serious answer?

Clothes Paradigm....

When we had our Coleman Bayside pop-up, clean clothes stayed in a clear Sterilite containers. We packed them inside the house and put our clothes and toiletries in it -- we used clear ones so we could tell whose they were when stacked in the RV.

We had a mesh bag that dirty went into, and we kept that either under the dinnette seat (it had an access door) or in the front trunk area. Our kids are small enough that they could fit in there and fetch the bag for us...

For our AS, which we have not used outside our driveway yet, we plan on having a set of 'camping clothes' devoted to being packed into the AS. We will collect them in a hanging (as in clothes hanger) thing DW found at a garage sale in one of the wardrobes -- is is a cotton bag with a nice heavy hanger. We will then launder them and pack them back into AS...or burn them and replace, as needed.

The hardest thing we have found is real sweaty, dirty clothes, generally mine. We do not want to put them in with relatively clean, dry dirty clothes, to mildew. So, I generally try to dry them off, and then I just pitch the undies.

We have one of those folding things with lots of arms for drying dish rags and small bathing suits. We hung that under our beds outside for our pop-up. I put a sweaty shirt out there to dry off. I will use them the same with with AS...

Towels are a problem -- we re-use those, so they need to dry somewhere, and not mingle with dirty clothes. When I was a teenager, our family Winnebago Chieftain had a clothes line in the shower, and we would hang them there. Do not know how we will do it with AS...

Rob

[jcanavera]

Originally posted by hohne
[BTowels are a problem -- we re-use those, so they need to dry somewhere, and not mingle with dirty clothes. When I was a teenager, our family Winnebago Chieftain had a clothes line in the shower, and we would hang them there. Do not know how we will do it with AS...

Rob [/B]

Rob,
We bought some of those vaccum snap on hooks, you know you see them on TV infomercials. The hook has a suction cup, you place it agains the wall and move the hook to its normal position. That creates the suction which hold the hook on the wall. The shower stall in our '01 Safari was perfect for these hooks. This allowed us to hang the wet towels to dry. We use thick towels and the hooks hang on well to the wall. You may have to restick them to the wall once or twice a year, especially over the winter where they will fall off due to the cold temps.

Jack

[hohne]

Awesome!!!

DW has a couple of those on the SS wall in the kitched for holdong measuring cups and plastic spatulas and such -- never would have though of getting the hook version!

Rob

[Silvertwinky]

We find that our shower and clothes baskets work just fine for a day or two. After that we usually find a laundry and spend some time there. One thing we do to allow towels and such to dry is we will hang them on the awning supports. They will usually dry overnight, however, I don't enjoy seeing a lot of laundry hanging around so we try and keep it to a minimum. It can become quite an eye sore outside; we don't want it to look trashy now do we?
I suppose that is one reason some parks don't allow clothes lines. OTOH of those that do I've seen clothes lines strung up between trees. When we have done this (not very much) we have just tied the lines around the tree where most parks don't allow any kind of nails in their trees. I can't say that I blame them on that one!

[hohne]

Got the suction-cup hooks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Came with four big ones and 4 little ones in the package.

They say the big ones can hold 10 pounds of weight, the little, five pounds.

I stuck a big one on the fridge in the house to try it, and it works REAL GOOD. Stealing a movie line, 'they can suck-start a leaf blower.'

DW suggested we hang two in the AS shower across from each other and rig a rod in there for hanging towels out to dry between them so they get more air. Otherwise, stow the rod...maybe one of those rods used to hang up laundry in a car...

Outstanding Idea! Thanks a 10^6!

Rob