Laundry on the road Post
Hey, it’s wash day! Let’s talk laundry and the options for full time traveling digital nomads. The wash must get done so you have a few options. Laundry Service, Self-Service Laundry Mat, or onboard washer/dryers each have their own set of pros and cons.
Laundry Service
The first option is the most time efficient. You drop off your bags and come back for pick up a few hours later or the next day.
Most services price the washing, drying, folding, and bagging of your clothes and linens on weight. A regular load in a home machine is roughly ten pounds of laundry. On average, you cand expect to pay $2-$3 per pound for full laundry service. The service includes the detergent and softeners which you also don’t have to store in your small space making this the choice for many nomads.
Keep in mind that your laundry will all be washed the same temperature, with the same detergents, and fully dried in the machines. If you have laundry that you treat differently than pieces, this might not be a great option for those outfits. Also, your clothes will be washed in the machines onsite so take a look around and make sure you are comfortable with the location.
In my opinion, laundry service is an excellent choice for folks who don’t like doing laundry, don’t have the space for storing bottles of detergents, or don’t have the time for this chore. If this sounds like you, give yourself the gift of laundry service in your budget!
Self-Service Laundromat
Laundry is not a chore that I mind so a couple of hours reading my book and folding laundry isn’t bad at all. In fact, I’ve often looked forward to the downtime while the clothes are spinning.
Our most expensive loads we ran were in Roswell, NM however most of the places we went were very cost effective. On average, we spent about $20 per trip for all of the laundry to be complete in less than 2 hours. The washing is always more expensive than drying. In rural areas especially, many folks take the wet clothes home to dry on a line in the sunshine.
Despite walking out of more than one laundromat due to uncleanliness, we learned to trust online ratings and to always inspect the machines before we loaded our wardrobes into them. There are tons of hardworking folks with very dirty jobs also using those machines.
My flexible schedule allows me to complete laundry at unbusy times but leaves me competing for the big machines with folks turning over rental properties mid-day. Those big machines can wash up to 8 loads of laundry in less than 30 minutes, so the wait is never too long. That also means those machines only wash your clothes for 30 minutes. They don’t get nearly as much wet agitation time as your home machines that take twice as long to complete the wash cycle. On several occasions I found myself questioning how clean the clothes really got when putting them away.
While it could be a positive or a negative requirement, you will have to buy and store your own detergents, fresheners, or softeners somewhere in your rig. Also, get into the habit of snagging quarters to feed the machines. Many updated mats we visited offer rechargeable cards to load and use on multiple machines instead of quarters. Those are great until you realize you may not use all of the funds on them and that you may never return to that location ever again! We learned to load our clothes into the washers and then count up the amount it would take to start them. At the kiosk we load up just the washer total plus three dollars for the dyers. You can always add more money to the card during your wash session if you need more but If you don’t use all of the funds, it can be hard to get your money back. Be sure to check the increments of dollars you can load to the card as well. Sometimes hanging up a few towels or jeans was better than spending another five dollars to use two on finishing the dryer cycle.
We’ve had overall good experiences with laundromats and that is my choice for any large piles of linens. Recently, we utilized a laundromat that doesn’t allow kids. What? These businesses are all privately owned and operated and can come with some ridiculous rules like “no children under 12 years old allowed on the premises”. Always check the reviews and take a moment to decide if you want to support any business that may not align with your values.
Onboard Washer/Dryer
Many folks are surprised to hear that our RV had onboard hookups for a washer/dryer all along! We chose to utilize the space for storage and had to do a major purge to make room for our new all in one, ventless unit. You wouldn’t think we could keep purging however the slow accumulation of things is real even when you live in a small space. The unit we chose is compact so we can still use the top of the closet to hang clothes.
With these units, there are some tricks to getting dry, wrinkle free clothes at the end of the cycle. First, I would recommend doing separate wash & dry cycles. The clothes must be fluffed up a bit between the cycles otherwise they remain stuck to the side of the wash bin and dry all wrinkly. After the wash cycle, take them out like you were transferring them to the dryer, and put them back in before drying. We also take out items that can hang dry super quickly and utilize a clothesline built with bungee cords that spreads across our bedroom or garage area.
The primary drawback of an onboard washer/dryer is that we can only use our onboard washer when we have full hook-ups which is less than 50% of the time. Although small, (our 2.7 cu. Ft.) unit easily runs through 20 gallons of water per load, quickly filling the gray tank. Running through that much water would decimate our ability to be out in nature for more than a few days!
For emergencies, we have a portable washer that’s been great for delicates, hats, shoes, and just about anything else that’s small and needs a quick wash. It’s collapsible and uses only a fraction of the water however it does require power.
Even with so many options, we’ve seen our use of clothing absolutely changes when fresh laundry is a luxury that we only experience a couple of times a month. At our longest, we’ve gone about three weeks without hitting a laundry mat. We probably could have waited longer but ran out of space to store the over spilling piles!
