Laundry When Travelling
Laundry, when travelling can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be.
When you start a vacation, one of the things you ask yourself is - what do I pack?You want to pack light, you try not to pack too much stuff because you’re going to be packing it around everywhere. If you’re staying for an extended amount of time, the subject of laundry can come up. When you’re packing for a whole family, this subject takes more meaning. And if you have kids like I do, you tend to end up doing a lot of laundry.
Merino wool clothing is our go to clothing for any vacation as it packs fairly small. It’s easy to wash and it dries a lot quicker than other fibers. You also don’t have to wash merino wool clothing anywhere near as often because it tends not to smell for a while. But if you have kids like mine, who decide to go into the ocean almost every day in their regular clothes that they didn’t have many changes of…., you tend to end up doing lots of laundry.
This is where products like Soak, Unicorn Clean and Eucalan come in handy. Pop the clothes in a sink, a bucket or a dry bag fill it up with water put one of the above soaps in and let it soak for 15 to 20 minutes. Most don’t even need rinsing. Squeeze the water out and hang the clothes on a line. Done. No need to go find a laundromat or wait there for an hour for your clothes to wash and then possibly dry. You can just soak the clothes at home, squeeze them out and let them dry naturally. Your time commitment is small and you can get back to the things you want to do like play with the kids.
I tend to use all three of the products listed — I use Soak when we have a mixture of merino and cotton clothing. We use Eucalan when it’s just merino, and mostly for the delicate types like underwear and baselayers, and we use Unicorn Clean, especially the power scour, when we really need a deep clean for some of the things. Dry bags have been my friend in the laundry process because it leaves any of the sinks free and easy to let soak without taking up space. Also, if your kids clothes are really sandy, like my kids get them, dry bags tend to be lot better since the grey water can water a plant, and not plug the plumbing (if available) with sand.
