Hotel room laundry tips for the minimalist traveler

This seems as good an occasion as any to talk about hotel room laundry. The same principles apply for campsite or youth hostel laundry as well. 

Common strategies include washing these items in the bathtub, while you shower, or the more efficient bathroom sink method. I’ve used the bathroom sink method, especially for shorter trips, with great success. I carry along a rubber sink stopper for this purpose; hotel sinks rarely have a tight-fitting stopper.

For longer trips, a more efficient method – it almost rivals machine washing – is the dry sack laundry method. You may be familiar with the heavy dry sacks from a kayaking adventure some years ago. But newer versions of the dry sack, for example the Sea to Summit Ultrasil model (I use the 8 liter model, a medium-size) is a superlight, waterproof, and eminently portable makeshift wash basin.  

With either the sink or dry sack approach, you can use hotel shampoo or – my recommendation – powdered detergent which you’ve prepacked in a Ziploc bag (a quarter cup can last a couple of weeks).  Place a few dirty clothes and a bit of detergent in the dry sack, fill with warm water, seal it off and shake vigorously for a couple of minutes. Drain the water, and then repeat the process once for shampoo and twice for powdered detergent to ensure rinsing. Remove each item from the dry sack, gently wring out excess water, and place the wet clothing on a towel. Roll the towel and squeeze tightly. You can find plenty of YouTube videos in which practitioners of hotel laundry craft which recommend stepping on the towel to further blot excess water; this is my approach as well. 

Using hotel clothes hangers, distribute the damp items around the room, near a vent or window, and allow them to dry overnight. 

Many one-bag aficionados recommend travel clotheslines. I have used a couple of models, and although not essential, I usually carry with me a small latex clothes line (it looks like a string of intertwined rubber bands). I have used it occasionally, for example in hotels with those weird theft proof clothes hangers which are essentially useless for this purpose.

How to handle stains and other accidents? If you typically check luggage, the solution is to have “backup” shirts and pants and even a spare pair of shoes. One-bag packing doesn’t give you that luxury and assurance. More than a few minimalist travelers swear by those stain remover wipes to handle these kinds of surprises. I keep a couple in my own bag – they take up almost no space and have saved me on a couple of occasions as I don’t typically have “backups”.  And along that line, I also toss in a couple of these shoe wipes to keep myself looking presentable.

Get more 1-bag hacks and travel tips in my e-book at Amazon!