One of the things that we’ve ticked off the list is we have finalised our laundry kit.
You may be wondering ‘why on earth do do need a laundry kit while you’re on holiday??’ but remember we’re planning to be away for a year so we’re going to need to wash our clothes at some point!
In our previous travels we’ve noticed that many hotel rooms and guest houses don’t have plugs in the basins. We have no idea why this is the case but it’s a fact so our first challenge was to find a plug that will be suitable for the myriad of different drainholes. We managed to do that by finding a rubber cover that forms a vacuum over the drain hole. It’s very thin lightweight and flexible so perfect for travelling and best of all it works - we’ve tried it. So now we’re able to create a pool of water within a sink in which we can wash our clothes. That’s a good start.
The next challenge was to find laundry detergent that was small enough to pack, eco-friendly, and wouldn’t leak in our luggage. Yes we could buy detergent everywhere we went but that would be wasteful as we would only use it a few times in every location.
A bit of research led us to laundry detergent sheets rather than tablet, powder or capsules. The sheets have the appearance of rice paper. You can rip them into smaller pieces for smaller loads and they stay dry in your bag. An added bonus is that the ones we’ve bought smell fantastic so they’re going to make our clothes smell great in our suitcases too while we’re in transit. You simply rip off as much as you need, dissolve it in the basin then do your wash in the soapy water.
We have a small zip up, washable laundry bag. We use these at home in our washing machine to separate colours and delicates. This will replace a laundry bin as we travel but where we have access to the Laundrette the entire bag can go into the machine keeping our small items securely zipped inside. No lost socks!
If we need to wash our clothes by hand the plan is to wash them in a sink, rinse thoroughly, squeeze out as much water as possible and lay the item flat on a towel. We’ll then roll them up tightly and squeeze out as much water as possible. Hopefully this squeezing rather than ringing will alleviate creasing and the need for ironing.
Speaking of ironing we’ve made sure that as many items of clothing that we are taking as possible are made from synthetic fibres (they’ve come along way since the sweaty scratching fabrics of our childhoods) which drip dry quickly and shouldn’t need ironing. If you see pictures of us creased clothing…..don’t tell us!
Once the clothes are washed and squeezed out we have a travel washing line. It’s essentially a piece of elastic with plastic pegs attached. This can stretch between door handles across the bathroom or be fixed outdoors where we can hang out clothes to dry.
So that’s the plan. We’ll soon see how it works in practice. Can you think of anything we’ve forgotten?
Travel Washing Line
The Lab Co. Laundry Detergent...
Universal Basin Plug
Laundry Wash Bags