So you want to get off the grid and see the world? We don’t blame you, and living in a van is a perfect way to do it.
Life on the open road is exciting, rewarding, and liberating. You can wake up to a new view every day if you want or hide away off-grid for weeks on end.
The choice is yours with the right setup in your camper van conversion.
But what about the practical matters of van life?
We’re often asked how we manage to cook in the van. Where do we shower, and do we have a toilet in the campervan?
And how do we wash clothes?
There are indeed a few challenges to keeping our clothes clean while living in a van full-time, but we have a few tips and tricks to make van life laundry a breeze.
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Van Life Challenges Of Doing Laundry
Washing clothes in a campervan has a few challenges:
- Washing clothes uses a lot of water, so relying on a campervan’s water system would deplete the freshwater supply rapidly.
- Space is precious in a campervan, and unless you own a huge RV or overland truck, you probably don’t have room for a standard-size washer. Even finding the storage space for your dirty clothes can be a challenge.
- We can no longer take for granted the convenience of doing a load of laundry whenever we want to.
- A camper van electrical supply is a precious commodity, so options for electronic solutions need to be thought through carefully. Even with a few camper solar panels, you’re unlikely to have enough energy to power a washing machine.
- Drying clothes isn’t as simple as throwing them in a tumble dryer when you live in a van – if only!
- Avoiding condensation in a van is critical, so drying anything wet indoors is best avoided.
- Wringing out enough water from clothes so they can dry quickly is a nightmare – and usually a two-person job.
- Ironing clothes? Nope.
- We aim to keep our van life costs to a minimum but using a laundromat or laundrette can add a significant expense – depending on where you travel.
Reducing How Often We Need To Wash Our Clothes
The best way to deal with van life laundry is to reduce how often you need to wash your clothes.
And it’s way more environmentally friendly too.
Before we lived in a van full-time, we’d change our clothes every day.
When we were going out in the evening, we’d change again, and the clothes we’d take off would go in the laundry even if we’d only worn them for a few hours.
To carry on like that now, we live in a van, and we’d need a far bigger wardrobe, deeper pockets, and be doing laundry more often too.
Instead, we wear our clothes until they’re no longer clean. You rarely see once-worn t-shirts in our dirty laundry bag!
Underwear gets changed daily. Depending on the climate, we can get a couple of days or even 3 out of a t-shirt.
Sweaters can easily last 4 or 5 days before they’re past their freshest.
Packing merino wool clothes helps because they stay clean and fresh for much longer than cotton and other fabrics. It dries quickly too.
It’s useful to have a set of clothes for dirty jobs, like working on the van. Make sure a pair of overalls is on your van life essentials packing list!
We find the best way to get our bedding clean is to use a laundromat. 2 sets of bed linen are a must, so we don’t have to rely on the same-day service.
Read more: Creative RV Clothes Storage Ideas That Won’t Take Up Valuable Space
The Best Way To Store Dirty Laundry In A Campervan
Storing dirty laundry is often an afterthought when designing campervan layouts. It was for us too!
Dirty laundry can create unwanted smells in the van if left too long or not stored correctly.
There are a few options for storing your dirty laundry:
- A breathable fabric laundry bag – folds away to nothing when not in use, allows the dirty laundry to “breathe,” so helps prevent it from going stinky, and can go in the laundry at the same time as the clothes.
- Sealed dry bag – also folds away, but because you can seal these, smells won’t permeate the fresh air in your van.
- A pillowcase – we use one of the dirty pillowcases to put all our used bedding into, ready to drop off at the laundry.
Top tip | Never put anything damp or wet into your dirty laundry bag, or it will smell and go moldy quickly, affecting everything else in the bag at the same time.
How To Wash Your Clothes When You Live In A Van
Despite the challenges, there are plenty of options for getting your van life laundry clean, dry, and fresh.
Here are our top suggestions for where to do your laundry on the road.
Use A Laundromat Or Laundrette
Doing laundry at a laundrette is our number 1 option when it comes to washing our clothes.
Most places have a laundromat of some sort.
Many we’ve found in South America aren’t self-service but offer a full-service wash, including detergent and drying. Most will even provide an ironing service for an extra fee.
These are great because you just drop off your laundry and pick it up after an agreed amount of time, all clean, fresh, and folded, ready for you to put back in your wardrobe.
And at South American prices, we don’t bust our budget either.
Most places tend to get the job done in less than 24 hours.
In Europe and North America, self-service laundromats are common, even in small towns. You can even find unattended laundromats at fuel stations.
Tips On Finding & Using Laundromats
- Try to use a laundromat with recommendations from locals or other travelers, especially when getting a full service. You want to make sure you’re going to get all your won clothes back and none of anyone else’s. Use iOverlander offline for recommendations from other travelers.
- In larger towns and cities, self-service laundrettes open early in the morning and close late at night. The busiest times are on weekends and evenings. For the best chance of finding available machines when you arrive, try the middle of the day.
- Bring detergent – the stuff from the vending machines is mega expensive
- Don’t overload the machines. An overloaded washing machine won’t clean the clothes as well. And if you cram all your clothes into one drier, it’ll take longer and cost more to get it all dry than using two separate machines.
- If using an unattended laundromat, check that emergency contact details are available before you start. We once used a service station somewhere in the Netherlands. The washing was perfect, but the tumble driers wouldn’t work, despite eating all our money. There were contact details, but we had no time to call them out – we were about to board a cargo ship to South America!
- Bring your Kindle or something to do while you wait – you’re going to be there for a while!
Hand Washing Laundry In A Van
The cheapest option for getting clean clothes is to do it yourself with a bit of elbow grease.
It’s not our favorite job, but it’s easy when we stay on top of it.
You can rinse out smalls when you shower, saving on water and detergent too.
We use our plastic storage boxes outside as makeshift sinks for lighter clothes that aren’t heavily stained.
We put three boxes alongside each other and have a little production line for washing, rinse cycle 1, and rinse cycle 2.
It works perfectly though it can be a bit overwhelming if you have a lot. It’s not great for washing bedding or jeans, though.
And trying to get soap suds out of fleece sweaters takes more than two rinse cycles!
If you don’t have plastic storage boxes you can use for the job, these lightweight, collapsible camper sinks do just as well.
Campsites often have laundry sinks with a built-in washboard, making cleaning more heavily soiled items easier.
For less scrubbing effort and to protect your hands from detergent, the Scrubba Wash Bag is a portable wash bag and quite popular.
They have a built-in washboard so once you’ve added your laundry, detergent, and water, seal up the bag, release excess air and shake it about.
Use A Portable Washing Machine
Portable washing machines are relatively compact and provide an inexpensive and convenient solution for van life laundry.
Manually powered, portable washing machines don’t draw energy from your 12v electrical system.
They’re ideal for small loads, so keeping on top of the laundry doesn’t feel like a chore.
For bulky items like your bedding, they’re just not big enough, so you’ll still need to find a laundrette.
While they’re relatively compact, they still take up some storage space, so portable washing machines are better for a large camper van or RV.
Also Read: Best RV Washer and Dryer
Creative Ideas For Van Life Laundry
When we had our Unimog camper, Mowgli, and more storage space, we had a large bucket with a screw lid.
We’d fill it with water, detergent, and a few bits of laundry and strap it into the bathroom securely before driving.
By the time we reached our destinations, we had clean clothes ready to be rinsed.
How To Dispose Of Laundry Grey Water
Disposing of greywater responsibly is essential, even more so when wild camping and living off-grid.
A fitted grey water tank allows you to take used water away with you when you leave, but with the greatest will in the world, it’s unlikely you fitted one large enough to cope with used laundry water.
If doing your laundry on a campsite, dispose of greywater in their facilities.
When living off-grid, the only likelihood of doing any laundry is to have a freshwater source nearby.
You won’t use your limited drinking water to wash your clothes.
We often did our laundry when traveling through Patagonia. With dozens of lakes and rivers, water was never in short supply.
Getting our hands on biodegradable detergent was always our most significant challenge, though.
Empty the greywater more than 100 meters away from any water source. Scatter the water rather than pour it to avoid it pooling or streaming.
Read more about the leave no trace guidance on the Leave No Trace website.
How To Dry Your Clothes On The Road
Unless using a laundromat, drying your clothes when you live in a van is the biggest challenge of van life laundry.
We don’t want to bring wet or even damp clothes inside the van because of the condensation it inevitably causes.
The first trick is squeezing out enough water from your clothes before hanging them out to dry.
Light items aren’t too tricky, but bulkier things like pants and sweaters can be tough to get enough water out that they’re not dripping wet.
We find a two-person effort wrings out loads more water. We grab one end of the item each and twist until we can’t wring any more water out.
The best drying conditions are obviously on dry, windy days, so try to time your laundry to coincide with good weather.
We use a simple washing line to hang our laundry, but we need a couple of trees around to attach it to.
We have an extendable tent pole to serve as a prop so the clothes don’t hang on the floor and catch more of the breeze.
There are times, though, when there are no trees around when a collapsible drying rack would be ideal.
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Friday 6th of May 2022
We used the bear canister for laundry on the JMT. Rocking it with your foot is easy and to get real agitation, find a small gully and roll it down one side, it will bounce around a bit..