Doing Laundry In An RV

When you’re traveling, you’ll likely be looking for as many ways to save space as you can. Your RV provides you with plenty of storage, but space is still limited. An easy way to reduce how much you pack is to do laundry as you travel, either in or outside your RV. There are several options available that let you wash and dry your clothes on the road. Camp Site RV has provided this list of our favorite clothes-cleaning methods to help you out. Our dealership is in Cresco, Iowa, so if your RV needs any maintenance or tune-ups, come in to see us!

Off-Site Laundromats

If you know that you only need to do a few loads of laundry on the road, then quickly dropping by a laundromat can solve all your woes pretty quickly. Bring enough quarters, laundry detergent and fabric softener with you to facilitate this. Going to a laundromat can reduce how much clothing you need to pack, saving you space and weight in your RV. Some campgrounds even have built-in laundry facilities so you won’t have to leave, and there are even washers and dryers available for use at a lot of truck stops around the country.

Using Portable Washers

Portable washers come in many styles and have a few different operational methods. They’re capable only of doing small loads, but are a vast improvement upon sitting in a laundromat for hours if you lack the time or patience to do that. They are small enough to be easily stored and good for the occasional load that doesn’t merit the use of a full-sized washing machine.

Washing By Hand

If you don’t have much to wash or you’re really in a bind, you can always hand wash your clothing. This isn’t ideal if you have several loads to do or very large, bulky items like towels or blankets to clean, but for small pieces of clothing that need to be quickly cleaned, a bucket or sink of water and a little detergent goes a long way. You can easily set up a clothesline outside your RV to air dry whatever you wash, or drape clothes over chairs to let them dry if the weather is bad.

Washer/Dryer Units

If you spend enough time in your RV and have both the space and the sheer quantity of laundry to require it, you can get washer/dryer units installed.  This eliminates the need to handwash clothes or find a laundromat entirely. Many more modern RVs come with a space and the requisite hook-ups for washers and dryers. You can either get separate washer and dryer units, or invest in a machine capable of doing both, washing your clothes and then drying them afterwards.

Wash In Smaller Loads

You may need to do smaller loads of laundry more frequently in order to stay on top of your laundry pile. Even though it’s tempting to let it pile up and get it all dealt with over the course of one day, this is not as easily done as it is in a residential home. All your laundry options on your RV are going to be geared towards smaller loads, so the best thing to do is to carefully plot out everyone’s clothes and do loads every other day to deal with socks, undergarments and any clothes that are too soiled to wear more than once. Overloading your machines won’t get your clothes clean and might even overwhelm your whole unit.

If you want to see a great selection of new and used RVs, visit our showroom to tour our capacious inventory! Our staff can show you RVs with all the latest laundry options available. Camp Site RV serves the cities of Cedar Falls, Iowa, Rochester, Minnesota, and La Crosse, Wisconsin with our convenient location in Cresco, Iowa.