One thing that never stops is washing. I hate how much washing we have. Travelling full time and exploring the outdoors means even more washing. Some people will have a washing machine as part of their set up, which will save on washing costs. You do need to consider the amount of water that they use, especially if you are free camping or have limited water. Caravan parks washing machines can be really expensive ($4-$5 per load), it adds up very quickly.
Travel tip: Hand wash clothes can help reduce washing costs and wear clothes more than once.
Before we left I was that person who wore my clothes for one day and they went into the wash, even if I hadn't done much that day. Even my pyjamas went into the wash every day. I used to justify it as I had a small child and would often end up smeared with food. The reality was I felt unclean.
We are travelling in a camper trailer. We have very limited space. There is no room for a washing machine, that space was used for other things we felt were more important. Instead we bought a collapsible baby bath. The plan was to use it to collect our shower water if we were free camping, Little miss's bath and our washing tub. It does also work as a paddling pool on warm days with a little water play.
We have used it as our washing tub and we regularly wash our clothes by hand. It saves us a bucket load of money and I feel like our clothes are cleaner than when we use the washing machine in the caravan parks. On the warmer days we get the tub out on the grass and Little miss helps with washing the clothes (she loves it).
We also wash clothes in the shower. Every shower block takes different times for the water to warm up. While we wait for the water to warm up I wash our undies out. In my bathroom bag I have a sards bar in a soap pouch and a quick scrub and rinse out and they're done. I hang them out when I get back to our site.
In the evenings I put Little miss's bath in the bottom of the shower and have a rinse. I feel fresher heading to bed after washing all the dirt and sunscreen off and by the time I've finished little miss has a nice full bath. While Little miss has a play in the bath (and after I'm dressed) I hand wash the clothes that need washing from the day. Little miss can't often wear her clothes more than one day
(they are filthy), even her pyjamas get pretty grubby. A quick scrub in the bath water and they are good as new.
Some days the water is brown when I'm wringing out Little miss's clothes. I feel like they're cleaner when I hand wash them. Plus I have more of a chance to get the stains off, as they are cleaned quickly. I also don't feel like it takes that much more effort to hand wash a few items a day and use the washing machines once a week.
We also wash our sheets once a fortnight rather than every week. With a quick rinse off at night, we're all sparkly clean when we head to bed. We do time when we wash the sheets as well. Often we will change the sheets either the day before moving day or when we arrive and are making the bed. This makes it easier for us.
We did also find out quickly that clothes that are white or light in colour are more difficult to keep clean. A good scrub and hanging them in the sun will help get most of the stains out. The stubborn stains don't matter to us. We will replace Little miss's ones we have now with some fresh clothes when we visit our family.
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