Shore Looks Nice 
How to do Laundry While RVing
We were recently in Florida purchasing a truck to pull our new 5th wheel. While we were at the dealership there was a guy walking around in the scorching heat in a sweater. Danielle joked “it must be laundry day…”. We laughed about it but most likely she was right.
One of the biggest inconveniences when we were RVing in our Class C was doing Laundry. We would put it off because of this inconvenience until it was overflowing and I would be tempted to put on a sweatshirt like the guy at the Car Dealership. So what are your options for Laundry as an RVer?
The Laundromat
This is our least favorite choice. Often we would choose to camp in areas that aren’t close to cities so you would have to load up your clothes, get your quarters and drive into town to the laundromat. Hopefully there are open machines and then you are stuck waiting for your clothes to be finished.
RV Resorts
The next option is what we did when we were full timing in our Class C RV. We stayed mostly at RV Resorts and they typically had nice Laundry facilities. Again you have to make sure you have quarters or some use a card system. Countless times we’ve had to wait, checking back often for machines to open up. We would have to load up our clothes, drive there but the benefit with this over a laundromat for 2 main reasons.
- It’s less of a drive
- Campers are trustworthy so we wouldn’t have to wait for our clothes to be done. We could set an alarm on our phone and head back to the RV and continue whatever activity we were doing.
In the RV
Now for our favorite option. Our Road Warrior has a washer/dryer in the RV. We couldn’t be happier! No quarters, no driving, no inconvenience! It truly is the convenience you have at home! The unit is a combined washer and dryer in one. When I did the first load of laundry shortly after we purchased the Road Warrior I went to clean out the lint filter and found out it doesn’t have one. It has some new technology that doesn’t require one. The only downside from a normal washer/dryer at home is that the load capacity is slightly smaller. But who cares, I’ll never be stuck wearing a sweater in the Florida heat because it’s laundry day…..
We are so glad to have a washer and dryer in our motor coach! Still, it’s so small that it can’t handle our king-sized bed spread, which after 8 months, was more grey-ish than white-ish with soot and road dirt that gets in when you travel. We had to drop it off at the dry cleaner’s. For $30 it was like new.
When your rugs get dirty, you will find that no Laundromat in the world will let you wash them. RV Laundromats all have signs saying “No carpets or rugs or pet bedding.” Even the dry cleaner refused to wash them, even just to launder them! He said I should just get a brush and scrub them by hand. Hmmm. I’ll pass. In that case, they’ll stay dirty, lol.
Finally, we found an RV-interior cleaning outfit in San Diego (their tag was “RV interior, upholstery, carpet cleaning”) to come and not only wash our rugs outside with power equipment, they cleaned the beige carpet strips in the RV. The part next to the kitchen was particularly unsightly with spots. For $70, our RV looks brand new again! It took about an hour.
You can find these services through the front desk at most RV parks. Happy trails!