Comments on: Zen and the Art of Laundry on the Road

By: Daniel Noll

Daniel Noll — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 16:16:27 +0000

@Robert: Blue laundry bars sometimes have a little more grit, which might make them marginally more effective than bars of hand soap. Outside of that, agreed. That’s why we used them. Drying, totally agreed. Space and air, dry air. That’s to say that Turkmenistan was an easier place to dry laundry than say El Salvador in the rainy season.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 20:22:26 +0000

When it comes to washing items 1 at a time by hand, laundry detergents (which were made to overcome the ineffectiveness of machine washing a load in a large volume of water) have no advantage over ordinary skin-washing soap. The laundry bars they sell for that purpose might be better than SOME skin soaps that are particularly mild, but chances are you’d never notice.

The tricky thing about drying while traveling can be finding the SPACE and TIME to hang things up.

By: Daniel Noll

Daniel Noll — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 22:55:37 +0000

@Joe: I have absolutely no idea how we were so fortunate to stumble upon that kid doing laundry. Random scenes, blessings to the art of travel blogging.

By: Joe Payne

Joe Payne — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:48:47 +0000

I love the picture of the baby with her pile up laundry. A true art.

By: Audrey Scott

Audrey Scott — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:32:18 +0000

@Karen: I’m laughing as I write this. Just as I was about to respond to this comment I realized we had laundry waiting at the lavanderia and it was closing in 30 minutes so I went running out the door to rescue our precious laundry as tomorrow is a holiday 🙂 Yes, travel really does make you appreciate the small things 🙂

By: Karen Catchpole

Karen Catchpole — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:09:38 +0000

Audrey, I’m right there with you. During our multi-year Trans-Americas Journey through North, Central and South America very few things make my eyes light up like the use of washer and dryer (or avacados or artichokes). Guess travel really does help you pare your priorities down…

By: Daniel Noll

Daniel Noll — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:04:58 +0000

@Ali: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it…and glad it brought you back.

@Simon: “Rome was built quicker than it takes an Italian washing machine to do one load.” — am laughing.

By: Simon P

Simon P — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:30:42 +0000

So true about European washing machines – you just about have to wait all day for them to finish! It seems to me as though Rome was built quicker than it takes an Italian washing machine to do one load.

By: Ali

Ali — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:22:16 +0000

This was hilarious! And I had a few flashbacks to my own laundry experiences on my RTW.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:51:51 +0000

I used to be a shower clothes washer, mainly because I hate paying for laundry when travelling (around eastern Europe last year most hostels were charging 5-8 Euro per load!) so I can relate to the points in your blog. I also agree with the other comments, that you have made a mundane topic really interesting (well done).

I said above that I “used” to be a shower clothes washer. That was until I met a guy last year in Poland. He has invented a travel device (Scrubba wash bag) for washing clothes and I was lucky enough to be given a prototype to use for the rest of my travels. It is essentially a sealable bag with an internal washboard and it made washing clothes really easy. He recently sent me a link to a video he shot using the Scrubba on a train, somewhere I never contemplated doing laundry. Thought you may find it interesting: http://youtu.be/a8-vUN8nJT0