Fair warning: this narrative may ramble a bit, and there will be asides with tips and suggestions I gathered in the two months we were gone. Some are travel tips, some are life tips. And some are realizations that came from many weeks of being in my own company (and that of my husband) almost exclusively for more than two months. Some of these deserve deeper exploration; the personal lessons are ones I may have to sit with for a while, the travel and practical tips will be shared with you as they arise, and the creative ones will be explored in more depth in future columns.
One thing I realized as we traveled across the country: It is impossible to pack enough clean clothes to make a leisurely trip. You can pack heavy, or you can make a fast trip, but you can’t pack light and take your time. You are gonna have to wash those suckers at some point.
When you’re home and have the luxury of your own washer and dryer, that seems perfectly reasonable. Your dirty clothes have a place they belong, and you likely don’t allow weeks worth of laundry to stack up before you tackle the chore of washing/drying/folding.
But if you’re on the road, all that organization goes out the window (with luck not literally, though I have seen suitcases fall out of vehicles and spew their contents across the highway).
When we made our first cross-country road trip I tried an experiment. I pre-packaged each day’s clean clothes by placing shirts, socks, and underwear in mesh bags that would stack easily in a suitcase. Since we were only staying one night at each stop we could keep a couple day’s worth of clothes in a small suitcase, adding a bag or two to the “goes in every night” bag as needed. As a bonus we could place the day’s dirty clothes in the empty bag and stow it in the trunk. The “every night” bag had extra jeans and leggings, and we could go a week or so without having to haul all the suitcases out of the car. It definitely made loading and unloading easier.
But eventually there aren’t enough clean bags left and you have to do laundry. On this trip, when we were staying with family we were able to use their laundry, but even that failed us when the trip home ended up being just a couple days too long.
My best advice: Plan ahead. As travelers new to the leisurely pace of retirement travel we lucked out, but there were a couple glitches. Maybe I can help you avoid them.
Doing laundry takes time. Even if you’re in a laundromat with multiple machines, it’s still going to take a couple hours to get everything washed, dried, and folded. Figure what day you need to do laundry, then plan that time into your day with a late start or early stop, or plan a stay-over-and-relax day that includes emptying and repacking suitcases and doing laundry.
While you’re at it, look for a hotel that has a guest laundry. Not a laundry service (unless you like paying $5.00 to have someone else wash a T-shirt), but an actual laundry. It will likely be small, so be prepared for the possibility you will have to wait, but plan for it. We were beyond lucky with the hotel in Gallup (La Quinta, more about them later-just know we were very happy). There was a small coin-operated laundry in the hotel, with three washers and two dryers, and it was empty when we arrived. Score!
In addition, hotel guest laundries are usually well-lit, well-maintained, closed to outside users, and you don’t have to leave the hotel.
You’ll need quarters for the machines. Yes, there’s probably a change machine - if it’s working - but stowing a roll of two in your suitcase ensures you’re prepared for an empty coin machine (and you still need cash for the coin machine). We got change from the front desk - I suspect they’re used to filling that request - but don’t count on it.
Get detergent ahead of time. This one got me.
We arrived early in the evening, the machines were available, we scrounged up some quarters and got more from the desk, but we were in a highway location not near a store, and we didn’t have detergent. The hotel did, or course, in their small sundry area in the lobby, but we ended up paying a premium for a small bottle. Better to make a quick stop at a grocery or department store on your way to the hotel - especially if you’re already stopping for soda or snacks!
Still, having the suitcases full of clean clothes was like a security blanket. I could relax for at least another week or 10 days, knowing I wouldn’t have to wash my dirty socks in the hotel room sink.
Or pay someone $5.00 plus tip to wash them for me.