How To Manage Your Holiday Laundry And Ideas On How To Pack It: Our Guide

It’s that time of year again! It’s summertime! The summer months have arrived, and they are the hottest of the year. They are the perfect time to plan and take a holiday, whether you choose to stay at home or jet off to a sunny climate. 

Summertime brings with it hot, humid, and often dry, seasonal weather. If travelling abroad, this can bring with it extremely high temperatures in certain places, as the Earth tilts itself towards the sun. The sun invariably makes us feel happier, as it increases serotonin production, the hormone that makes us feel happy. During the summer months, we tend to spend more hours outdoors, whereas during the winter months, we remain huddled up indoors, trying to keep warm. During the colder months, people are more likely to develop Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) caused by a significant reduction in the availability of daylight hours during these months. So when summer is here, we ought to make the most of it! This starts with planning a holiday!

We sometimes forget the complexity of planning a holiday, let alone what we need to pack. The packing process invariably is the stage where you’ll have to select what clothing and other items to take on holiday. If you get this wrong, this mistake can be quite costly both in terms of luggage weight and in having to purchase what we didn’t select to put in our luggage in the first place. 

We’ve selected a list below to help with the best ways to manage your laundry when travelling: 

  1. When travelling, it’s always a good idea to pack several plastic bags in with your luggage. They ready to come in handy, particularly concerning laundry items. Dirty clothing and other items can be put into a plastic bag to stop smells and to keep dirty clothing separate from clean clothing and other items in your luggage. They also keep any spillages contained, thus preventing spoiling other items and away from dry items.
  2. When holidaying in a hotel resort, you’ll find most of them offer in-house laundry and ironing services where you simply place your dirty laundry in a laundry bag provided for you in your hotel room closet The process typically involves filling out a laundry card listing the items you require to laundered. You should leave your filled laundry bag in the hotel corridor for collection, which will be returned to you when the service is complete. Should you require dry-cleaning and/or ironing services, then these are additional services offered by the hotel and charged separately, usually per item. 
  3. If travelling to a self-catering category facility, then expect a DIY approach to managing your laundry using a sink, basin, or bath. The best way to navigate round this is to start by sorting your laundry pile into categories. Next, fill the sink, basin, or bath with water and add detergent. Add clothing items and start to agitate them with your hands to release dirt and grime. When this process is complete, squeeze and wring all the excess water out. To dry, either lay clothing out flat or place on a drying rack. If you have access to a clothes line outside, peg clothing items onto it and allow them to dry. If lucky, your self- catering facility may provide an iron for you to use. 
  4. Should your holiday destination be hostel based, then the chances are that you’ll be able to make use of a communal laundry room where you can do your own laundry. But if you’re really lucky, a full laundry service may be on offer and changeable based on the weight of your laundry load. 
  5. In a hotel, you might want to take advantage of a simple but effective trick when doing your laundry to keep your clothing fresh and clean while travelling. This process begins with applying hot steam to clothing to kill bacteria and to keep the fabric fresh. Packing your own travel steamer is also a good idea to achieve this. It’s also handy to hang clothing up near the shower area to allow the steam to penetrate clothing o draw out and eliminate creases and wrinkles. 
  6. When staying in a hotel resort, you will most often be provided with towelling and even a bathrobe to make use of during your stay. Making use of such items means you don’t have to pack and take them with you in your suitcase, which reduces luggage weight. After using towels, etc. you’ll need to remember not to leave them lying around as they will quickly develop germs and bacteria. Keep them well aired out, and when dried, neatly fold them into a pile and store them in a dry place. 
  7. A useful option to manage holiday laundry is to seek out a launderette. Typically, these sorts of services offer self-service washing and drying choices that tend to be coin operated. Additionally, they may also provide ironing services. A laundrette choice will allow you to do all your laundry in a one-stop shop. To make laundry even easier to manage, you can seek out a local mobile laundry service that will call to collect and drop off your laundry in a quick turnaround.
  8. If you choose to tackle your own laundry while on holiday, it’s a good idea to pack with you a portable cloth line to dry clothing and other items either indoors or outdoors. This can be either assembled inside your hotel or your rental apartment, campsite, or Airbnb accommodation. 

HOW TO PACK YOUR LUGGAGE FOR YOUR HOLIDAY 

While some say that packing your luggage is all about personal preference, there are, however, some tried and tested methods that are useful to know. Below, we list some of these methods:

  • THE FOLDING METHOD 

The folding method is quite simply based on how most people put away their laundry into their drawers or wardrobes at home. Within the context of packing, clothing items are folding into either squares or rectangles of various sizes to form part a packing puzzle. This, however, can often result in an overall inefficient use of space with random gaps left.

  • THE FILING METHOD 

This method requires clothing items to be stacked in a fashion that resembles a filing drawer in a filing cabinet. This method ensures that clothing items remain visible at all times to the eye, meaning that you won’t have to dig around looking for items. 

  • THE BUNDLING METHOD

The advantage of this method is that it is an overall very efficient way to make good use of suitcase space. The most wrinkle prone clothing items are placed at the outer layer of the bundle and then wrapped around the rest of the clothing items. In theory, this leaves fewer wrinkles and creases. However, the problem is that you have to pull out the rest of the clothing to get to the rest of the clothing you want, which isn’t ideal. 

  • THE ROLLING METHOD

This method shows just how space efficient rolling is when compared to other packing methods. However, not all items of clothing fair well with this method, and it also may inadvertently create new creases and wrinkles if you do not roll properly.

  • THE COMPRESSION PACK METHOD 

This method is specifically designed to use compression bags to save packing space. It requires that clothing items are placed inside the bags and them rolled to extract the air to shrink down the bag size. However, you’re probably going to use more bags than intended because of their design, and because it is quite hard to flatten clothing items into them. But these bags are very good for packing and reducing the size of bulkier items to save space. The bags themselves are also handy to have around on holiday to dump laundry into.

If you are going away for a summer holiday this year, then we hope you manage your holiday laundry wherever you go. We hope you enjoy the content of this BLOG and find it both helpful and useful. If you need our help when you return home, then simply contact us to make a booking! Our service areas cover Chester-le-Street and surrounding areas.