When we first started living the RV Life, we used campground laundry facilities or local laundromats for our laundry needs. It reminded me of my college days, waiting for someone to switch their loads, for a machine to open up, or wondering when the next person would FINALLY get their things out of the dryer so I could finish my laundry!
Laundry Rooms at Campgrounds
The other thing I noticed about using campground laundry rooms was there seemed to be a marked difference in the “cleanliness” of laundry rooms. The ones at private campgrounds seemed to be cleaner and better maintained. Those at state park campgrounds tended to be not as clean or well maintained. And my solution for keeping change on hand is to save all my quarters for only laundry. Heck, I even “buy” quarters from my children! (Most of the laundry facilities I’ve used at campgrounds are still taking quarters)!
After we spent our first year on the road, we realized that our needs were changing. For us to be comfortable and really enjoy the RV Life we needed a little bit bigger rig. Something with more sleeping space. The solution was to sell our RV (2000 Fleetwood Pace Arrow) and purchase a different one. And we now have a 2004 Fleetwood Discovery. (Can you tell we like our Fleetwoods)?
Laundry On Board
So this Discovery is equipped with a washer and dryer unit (the all-in-one kind). Since laundry rooms are so readily available at campgrounds, my initial thought was to remove the unit. It takes up quite a bit of space that could be used for more storage. And let’s just all be honest, when you are living the RV Life, storage space is a valuable commodity!
I thought we should try to see if by chance it would come in useful before we ditched it completely. Boy, I am glad we left it in place! The best decision ever – I now wonder how I lived without it.
We unit that we have in our rig is the Spendide 2000 and it is a vented unit. There are two different types of these units. Vented and non-vented. This is kind of self-explanatory, but vented means there is a hole to the outside of the rig that allows the air to pass through while the clothes are drying. And non vented means there isn’t an outlet for the air to exit when on the dry cycle.
The sellers that sold us our rig informed us they never used the unit. So a question remained as to if it even worked or not. We gave it a try on our first “shakedown” trip. It worked like a charm!
Now, I would not be without it. When we go to RV shows and look at the newer models, we see more and more that are coming with a “hook-up” for a washer and dryer. Especially during the Pandemic this year – it has been very nice to have this option to do our laundry in our rig.
Use Microfiber or Turkish Towels
One tip regarding these types of units. Towels! I am now switching over the travel style (microfiber) towels. And I hear from many other RV’ers who are switching over to these travel towels or the Turkish-style towels as well. These towels are not as thick and dry quickly when hung to dry. Speaking of travel towels, Venture 4th has given us an exclusive discount for our followers – save 25% when using the code 25OFF259.
What questions do you have about laundry on the road?
These towels are amazing! We bought five large for bathing and then purchased another five XLs for the beach! Beats wet, soggy regular beach towels that NEVER dry! Thanks for the code, too!
No Problem!