So I talked earlier about a little device called a Scrubba, basically a heavy duty plastic bag with a flexible washboard in it for washing clothes on camping trips. I thought it might be cool to use for business trips so I can pack really light and progressively wash each days' clothes.
I've since checked out some reviews online and it sounds like the Scrubba is great for camping, not so great for regular or even general travel use. The whole idea appealed to me bacause washing one or two days' worth of clothes at once seemed manageable as far as time and energy go when using something small like a Scrubba.
I started looking at other options, for instance washing clothes in the bathtub with a (clean!) plunger, or by kneading or stomping on the clothes (some online claim to stomp clothes clean while they shower) also in a bathtub. I looked at travel washboards, I've looked at a lot of stuff.
I found a Lifehacker post about the plunger method, sounds like a lot of work (the plunger takes the place of a washing machine's agitator cycle). Not only is the agitating itself a lot of work, it takes a lot longer than I'd like. It would only make sense to me if washing everything at once. All in all, when you consider the time it will take wringing everything out it seems too much work in one day, I might as well just hit a laundrymat in the area of wherever work sends me.
But then I saw that in the comments of that post, one nice person says they put their clothes in a watertight container and "bung" it into their car's "boot", which I believe means to "place" it into the "trunk" in Amerispeak. Your car's start and stop movements act as an agitator. That sounds brilliant.
I'm going to look for a few watertight containers I can fit in my suitcase. Once I'm set up in my hotel, I'll fill one container with clothes, detergent, and water and one with just water. I'll drive to work, and before I leave work drain the detergent container and put the clothes in the rinse container for the drive back to my hotel. I could just take them inside my work and dump and rinse them there but that may be a little too ecclectic, I don't know.
I'll use the rinse water for the next day's detergent water, because why not? And it should require a little less soap that way.
Now the next big win for this idea would be finding something with the Scrubba's low profile that's designed to roll around in the trunk of a car without leaking. On second thought I might even be able to use a Scrubba for this, I'll have to look into it.
As for drying, there's no shortage of towels in hotel rooms. I'll roll the wet clothes up in a towel and wring them a bit, then hang them up to dry.
We'll see how this goes. Til then,
David
